Palestinians demonstrate against sewage settlers spill onto their land. About 100 Palestinians from the ancient village of Sebastia and their supporters held a demonstration today to protest against settlers spilling their sewage onto the village’s agricultural lands. This was the third demonstration in two months; villagers are starting weekly demonstrations, much like the ones against the wall and settlements that take place every Friday in Bil’in, Ni’ilin, Ma’asara, Nabi Saleh and Qaddum.
Demonstrations took place in all of those villages as well on Friday, some of them with violent confrontations with army forces. In addition, activists in the newly formed popular committee say they are planning to take the matter to the Supreme Court. Sebastia villagers on their way to their lands (Haggai Matar) The Shavei Shomron settlement is out of reach of the demonstration. (Haggai Matar) A small stream of sewage running through Sebastia’s village lands.
Palestinians are also commemorating Land Day against land grabs. +972′s Person of the Year: The Settler. The settlement movement registered major victories this year on various fronts. Its representatives are reaching new heights in politics, the judiciary and the media. One out of five residents east of the Green Line is a settler. The expansion of settlements continues unabated, and – most importantly – settlers are in full control of the Israeli national narrative. In 2012, as more and more observers declared the death of the two-state solution, the settler became the new normal. By Lisa Goldman and Mairav Zonszein For decades, the settler movement and Israel’s secular, largely Ashkenazi urban elite have been playing a game of “pretend.” But all the while, successive governments headed by secular, purportedly liberal leaders tacitly expedited settlement growth even as the secular, purportedly liberal judiciary handed down rulings that effectively sanctioned settlements, which are built in contravention of international law.
The judiciary The legislature and the government. The demographic success of Israel's settlement project - Opinion. The United Nations General Assembly recognised Palestine as a "non-member state". But it may very well be that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has already missed the boat. With the help of graphic designer, Michal Vexler, we have created an infogram to illustrate and explain how demographic changes within the West Bank obstruct the possibility of the two-state solution. The numbers suggest that Abbas' bid to the United Nations was too little, too late. Source for the infogram: Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, International Data Base, US Census, and Israeli Statistical Abstract, 2009, 2010, 2011.
Neve Gordon is the author of Israel's Occupation and can be reached through his website. Yinon Cohen is Yerushalmi Professor of Israel and Jewish Studies, Department of Sociology, Columbia University, New York, and can be reached through his website. The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Henry Siegman reviews ‘The Accidental Empire’ by Gershom Gorenberg and ‘Lords of the Land’ by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar · LRB 10 April 2008. The title of Gershom Gorenberg’s book is somewhat misleading in its suggestion that the establishment of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza was ‘accidental’.
While Gorenberg, an American-born Israeli journalist, notes that no Israeli government ever made a formal decision about the future of the West Bank, his account of the first decade of Israel’s occupation leaves no doubt that the settlements were deliberately founded, and were intended to create a permanent Israeli presence in as much of the Occupied Territories as possible (indeed, the hope was for them to cover all of the Occupied Territories, if the international community would allow it).
No Israeli government has ever supported the establishment of a Palestinian state east of the 1949 armistice line that constituted the pre-1967 border. At the very least, the settlements were designed to make a return to that border impossible. The story is a lie. Has violent sociopathic elements. The West Bank: Villagers v settlers. Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine (New Issue of Settler Colonial Studies) Follow Us From the Editors Don't miss Tadween Publishing Blog Mar 30 2012by Jadaliyya Reports [Cover of most recent issue of Settler Colonial Studies.
Image from ojs.lib.swin.edu.au] [The following is the table of contents of the most recent issue of Settler Colonial Studies] Settler Colonial StudiesVol. 2, No. 1 (2012) Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine Table of Contents Articles Editors' IntroductionOmar Jabary Salamanca, Mezna Qato, Kareem Rabie, Sobhi Samour Land, Labor and the Logic of Zionism: A Critical Engagements with Gershon Shafir Zachary Lockman Shtelt Colonialism: First and Last Impressions of Indigeneity by Colonised Colonisiers Ilan Pappe Settler Colonialism and the State of Exception: The Example of Israel/Palestine David Lloyd The Ongoing Judiasiation of the Naqab and the Struggle for Recognising the Indigenous Rights of the Arab Bedouin People Mansour Nasara Settler Colonialism and Conflict: The Israeli State and Its Palestinian Subjects Magid Shihade Hot on Facebook.
Happy Palestine Land Day: Israel Earmarks 10% of West Bank for Settlements: White. Ben White writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment: It has just come out that the Israeli military has earmarked ten percent of the land in the Occupied West bank for Israeli settlements. In addition, the Israeli government is moving forward with an outrageous plan that will mean the expulsion of tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens in the Negev desert. The context is the warning issued by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in a 2010 government meeting that a Negev “without a Jewish majority” would pose “a palpable threat”. You won’t be told about this by television news, your elected representatives, or the US State Department (in fact, when asked about the Negev displacement plan they dismissed it as an “internal Israeli matter”). March 30 is marked by Palestinians as Land Day, but many in the West are unaware of the origins and significance of this annual protest. ________________ Ben White is a freelance journalist and writer.
When Israeli Settlers Attack: A Report by Yousef Munayyer. What’s Wrong With Israel’s Keeping Settlement Blocs? Some readers (and J Street folks) were puzzled by the tone and content of my previous post. After all, what's the difference, I was asked, between settlements and settlement blocs? And if there will be land swaps between the Palestinian and Israeli states, what difference does it make precisely where the land is swapped? At the end of the day, Israel and Palestine will have the same proportion of historic Palestine (without the Hashemite kingdom of Trans-Jordan) as guaranteed by the 1967 lines. Can't I cut J Street a little slack here – in order to get a Palestinian state off the ground?
Both the Palestinians and the Americans want to focus first on borders. So let me briefly set matters straight. Settlement blocs vs. settlements. This is particularly true of the blocs around Jerusalem and the Ariel bloc in the north. For a standard defense of annexing the five major settlement blocs, check out Mitchell Bard's explanation and map here. Israeli Settlers Stealing Essential Water from Palestinians, UN Reports. The UN's Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has released a report showing that Israeli settlers in the West bank have taken over dozens of natural springs from Palestinians there, preventing access to essential water sources. Israeli soldier stands next to a man-made pool containing water from a spring located near the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh (Reuters/Baz Ratner) The report shows that Palestinians are kept from accessing the springs by acts of "intimidation, threats and violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers".
Settlers Taking Over Palestinian Springs: UN report (Agence France-Presse): The report said an OCHA survey carried out in 2011 identified a total of 56 springs that were under total or partial control of Israeli settlers, most in the part of the West Bank known as Area C, which is under full Israeli civil and military control. " Settlers Grab Palestinian Water Wprings: U.N. The U.N. In the West Bank, a horror story. There is a famous scene in Mary Shelley's classic where Victor Frankenstein realises that he created a monster and that this monster might be the end of him. Such is the scene that comes to mind when thinking about the news emerging from the occupied West Bank in recent days. Israeli settlers, living in illegal colonies in Palestinian territory, rioted again. This time, however, they did not go after their usual target - Palestinian civilians - rather, they raided an Israeli military base where they injured an Israeli soldier.
Suddenly, the Israeli government sprang into action. An emergency meeting of the Israeli cabinet was called. Officials - Israeli officials - even began to use the term "terrorist" to describe the perpetrators. Just a day earlier, Israeli settlers from the Settlement of Yitzhar raided the Palestinian village of Asira al-Qibliya, causing damage to property and terrifying residents. These sorts of attacks against Palestinians are a regular occurrence. Israel: West Bank Settlement Construction Jumps 660 Percent. Israeli authorities issue restraining orders against West Bank settlers. JERUSALEM, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Israeli police on Tuesday issued restraining orders against a dozen residents of several West Bank settlements for their alleged involvement in attacks against Palestinians.
Some of the men live in Yitzhar, considered a rightist bastion, and the rest hail from settlements nearby. Three were barred from entering the West Bank altogether, while others were ordered to stay away from Yitzhar and other settlements from a few months to a year, according to the Ynet news service. Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi signed the orders on the recommendation of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). A Shin Bet investigation concluded that the 12 residents had taken part in planning and carrying out violent acts against Palestinians in recent years, mainly vandalizing mosques and other village structures. "I don't even know what I'm being accused of.
Israeli West Bank Settlement Growth, 1972 - 2008. UPDATED, see below. I've heard critics of Israel claim repeatedly that the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank has increased every year since the settlements were founded. This seems counter-intuitive given that you would expect Israel to reign in the settlements during periods of peace negotiations with the Palestinians. So, being a data geek, I decided to check the numbers myself. I quickly found that it was difficult to locate credible and comprehensive data on settlement population. Lots of sources give partial (and often conflicting) numbers, but I couldn't find any single source with complete population by year back to the early 70's when the settlements were started. As a result I decided to do my own research, and what I discovered is quite interesting. The critics are right. Here's a chart showing West Bank settlement population from 1972 to 2008.
The data is listed below. B'Tselem - Land Expropriation and Settlements. A Palestinian farmer ploughs his land as West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat is seen in the background. Photo: Baz Ratner, Reuters, December 22, 2011. From 1967 to late 2012, 125 Israeli settlements were established in the West Bank that were recognized by the Ministry of the Interior as “communities”. Also established: about 100 outposts (settlements built without official authorization but with support and assistance from government ministries).a number of Jewish settlement locales inside Hebron which receive government support.12 neighborhoods in areas of the West Bank annexed by Israel in 1967 and assigned to Jerusalem’s jurisdiction.
The settler population in the West Bank is estimated to be upwards of 531,000: in late 2012 the population of the West Bank settlements was 341,400; in late 2011 there were 190,423 individuals living in Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. The settlements have been allocated vast areas, far exceeding their built-up sections. As Settlement Construction Begins Again in the West Bank, Israel Blocks Jewish Activists on Aid Boat Headed to Gaza. Ultra Zionists - Louis Theroux - Part 1. Teenage Settlers Reshape the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Tablet Magazine. “Ulpana High school, Where settler girls go to become ‘real men’ ” That was the headline I read. You think of settler girls and you think “Little House on the Prairie” or the Jewish equivalent of the Girls Madrassas I’ve been to in Pakistan: Learn your religion, learn how to be a good wife, then have 10 children.
But the girls in this story were getting all that and a little extra. Instead of afterschool sports they did afterschool fight-the-state. When civil administrators showed up to enforce a settlement building freeze, the girls blocked the road, whipped mud at them, sat on their jeeps. The article was from 2009, but I wanted to know more. Then two days before the flight, Mina emailed me: Shalom Elizabeth, We thank you for your interest to come and write an article about Ulpanat Levona but we reconsidered the idea and decided not to go along with it. Thank you! All the best Mina Browdy We decided to go anyway. Tapuach, red poppies in bloom, a sharp wind. “I was depressed all this week.