Last week I blogged about Israeli shootings of young Palestinians who were protesting Israeli expansion in Azzoun in the West Bank. Why are they protesting? The famous Israeli separation fence travels across Palestinian farmland in the area, well inside the Green Line representing the '67 borders.
In fact, the fence at Azzoun plays a role in the plans of Lev Leviev, the diamond merchant and notorious colonizer of Palestinian territory. One of his settlements, Zufim, is built on land near Azzoun. You'd think that the fence would travel just east of that illegal settlement. But it doesn't; it travels nearly 2 miles to the east of the settlement, gobbling land from Azzoun. Why? Because Zufim has plans to add an "industrial zone" on that land, and the fence is accommodating that future expansion. The wall thus gives Zufim space to expand by something like 10 times its current size, grabbing an additional 250 acres of Azzoun's farmland. And though an Israeli court ruled that the fence is not performing a security function here, just a landgrab, the army has ignored an Israeli court order to move the wall back.
David Bloom of Adalah-NY says the industrial zone is to be built by Leviev's Leader company, which appears to be the sole developer of the settlement. Bloom goes on:
I wonder whether that industrial zone is intended to be for Palestinian workers. This is an apartheid scheme Meron Rapaport has written about: give the farmers jobs in Israeli "estates" built on land their ancestors proudly tilled for centuries. And so passage into these industrial zones would not require entry into Israel proper.
It would be just like Leviev to take the natives' resources and put them to work in factories he's built, like his diamond polishing plants in Namibia – and Angola — which he claims are a great benefit to the local population.
I described the idea of putting Jayyous farmers to work in Zufim here ( in the last section called "the industrial agenda") and noted that David Makovsky of WINEP told Congress that Palestinian residents of Qalqilya (the large city on the other side of Zufim) would be willing to accept the loss of their lands if they were compensated. In his testimony, Makovsky that "there is hardship" for Palestinians impacted by the fence, but asserted that most "are very happy to hear the Israeli government coming out this week with a 2-billion shekel or $500 million program on the hardship. I happened to speak to the mayor of Qualqilya, and I saw the wall on the Palestinian side, and I asked him, I said, 'if there was a compensation program to offset some of these hardships, would you be for it?' He said absolutely. "
A common point raised is that the real purpose of the wall is political, to confiscate the most arable Palestinian land & water resources — there are six wells in Jayyous, trapped behind the wall — and to enclose the settlements inside Israel, de facto annex them, and allow them to expand on the confiscated lands. In both Bil'in and in Jayyous/Azzoun (plus a third village, Nabi Elias, which Rapaport mentions in his article), the path of the wall was deliberately drawn to allow Leviev to expand his settlements.
Here is a letter from residents of Bil'in and Jayyous to the actress Susan Sarandon, asking her to repudiate Leviev, whose store in New York she has patronized.
One more thing: some liberal Zionists will tell you that the Israel court has changed the wall route where necessary, weighing the "security" needs of the settlements against the humanitarian impact on the Palestinians whose land is being stolen. In fact there have been few improvements, and the army often ignores the court orders to move the wall anyway. As this article I wrote a year ago shows, the court is worse than useless.
Related posts:
- Gathering Storm on West Bank: Italian Judge Struck, Yeshiva Settlers Fire Rocket at Palestinian Village
- Now Unicef Shuns Leviev, Diamond Merchant/West Bank Colonizer
- Celebrate Hanukah by Denouncing Israeli Land Grab
- Boycotted Settlement Czar Somehow Gets Nose Into Dubai Tent
- New route for wall through Bil’in still seizes Palestinian land
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"'We are running out of time for a two-state solution'
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Sari Nusseibeh"
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1011859.html
To my Palestinian friends (and their friends) – when you reject Camp David, then Taba and then foment a spree of terror, don't be surprised if the stronger party in the conflict then, and only then, questions whether there is anyone credible to deal with and builds a fence. Good thing you can petition injustices to the Israeli high court, get some recourse, and get some of your trees back. Too bad Israelis have no one to petition when injustices, such as, say, an exploding bus, is sent their way by the current gov't in Gaza. The occupation will end as soon as Israel has some reason to believe that it will be left alone after leaving the West Bank (and eastern Jerusalem). We sure ain't there yet.
Steve F:
People who know anything about the conflict know that Israel was settling the West Bank in the 80's, through the 90's during the entire Oslo process, through to today. Your claim that the land confiscations came only after the failure of Camp David is risible, not based on reality.
It is perfectly clear to a non-biased observer of this conflict that Israel will only leave the occupied territories when it becomes too onerous, militarily, economically, and politically. It won't leave in any negotiated settlement. It negotiates out the necessity to do good PR.
Additionally, it is important for you to aknowledge that Israel is confiscating Palestinian land for its resources and for the religious value that is attached to the land by Jewish zealots, not out of any just punishment for Palestinians for their violent responses to Israeli aggression.
Madrid,
Steve F didn't mention settlements. He mentioned negotiations that were undertaken seriously.
Even Sharon and now Olmert have come around to recognize that the two-state solution is the only currently viable one, and that with stresses.
The current reality is that Palestine is in a state of civil war, which severely diminishes its ability to negotiate and keep any promises made. Both Israel and Palestine face the difficult challenge following a successful negotiation of passage through their respective parliaments and plebiscites if adopted.
I distinguish questions of title from questions of sovereignty.
Title questions revolve around the status of individual tracts of land and other property. They are about relative rights and are therefore more complex than simple pronouncements by a state or faction or dissenting group.
In MANY cases, applying to land held by both Israelis and Palestinians, title is contested, and some consented manner of reconciliation is necessary.
The 1950's laws prohibiting return to former residences, and state annexation of "abandoned" land affects the title status of land within green line Israel. Post-1967 laws and administrative annexations and transfers affect the title status of land on the West Bank.
There are still lands in the West Bank, for which Jews have countering claims to prior Jordanian annexations, but those are far less than the Palestinian claims.
The question of sovereignty is a different question. It is the question of what jurisdiction and what law shall govern the jurisdiction, and by what means.
To equate the two questions distorts their resolution, and hinders the development of consistent rule of law in either region.
Thanks Richard for taking down some of Madrid's straw men. Listen up lovers of Palestine. Israel is a democracy. The people elect the governments. The people consistently voice a desire for a 2-state solution. Speak to Israelis OR their supporters in the US. The mantra is the same – except for the crazies – we want to get out of the occupation biz. Olmert recognizes this. So did Barak and even Sharon. You can villify them all you want but by my observation they are the only occupiers looking to end their occupation today. All they ask is that they not be put in mortal danger.
All they ask is that they not be put in mortal danger.
And that they not be prosecuted for war crimes or required to pay any reparitions for the land they stole.
That's all they ask.
I don't know what reparitions are; I meant reparations.
The real-estate scam has always been a big part of Zionism. One could almost call it part of epistemic Yiddish culture. When my grandfather first came to the USA, an acquaintance of his from Poland was trying to get him involved within two weeks of his arrival in fraudulent real estate dealing in Florida.
See Scamming Americans Robbing Palestinians and an update in Followup: Scamming Americans Robbing Palestinians.
Steve F, You bring up the Camp David agreements when Begin and the Knesset signed an agreement to withdraw to the '67 borders. Israel never keeps it's word in negotiations. If there is relative peace the IDF will find someone to assassinate. Israel has undermined probably every single peace proposal that has been offered or agreed to.
shelf agreement, anyone?
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