Ha'aretz has busted open a huge story today: "Secret Israeli database reveals full extent of illegal settlement." The story outlines a database created by the Israeli defense establishment to gather:
The article adds, "the painstakingly amassed data was labeled
political dynamite."
Well the dynamite has exploded.
There is much that can, and will, be said about this report. The initial take home message is that whenever you read or see a story where the Israeli government is presented as a counter balance to the "radical settler movement" you now know this is false. The Israeli government has been supporting and expanding the settlement project in the occupied territories all along, and it is now documented. The settlements have long been viewed as an exception, out of the government's control, an issue that will be dealt with later. They should now be viewed as the rule. This point is made clear by a settler leader himself:
Dror Etkes, an anti-settlement activist with the Israeli NGO Yesh Din, has now published an analysis of the database today, along with an English translation of excerpts (the Ha'aretz article contains the database in Hebrew). Etkes says:
You can download the Etkes analysis here and the English translation of parts of the database here. Both are Word files.
Read them and post your thoughts in the comments. We will continue to follow this. This is a story that will be around for a long time. (Adam Horowitz)
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- More on why some are cynical about the 2-state solution
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Nice work, Adam. Many thanks.
Thanks, Adam:
You also reported on the likelihood that the goal of Israel's monstrous destruction of Gaza was "ethnic cleansing,"–or, I'd say, a Purge of the Rightful Owners.
January 04, 2009
Ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza?
The mysterious "Badger" over at Missing Links reports today on "The next step in Gaza: Forced evacuations of residential districts." From this morning's New York Times:
The Israeli Army also dropped thousands of leaflets into some residential districts warning inhabitants to evacuate their homes. Because of “the activity of terrorist groups,” the leaflets said in Arabic, the army “is obliged to respond quickly and work from inside your residential area.”
Earlier this year in March, Missing Links shared media reports of an Israeli plan to remove "tens of thousands of Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip":
The televised report cited high-level security sources as saying Barak intends to plan for the removal of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the northern Gaza Strip, namely from the region that the resistance uses for the launch of these rockets, and to move them toward Gaza City and to confine them there. The Israeli reporter added that Barak is turning to legal advisers in the Defence Ministry, in order to obtain legal authorization for the removal of the Palestinian civilians. Barak is also asking Professor David Friedmann, minister of Israeli Affairs [Justice Minister], who supports toughening of penalties on Gaza to end the launching of rockets, in order to obtain his authorization to begin execution of the plan.
The reporter said that once [or if] the plan becomes operational, it would start immediately: In the first stage there would be a drop of leaflets advising residents to leave their homes, in addition to special radio announcements in Arabic directed to the residents, and in the event residents didn't obey the warnings, the occupation army would begin bombing the inhabited areas, in order to compel them to leave their homes and go to Gaza City.
Has this plan begun?
Posted at 03:10 PM in Adam Horowitz
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/01/ethnic-cleansing-in-northern-gaza.html
Off Topic Great News:
Samantha Power (SamPo, as Phil calls her is going to be aN Obama aid!!!
Officials familiar with the decision say Obama has tapped Power to be senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, a job that will require close contact and potential travel with Clinton, who is now secretary of state. NSC staffers often accompany the secretary of state on foreign trips.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/30/samantha-power-returns-pr_n_162452.html
I do hope these documents will implicate the sanctimonious Peres in this west bank settlement expansion plan. It has been clear for years that the government has been guiding the settler movement, but somehow this was never exposed in the Western press. And our foolish press and government kept on repeating Israeli lies that they were actively working for the two state solution.
As someone who tries to stay as dispassionate as possible about all this stuff I have to say it's hard.
I watched the YouTube thing of Davos and see Peres who I always thought was probably a decent guy and who I thought was one Israeli leader who didn't deserve to be sitting there taking it. And I feel for him personally because of that especially where at one point he gets so upset he's waving his finger and saying "all my life I work for peace."
And I then read this Haaretz story Horowitz notes revealing what has essentially been a non-stop, sub rosa conspiracy between the governments of Israel and its private citizens to steal land and which then actually quotes one of the mayors of these ever-expanding settlements who says … "All of these things are one giant bluff. Am I the one who planned the settlements? It was Sharon, Peres, Rabin, Golda, Dayan."
So "Peres" too. The indignant finger-wagger. Mr. "All my life I work for peace."
How discouraging.
Sorry for the typos above.
Adam.
This existence of this database was first mentioned in the NYT about 18-24 months ago. I mentioned it in reply to our resident Hasbara agent Berel in one of his more sanctimonious posts a few days ago when he was waxing eloquent about the inherent innocence of of the Israeli government with respect to the settlements. I have a copy of this NYT article but it's on another hard drive. The NYT article said that Israeli authorities were fully aware of the correct owners of settler land.
Someone had got hold of the Israeli Land Authority (think that's what its called) and another agency's records that proved settler property was still owned by Palestinians.
So does the American taxpayer to the tune of $125 to $185 per person every year of his adult life.
Peres is a scumbag. Many in Israel think he was behind Rabin's death.
Of course data is kept of land title status.
That is news?
Here you go, MRW.–
West Bank Sites on Private Land, Data Shows
Witty: "Of course data is kept of land title status. That is news?"
I guess it's not news to people who always knew the government was behind the land seizures. But it is news to those of us who more or less took the Israeli government at its word. Perhaps that's the reason the news article described the data base revelation as "political dynamite."
well, you recall some zionist racist pol or other describing israel as "a villa in the jungle". Perhaps that is exactly what it will end up as.
I am not sure where this belongs, but it belongs somewhere. Maybe with the move them out of northern Gaza theme. 'Northern Gaza.' Gaza of course is 25 miles long. Leaflets, then bomb, like this:
http://mideast.blogs.time.com/2009/01/26/the-devils-footsteps-in-gaza/
I'm not quite sure what's getting people so disproportionately titillated over this story. The database is an organized, obviously accessible record, it's transparent–and like in any normal democracy, the issue of the land has been fought over in court (and in various cases the Palestinians have won).
Do y'll get so scrutinizing about your own local government's zoning of land as well? Maybe you should…while you're so busy peering down your pointy noses at Israel…it could be that your town's zoning board put your property line in the wrong place. How funny would THAT be? haha!
Suzanne, thank you for that textbook example of the 'mirroring' or tu quoque argument. This is the primary conditioned reflex of the hasbara troll, and consists simply in mirroring the complaint exactly, but situating the new example at some non-jewish locale. The commonest example which we all know and ignore is "what about darfur?"
anyway, in NY, where I somehow suspect you are, it's midnight on friday night. why aren't you out night-clubbing? you only live once, you know.
To add yet another postscript: I know that in the hasbara for beginners it says "provide a counter-example", but this is a typical example of the abysmal state of jewish education. What we are talking about is not a "counter-example", which would be a case in which the generalisation implied in the first example had been falsified, but specifically 'mirroring', often with the emphasis on the visual.
Suzanne, thank you for that textbook example of the 'mirroring' or tu quoque argument. This is the primary conditioned reflex of the hasbara troll, and consists simply in mirroring the complaint exactly, but situating the new example at some non-jewish locale. The commonest example which we all know and ignore is "what about darfur?"
Rowan, your response, while accurate in all its assertions, misses the most important point: Suzanne's argument is completely nonsensical. It's apples and oranges. To compare "our local zoning laws" to the situation in Palestine is asinine, and if she's serious, it's pathological. If not, she's knowingly lying.
Do y'll get so scrutinizing about your own local government's zoning of land as well?
I think we would if NY State had taken over some Canadian territory, displacing the residents and was building American settlements on it, all the while telling us it was unpopulated land that no one wanted.
Thanks for that.
Israel Shahak [1992] wrote about the innovative legal maneuvres involved in aquiring land in the territories. I guess this might be the legal side of it.
http://web.archive.org/web/20050213161550/http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_shahak/shahak40.asp
It's really also the story of one Plia Albek [Pli'a] [Albeck] —
"Politically speaking, Pli'a Albek is the Likud government's most precious legal resource. Without her, the state [of Israel] could not conceivably succeed in seizing over 2 million dunums of land, or roughly a half of the entire area of the [West] Bank, without paying a penny in compensation. In particular, every dunum of land on which Housing Minister Ariel Sharon's
bulldozers now operate, was seized through her efforts. [...]
How did Albek do it? Her crucial innovation, at least in my opinion, was her reliance on the unlimited legislative powers of the military governors. Cohen shows how, under Albek's promptings, they first issued a regulation to the effect that all appeals against Israeli land seizures were to be addressed to "military commissions comprised of the officials of the military government itself." Like all such regulations, it had the force of law. It foreclosed the appeals to the Supreme Court, minimized publicity because the commissions in question heard the appeals in camera, and ensured that cases were processed with dispatch. As the record shows, there has been no case in which Albek's arguments ultimately failed to be upheld. In her legal briefs she displayed an extraordinary legalistic ingenuity. Cohen quotes an (anonymous) lawyer "deeply involved in land affairs in the West Bank" who has described Albek's methods:
She succeeded brilliantly in taking advantage of the multi-layered system of laws regulating the questions of land in the territories. She could use for her purposes every conceivable law ever enacted since Napoleon's time, whether Ottoman, Mandatory, Jordanian or Israeli.
Some ancient laws which she, not quite disinterestedly, discovered will be mentioned below. But this must be preceded by an explanation." [...]
++
Read it all. Find out why Arik Sharon & Albek found themselves clambering over hills & rocks to count goat-droppings.
So good was she at this legal arm-twisting that she was once called "The mother of all the settlements"
Her motherly side is clearly in evidence in this comment by Itit Zertal on
" the audacity of Plia Albeck , a senior lawyer in the attorney general's office.
Coaching the Tel Aviv district attorney's office on how to respond to a Palestinian who sued for damages in October 1991 after his wife was shot to death by an Israeli Border Policeman, Albeck said: "The appellant only gained from his wife's death. When she was alive, he had to support her, but now he is freed from this obligation, so he has no claim."
Lords of the Land: The Settlers and the State of Israel, 1967-2004
http://www.boell.org.il/en/web/316.html
Lords of the Land: The Settlers and the State of Israel, 1967-2004, by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar.
yup – I've got the 2007 Nation Books (US) edition of that, but it's only 454 pp text plus 55 pp (nn).
D.
Thanks!
Christopher Hitchens (I'm no fan) on Shahak:
"His home on Bartenura Street in Jerusalem was a library of information about the human rights of the oppressed. The families of prisoners, the staff of closed and censored publications, the victims of eviction and confiscation–none were ever turned away. I have met influential "civil society" Palestinians alive today who were protected as students when Israel was a professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University; from him they learned never to generalize about Jews. And they respected him not just for his consistent stand against discrimination but also because–he never condescended to them. He detested nationalism and religion and made no secret of his contempt for the grasping Arafat entourage. But, as he once put it to me, "I will now only meet with Palestinian spokesmen when we are out of the country. I have some severe criticisms to present to them. But I cannot do this while they are living under occupation and I can 'visit' them as a privileged citizen." This apparently small point of ethical etiquette contains almost the whole dimension of what is missing from our present discourse: the element of elementary dignity and genuine mutual recognition."
For Zionists to think about:
For Shahak, Zionism was both a reflection of, and capitulation to, European anti-Semitism, 'since it, like the anti-Semites, holds that Jews are everywhere aliens who would best be isolated from the rest of the world.'
For all of us to think about:
We realize that by criticizing Jewish fundamentalism we are criticizing a part of the past that we love. We wish that members of every human grouping would criticize their own past, even before criticizing others'.
Wikipedia Page on Shahak
Shimon Peres is not the president of the Jewish people; nor is Ron Lauder. And the more Jews speak out against the manipulative stances of both men, the better for the real interests of world Jewry – such as security, integrity and communal continuity.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/29/world-jewish-congress-seth-freedman
It hasn't taken long for this superficially punkish-seeming figure, Seth Freedman, to become another establishment labor pundit. You recall, his mother was the person who outed me as a mole on the basis of bogus postings in my name right here on Mondo Weiss, while his father is a London solicitor who plays on the same amateur cricket team as London's recently retired chief constable of police, 'Sir' Iain Blair, which apparently counts for something around here, status-wise. Anyway, my question is, what does he mean, "communal continuity"? This sounds to me like a phrase straight from the pen of the so-called 'Chief Rabbi of the British Empire', Jonathan Sacks.
And why are people shocked? Did they really believe the settlement enterprise was separate from the Israeli government?? Huh??!? Not even successive Israeli governments have denied that they have planned and funded the colonization of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This piece of article is useless and serves to only distance the Israeli public from the sin of KNOWINGLY supporting the settlement enterprise and voting for the people (all elected Israeli politicians) who insisted on expanding the enterprise rather than stopping it let alone reversing it. This is just a publicity stunt. The government does not lose its standing since it never denied it planned and funded the settlements. The media in Israel so often serves as a mouthpiece for what the authorities want to publicize. Does anyone in their right mind believe that Ha'aretz got this "top secret" document in spite of Israeli authorities' wishes to keep it hidden, as opposed to the authorities' intention to make it public?
I find it hard to believe that people are shocked about this article, or find it newsworthy….
Here's what I wrote 5 months ago , on my blog :
"Having said that, I was not shocked to read in Ha’aretz two days ago that the Israeli government has offered to make up for the evacuation of Migron by establishing a new settlement. Rather than a clash of wills between the settlers and the government, this seems to have been an orchestrated “ordeal”. The Israeli government benefits from the portrayal of the settlers as an unruly and rebellious bunch who function outside the “legal” parameters of the Israeli state. The looming threat of civil unrest serves as a tool of blackmail against the few Israelis who might, at some point in the distant future, dare to question the settlement enterprise. It also serves as a notice to the international community that Israel is unwilling to risk civil war in order to vacate settlements (at least most of them), especially that, as the saying goes, “there is no one on the other side to talk to”. The settlers benefit, too. They get villas built on lands stolen from Palestinians in return for abandoning caravillas erected on lands stolen from Palestinians. First came the cellular antennas (following complaints about bad reception in the area by settlers). Then came the guard who had to live there in order to defend the antenna from possible (but non-existent) Palestinian attempts to sabotage it. Then came the water and electricity companies, connecting the guard’s house to the grid. And a short while later came the settlers with their caravillas, and everything was connected to the grid. Sounds utterly random to me. There is only one description for this whole affair: the government is literally begging the settlers to blackmail it. And, needless to say, all this is subsidized by Uncle Sam."
http://politburo.elementfx.com/blog/2008/08/15/from-caravillas-in-migron-to-villas-in-beit-hanina/
Plus, the fact that Akiva Eldar and Edith Zertel, who produced the book we mentioned, "Lords of the Land", were Haaretz reporters, makes for a sort of pseudo liberal confusion, as if not having encouraged the settlement movement would have even been possible at the time. It was not at any time possible for Labor (let alone Meretz) to stop government support for the settlement movement, because of the relationship between the religious parties, the religious-zionist parties, and the rest in Israeli coalition politics. It's always been exactly the same in this respect, too: a perfect expansionist balance of party strengths and counter-strengths.
I am so angry at Israel, Perez, Netzenyahoo, Olmert, and Zippy Tvivivvi.
In fact, I'm done with any sympathy or support for "Israel".
It's done. I'm done. I can't read anything about Israel without a deep sickness in my stomach. The Israelis, themselves, sicken me, and their behavior and energy is nothing but heinous. They are all criminals. I spit on all of them. They are thieves/murderers/cretins/sad pathetic idiots.
The Israelis, themselves, sicken me, and their behavior and energy is nothing but heinous. They are all criminals. I spit on all of them. They are thieves/murderers/cretins/sad pathetic idiots.
They're not all like that. The punks, drop-outs, squatters, anarchists, and refuseniks are nice.
Two relevant comments from Pat Lang's site:
There never was a two-state solution. It was just some shiny thing to divert the public so the colonization could be continue.
The Likud charter from 1999 as available on http://www.knesset.gov.il says:
Posted by: b | 30 January 2009 at 07:52 AM
========================================
b raises an important point.
If the Likud charter expressly denies the possibility of a Palestinian state "west of the Jordan river" how can the Hamas charter be criticised for denying the right of Israel to exist? (And why does the MSM not pick up on stuff like this?)
The great and the good (described elsewhere as not our leadership but, rather, our dealership) applaud Shimon Peres at Davos yesterday when he lies to them ("there has been no siege of Gaza"), Turkish PM Erdogan rightly challenges him and returns home to a deserved heros welcome.
We in the "developed world" in contrast have a dealership made up nearly exclusively of moral midgets. In Gaza dead children, bulldozed sewage plants, racist graffiti left on walls (scribble and cry?)…no comment
Boycott, divest,sanction, I say or be complicit.
Posted by: agog | 30 January 2009 at 10:35 AM
========================================
I'm kind of in the "this is news?" camp. I guess it's news if it shows that the Israeli government is still actively supporting the expansion of the settlements (does it?).
'Of course data is kept of land title status. That is news?' — R. Witty
Wait, wait … I'm channeling Witty's 18th century ancestors …
'Of course data is kept of slave ownership. That is news?'
Well, actually it is, if slavery is counter to announced gov't policy. Same with settlements.
You need a Hasbara continuing education course, Richard. It just ain't working like it used to do. The goy cattle are lowing and pacing restlessly. LOL
Those that regard land registration as news, live in a twilight zone.
That there is some trace of title, indicates that there is also a path to unravel contested claims through courts.
Otherwise strictly political, or military means to determining "title" would prevail.
To cite that a database exists, but NO investigation into the specific contents, is propaganda.
Please take next steps rather than shoot on the basis of suspicion.
You consider yourself to be a cow? How interesting. Are you sure it was not your ancestors? You consider people to be worth no more than land or dirt?
You, of course, are allowed to consider your soul to be equal to silicon dioxide.
>>>>>>>>>
Two relevant comments from Pat Lang's site:
There never was a two-state solution. It was just some shiny thing to divert the public so the colonization could be continue.
Posted by: b | 30 January 2009 at 07:52 AM
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Exactly right.I don't know why anyone is surprised at the existance of an official database.
Israel is and always has been about confiscating and 'cleansing' all of Palestine for 'greater israel'.
Israel has been "discussed',worked on and' helped' long enough. Everyone is sick of them.
They are just little nazis, destroy them.
The punks, drop-outs, squatters, anarchists, and refuseniks are nice.
what I mean by 'refuseniks' is not anything from the soviet era – i mean, draft resisters.
BTW….I saw Lanny Davis of the Israel Project on c-span this morning. His entire presentation consisted of…
"You MUST believe this":
All Americans support Israel,"only a tiny sliver those are jews"
It was all Afarat's fault.
There could have been peace 20 years ago if the Arabs had declared a Palestine state.
All the rest of the usual talking points.
It was pitiful really, only one call-in was Israel supporter who agreed with Davis.
But the real give away in his spin was .."only a tiny part of those (in America) are jews"….which means the US zionist are feeling the heat and Lanny was on the air to do damage control and MAKE us understand we must believe the same old propaganda.
Too late Lanny.
I hope what American says is true, that the page has turned. But really, isn't it much more probable that Bibi will get in, bomb Tehran and the US will run to Israel's support?
Aren't we still marching to a greater war so that Israelis don't have to forsake the occupation?
No, nor have we ever done such.
Witty can't process this information.
He decided already that the State of Israel is not responsible for the continuing colonization (which includes terrorism of civilians).
Sure, the state knows about it. Sure, it has soldiers accompanying it and abetting it. Sure, it provides material support (state and local services) for it.
But it's not in a position to do anything about it.
It's a sensitive, sensitive subject.
But now HAMAS is responsible for stopping all rocketfire at all times!
And they have to recognize Israel! In its ever-expanding borders!
Fuck the U.N.
Fuck Palestinians.
And fuck Leftists for caring.
Fuck everybody.
Don't Fuck with the Jews!
MM,
You lie. Stop it already.
Love leftists for caring. Fuck leftists for ONLY condemning.
I am very disapppointed in the anti-Israel comments here. And I disagree with this statement, "… whenever you read or see a story where the Israeli government is presented as a counter balance to the "radical settler movement" you now know this is false …" In fact, the Israeli government does oppose some settlements. And Tzipi Livni is one leading politician who also says settlements must be moved, uprooted, or rolled back. Some of the settlers have said they will make war on Israel if they try to move them, and a few have even called for the death of the Israeli nation-state and a Biblical Judaic kingdom to be raised in its stead.
There is great irrationality and significant immorality in the actions of some settlers, both individually and as organizations. However, please do not view them as a monolith. There are plenty of settlers who were misled into believing they were being relocated legally.
A peacemaking attitude will resist condemning all with blanket accusations and hatred.
It is also encouraging that an Israeli rights group, Yesh Din, is mobilizing to support civil law recourse for those Palestinans whose land has been stolen. Support them. Spread the word about these issues. There is such a thing as Restorative Justice, and it works!
John Wilmerding
Former Secretary
UN Working Party on Restorative Justice
I am very disapppointed in the anti-Israel comments here. And I disagree with this statement, "… whenever you read or see a story where the Israeli government is presented as a counter balance to the "radical settler movement" you now know this is false …" In fact, the Israeli government does oppose some settlements. And Tzipi Livni is one leading politician who also says settlements must be moved, uprooted, or rolled back.
John, the point that the majority of posters here have made and backed up with tangible evidence is that what the Israeli government SAYS has nothing whatever to do with what it DOES, and this is deliberate.
This is not a phenomenon that is to be found only in Israel. Pointing out the obvious in Israeli politics should not be condemned as "anti-Israel" any more than doing the same is "anti-American" here in America.
This is a systematic approach to Israeli expansion that is deliberate and well-documented.
If you're interested in peace, you need to get to the source of the problem. Refusing to look at the situation in its entirety because you're afraid of being branded "anti-Israel" does not help the effort for peace, it hurts.
John,
I did a google search for the party but came up with next to nothing. I searched your site and came up with very little. This UN working party appears to be non-existant.
Care to comment?
By the way, this is not criticism of your ideas.
Dan,
Israel does a mix of things, even concerning settlements. Some good, some cynical.
John is right that an habitual condemnation doesn't even inform.
I lie, Richard?
Didn't you claim that Hamas was responsible for the rockets, yet Israel is not responsible for the settlers?
No, I never said that in any way. (Its hard to know what you mean by "Israel is not responsible for the settlers".
I get that you could misunderstand and then twist my language to conclude that, but it would be false.
On the settlements. I have stated a few hundred times, that the settlement project includes state facilitation prominently.
Did you get my INFORMATION?
"Love leftists for CARING. Fuck them for only condemning."
Do you get what it is that I'm communicating to you?
I believe that State of Israel had no centrally held prior information about the ownership of the land in Occupied Territories to hand and no prior information about the positioning of settlements to hand. This information was scattered in the local offices of Civil Administration all over the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and considered irrelevant.
The information about rightful ownership of the land was only ever considered if and when the owners forced the issue in front of the court.
Some systematic cross-referencing between positioning of settlements and individual land titles was done by Peace Now.
This is first time the systematic information gathering took place, non-withstanding Israeli vehement denials, since 1967, that they do not build, and never ever did they build settlements on private, Palestinian – owned land.
Stopping settlement construction is for all intents and purposes impossible without dismantling the State of Israel and the Zionist Virtual Colonial Motherland because the settlement system is simply too profitable to Zionist oligarchs.
Comments on this entry are closed.