Why should planning in West Bank be divided on ethnic lines? –Palestinian villages’ petition

This is a press release from Yariv Mohar of Rabbis for Human Rights.

Why should the Israeli military control areas of civilian life in the West Bank, without any security justification? Why should planning in the West Bank be divided along ethnic lines? a new petition challenges this system.
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Jerusalem: The hearing on the petition of several villages and organizations, seeking to restore planning authority to Palestinians in their residential areas in the West Bank, will take place at Israel’s High Court of Justice on April 28, 2014.
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and in preparation, we thought it proper to raise this issue, which has aspects of great public importance which can be written about from various perspectives. Below, we propose several of these.
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First of all, it must be asked: Given that any formal peace agreement is not seems close, is there still any justification for the Israeli military regime controlling and interfering in Palestinian civilian life, such as the planning system in the villages spread out over 60% of the West Bank (Area C)? This seems puzzling, especially when there is no justified security explanation preventing the Palestinians from conducting their own planning, and given the possibility that the IDF is able to interfere with planning in the event of a specific security need. So why should an entire military planning system exist for the Palestinians, against their will, funded by the Israeli taxpayer?
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The advantages to Israel in restoring planning authority to Palestinians at the regional and local level are clear: decreased hostility and friction, lower costs and manpower involvement, and improved international standing – all without any security risks. But despite this, the state of Israel is officially opposed to this step.
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The results: Less than 1% of Area C is designated for Palestinian development, compared to 70% of Area C located in the settlements’ local councils | Palestinian construction on the remaining 29% of Area C is subject to severe restrictions and almost impossible to carry out (from this OCHA report)
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Background:
On August 1, 2011, the village council of Ad-Dirat-Al-Rfai’ya, located in the West Bank, petitioned the High Court against the Ministry of Defense, military planning system and the IDF, together with a coalition of organizations, including Rabbis for Human Rights. The petition sought to restore to their previous status the local planning councils in the Palestinian villages and the regional planning councils in Area C of the West Bank, according to the current municipal divisions. This would revive these planning institutions, which existed prior to Israeli control over the West Bank, and also existed for a time after it began. The councils were disbanded by order no. 418 in 1971. For more details on the petition, see [RHR report]
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In addition to the distinct legal aspects of the petition, it also raises several important issues of planning in the West Bank:
1. Institutional discrimination and segregation on the basis of ethnicity: Can we still justify the existence of two separate planning systems, divided along ethnic-national lines in the same sub-territory: the military system, which has no representation of Palestinians, and the civilian system, with proper representation, for the settlers? Is it a due process that this system was created by a military order, without any legislation? The discrimination at the structural level in the planning system also has its practical effect in severe, unmistakable discrimination, for example: The military planning system has designated a higher population density for Palestinian villages than New York or central London (based on a report by Bimkom, “Forbidden Zone”). Only after the application of public pressure did the military system soften its position somewhat. The settlements have also been allocated extensive development areas and areas of municipal jurisdiction significantly higher than those commonly accepted even in Israel proper. The High Court of Justice will have to rule whether this system is consistent with Israel’s democratic system of government.
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2. What do security-related military control has to do with military control over areas of civilian life? Is there a justification for control over the civilian life of a population living under military control, particularly when there is no security need for it? Does the military regime in the West Bank have the right to prevent people from having a reasonable chance of building in a legal manner, and living normal lives? It seems that there is no justification for preventing people from managing the issue of master plans and planning in their own communities, unless there are foreign considerations.
3. The suspension of the peace negotiations and Israeli internal politics are no justification for denying rights: Are there legal and/or moral limitations to what is permissible in the current situation of occupation? Is fair planning also a basic right or a controversial political/diplomatic matter?
This petition challenges the state’s attempt to paint its demands as “diplomatic” (read: “political”) and as dependent on agreements to be reached during the peace negotiations. The action that the petition seeks does not contradict any significant diplomatic solution on the Israeli political map – representation for Palestinian residents on the civil planning entities is a proper step, whether Israel remains in its current situation unchanged, whether the West Bank is partially or fully annexed, or whether Israel withdraws from the West Bank. Therefore, there is no justification for preventing the restoration of these rights to the Palestinians until reaching a political\diplomatic agreement.
4. Contempt for the law, or does the law have contempt for them? Blocking building permits as a method of crowding the Palestinians: The local Jordanian planning system was dissolved some four years after the West Bank was occupied, via a military order. Nevertheless, in the first years of Israeli control over the West Bank, the Palestinians submitted tens of thousands of requests for legal construction (because despite the unfair structure of the military system, it nonetheless approved building permits in a relatively fair and easy manner). Only after the system suddenly became draconian and almost no building permits were approved did the Palestinians despair of going through the military planning system and ceased to request permits and were forced to build without permits (see page 39 of the Bimkom report). In this traditionally agricultural region, where there is almost no free market of land for sale and no allocation of “state lands” for Palestinian construction, the ability to build on inherited family land is a critical need. This system is part of an overall trend of crowding the Palestinians.
5. Home demolitions as a system and a large-scale tragedy: In the test of results, it is clear that there is a significant failure of the military planning system. The large and exceptional scale of demolition of Palestinian homes (which were built on Palestinian land) in Area C, alongside the fact that it is almost impossible for Palestinians to build legally, has created a human tragedy and points to the military planning system’s ineptitude towards Palestinian planning. For example: some 1,626 Palestinian structures were demolished between 2000 and 2007, according to the Bimkom report. Behind all the numbers, and behind each demolition, are real families – it’s not just a building that is demolished, but a family. Demolitions cause the family to disintegrate, parents to cease functioning and children to experience severe trauma, even in long term.
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6. Are systematic home demolitions based on a discriminatory planning system consistent with Jewish values? As a nation which suffered greatly as a minority, we know the experience of the foreigner because we were foreigners in the land of Egypt. The value of a home in Judaism is also a central and enshrined value: You shall not set your desire your neighbor’s house (Deuteronomy 5:17). And from a systematic perspective, we are commanded to act in an unbiased manner, unlike, unfortunately, what is common practice in the West Bank planning system. See Rabbis for Human Rights’ report on the Jewish perspective.
7. Denial of rights even when it is against Israeli interests: Why should Israeli citizens pay in both money and increased hostility for a suffocating planning system, which mainly serves to demolish Palestinian homes? Why should we interfere in construction in Palestinian villages? Why should Israeli military planning strangle Palestinian development, with Israel blamed constantly at an international level? Why should we not transfer to the Palestinians planning authority, along with the responsibility for Palestinian societal development?
8. Denial of rights even when there is no security justification: Why, even when there are no security risks whatsoever, does the military regime deny Palestinians in the majority of the West Bank basic rights such as planning, the ability to build on their land, and representation in the decision-making processes about their lives? This is another example proving that the security excuse for denying Palestinian rights is far from being based. Most of the time, there is no contradiction between security and rights, and the planning in Area C is a clear and central case indicating this.
9. Home demolitions as security risks: In addition to demolitions due to denial of building permits, in the past demolitions were also carried out as punishments for family members of terrorists. At the beginning of the second Intifada, homes of terrorists and their families were often demolished, but this practice was ended after the security system reached the conclusion that the hate and anger created by the home demolitions only increase extremism and the risk of terrorism. So if home demolitions increase the attraction of the terrorist recruiters, what does this say about all of the demolitions that are carried out due to a lack of building permit? 706 residential buildings were demolished in Area C from 2006 to 2014 due to a lack of building permit. This led to 3,381 people losing their homes, including 1,607 children.
10. Israel’s international standing: Is Israel ignoring the chance to show the international community that is trying to minimize military control over the Palestinians and to minimize discrimination between the populations in the West Bank, even in current state of affairs? Why is Israel ignoring the opportunity to improve its international standing, without any costs to Israel’s security, and while cutting costs and manpower?
11. The right to representation in civilian institutions: Do Palestinians living under Israeli control in the majority of the West Bank have at least the right to representation in civilian decision-making processes which significantly influence their lives (and specifically when they have no consequences on security)?
12. In the West Bank, there is no alternative to building without a permit – blocking Palestinian development: According to the World Bank, the municipal lands in Areas A and B, which are under Palestinian planning control, have been almost fully exhausted, and the few private lands left available have become extremely expensive (source: B’Tselem’s website). In some communities within Area C, in contrast, there are vast tracts of available land, except that on these lands authorization of the military regime is required for any construction or development, and such permits are not granted (for more information, see here).
13. Alleged violation of international law: The continued military control of planning, combined with the extent of home demolitions as well as demolitions of structures critical for the survival of the population (such as rainwater collection cisterns) and placing difficulties on permitted construction, amount to violation of international law according to internationally-known legal experts such as Professor Marco Sassoli (see legal opinion here), Professor Eyal Benvenisti (see legal opinion here), and others.