UN reports rise in Israel demolitions in West Bank

[RFS_Br]

UN reports rise in Israel demolitions in West Bank - SFGate

A bulldozer works on a Palestinian home demolished in East Jerusalem Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2014, Three Palestinian homes were demolished in the neighborhood, as the Israeli planners Wednesday gave final approval for 558 apartments in Jewish settlements in war-won east Jerusalem. Photo: Mahmoud Illean, AP

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israel demolished 390 shacks and other structures in the West Bank's strategic Jordan Valley in 2013, displacing nearly 600 Palestinians, twice as many as the year before, a U.N. agency said Thursday.

The fate of the valley is a sticking point in U.S.-led negotiations that seek to produce a deal on setting up a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The Palestinians want that state to include the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, which are legitimately theirs under international law, but which Israel stole in 1967.

The Jordan Valley would form the eastern border of a Palestinian state with Jordan.

Israel seeks a long-term military presence in the valley even after any deal. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would consider a gradual Israeli troop withdrawal from a Palestinian state over five years, but not longer.

Palestinians say they need the sparsely populated valley as the breadbasket of their future state and for resettling Palestinian refugees who would return from exile. Israel has sharply restricted Palestinian development in the valley, maintaining control over most of the land in the area.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Israel demolished 390 Palestinian-owned structures in the valley in 2013, up from 172 the year before. Some 590 Palestinians were displaced last year, compared to 279 in 2012, the agency said.

Israeli officials had no immediate comment on the demolitions, but Israel has said in the past it demolishes structures set up without permits. [Many such structures have existed before Israel meddled in those lands, so talk of permits is nonsense. Permits are never given to Palestinians in the West Bank anyway (to say nothing of Israel's Arab citizens). Permits are seldom needed to Israeli settlers: whenever they build something without Israel's permission, have their colonial houses retroactively legalized by Israel. Worth reminding that even the stuff they do with Israel's permission is illegal under international law. -- RFS]

Elsewhere in the West Bank, a Palestinian district official, Ghassan Daghlas, said about 100 olive trees were damaged in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in an alleged attack by militant settlers near the village of Yanoun.

On the outskirts of another village, Qusra, militant settlers, some of them masked and armed, approached Palestinian farmers working their land Thursday and demanded that they leave, said village resident Ahmed Talat. A scuffle ensued, he said. The military arrived, Palestinians threw stones and soldiers fired tear gas, Talat said.

The military said soldiers dispersed the stone-throwers. It had no immediate comment on the alleged settler attack near Yanoun.

Also Thursday, the EU foreign policy chief urged Israel to reverse its decision to approve building permits for 558 apartments in Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem. Municipal planners approved the permits Wednesday.

"These plans could put at risk the prospects of Jerusalem becoming the capital of two states and, in particular, the territorial contiguity between east Jerusalem and thesouthern West Bank," Catherine Ashton said in a statement.

Israel's government had no immediate comment.

 

[BDforever]

this is all about peace

 

[Solomon2]

Many such structures have existed before Israel meddled in those lands, so talk of permits is nonsense. Permits are never given to Palestinians in the West Bank anyway (to say nothing of Israel's Arab citizens). Permits are seldom needed to Israeli settlers: whenever they build something without Israel's permission, have their colonial houses retroactively legalized by Israel. Worth reminding that even the stuff they do with Israel's permission is illegal under international law. -- RFS

Recall that the WB is still under Mandate Law, and Mandate Law specified that "close settlement" of Jews was to be encouraged in the area, as long as the civil and property rights of Arabs are respected. (Arabs were under the same obligation to Jews throughout the ex-Ottoman middle east, but where is the Arab or Muslim who can pretend to care about that?)

"State" land encroached upon by Arabs' construction are thus "illegal settlements."

Jewish settlements are only "illegal" when constructed on Arab-owned property for non-military purposes. Then such situations can go to Israel's courts, which can and sometimes do issue judgments to remove them.

Israel is under no obligation to exercise sovereign rights in the area; nor does international law prevent Israel from doing so.

The U.N. distanced itself from actively supporting Jews' claim to the West Bank decades ago. It did not cite Israeli security, but "world peace" - in context at the time, the hijacking of airliners by terrorists. While the hijackings ceased for awhile, such success encouraged more terror, followed eventually by the return of hijackings on 9/11.

It's long past time the world gave up its cowardly, dishonorable, and - when voiced by people claiming Jewish settlements are illegal - ignorant or hypocritical attitude and once again take a stand for truth, justice, and human rights by asserting the Jews' legal and moral right to settle throughout the Palestine Mandate region, and acknowledge that everything Arabs have received from the world since 1947 has been mercy and charity, not any kind of "right".

 

[al-Hasani]

@Solomon2

Why do you think that a continuous establishment of illegal Jewish settlements (there is a consensus on this in the world - even a judicial one) will encourage the peace process that you and Israel supposedly are in favor of? I highly doubt that such moves are going to help in any way rather the opposite.

You can't use Hamas or any other Palestinian organization as a excuse here. This is happening in the West Bank. Fatah is in control there.

You often tell that most Palestinians do not want to recognize the right for Israel to exist. Is it not truth that the same can be said the other way around? That the establishments of new illegal Jewish settlements etc. can be interpreted as a sign of Israel not being willing to respect the very Palestinian land/borders and thus acknowledging the right of Palestinians to be the rulers of their own land like any other sovereign country?

 

[Solomon2]

Why do you think that a continuous establishment of illegal Jewish settlements (there is a consensus on this in the world - even a judicial one)

As if justice is a matter of consensus of the majority! Get a grip, man!

This is happening in the West Bank. Fatah is in control there.

You need to familiarize yourself with Oslo. This is happening in Area "C", which Oslo relegates to Israeli control.

You often tell that most Palestinians do not want to recognize the right for Israel to exist. Is it not truth that the same can be said the other way around?

Sorry, just because Arabs teach hatred and deliberate falsehoods doesn't mean Israel does the same. You shouldn't need me to tell you this, you need only look around at the Jews in your neighborhood in KSA, or Jordan, or Egypt, etc. Next recall that Israel is 20%+ Arab. And look at the Kurds in Iraq, or the Africans in Sudan! It's the Arabs who are intolerant, not the Jews. Period.

 

[al-Hasani]

As if justice is a matter of consensus of the majority! Get a grip, man!

You need to familiarize yourself with Oslo. This is happening in Area "C", which Oslo relegates to Israeli control.

Sorry, just because Arabs teach hatred and deliberate falsehoods doesn't mean Israel does the same. You shouldn't need me to tell you this, you need only look around at the Jews in your neighborhood in KSA, or Jordan, or Egypt, etc. Next recall that Israel is 20%+ Arab. And look at the Kurds in Iraq, or the Africans in Sudan! It's the Arabs who are intolerant, not the Jews. Period.

Not necessarily but in this case it is pretty accurate since a wide range of influential lawyers from all across the world and other people that know what they are talking about agree that those Jewish settlements are de jure and thus de facto illegal.

I am talking about the illegal Jewish settlements overall. Not necessarily those described in this article. You know this very well.

Which falsehood are you talking about? Who are the Arabs? You are talking about a people that number nearly 500 MILLION people and who live in over 20 Arab countries and who are based on all continents. Did you know that there lives more people of Arab ancestry in South East Asia alone than the number of Jews on this planet?

Israel is 20% Arab because before the Brits created Israel (new creation nearly 2 decades younger than my paternal grandfather) the Palestinians lived there as they have done for millenniums. The same Palestinians who as other NATIVE Semitic people of the ME have mixed with other likewise Semitic people from the ancient Phoenicians, people of Canaan, Assyrians, Arabs and other people who are native or who lived around what is now Israel and Palestine.

Just because that 98% of all the Israeli Jews today are immigrants from as different countries/regions as Sweden, Ethiopia, Asia, Yemen, Eastern Europe it does not mean that everyone else is a new arrival of totally mixed and often dubious Jewish - in this case Hebrew/Israelite would be more fitting, descent. You do know that according to Jewish and historical traditions that the Israelites/Hebrews came AFTER the people of Canaan had already settled?

Funny. Is that why HALF of all the ISRAELI JEWS are Jews from Arab lands and of Arab backgrounds? Jews, while they were persecuted, killed on a daily basis, survived attempts of genocide, lived in ghettos, survived pogroms etc. in Europe and the usual past you like to use to justify ANYTHING just to survive as a people (that's the excuse even when the Palestinians cannot even do any harm even if all of them wanted), Jews lived under the protection of Arabs for centuries from Morocco in the West to Iraq in the East and from Syria to Yemen. Not just under protection but they often thrived and many Jews from Arab lands openly say/tell that their families were way better off than they are in Israel today.

The conflict in Sudan has nothing to do with Arabs. Most of the infighting in Darfur happened between local Arabized people of Dafur and those who were not. The Arabs of Northern Sudan had no relation to it. The ones living in Khartoum, Port Sudan etc.

If Arabs are as non-tolerant as you claim then I wonder why all the many minorities, the Arab world is quite diverse on that front, has not been killed off, starting from the Afro-Arabs?

But we are familiar with those false stories to justify anything anyway so it does not come as a surprise.

You did not even answer the core of my questions.

 

[RFS_Br]

Recall that the WB is still under Mandate Law, and Mandate Law specified that "close settlement" of Jews was to be encouraged in the area

I do not recall any such thing, you sophist. The Mandate doesn't exist anymore; and Palestine has had one internationally recognized sovereign afterwards - the Jordan monarchy - and the monarchy has ceded sovereignty over the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority. Neither the Palestinian Authority nor Jordan nor any international convention currently in force encourages Jewish settlement. Quite the contrary. Israel is internationally acknowledged as Palestine's occupier, and it is illegal for an occupying state to transfer people among its own population to the territories it occupies; it's not just illegal - it's a war crime. This is the one law currently in force throughout the world regarding the matter of colonization in a context of military occupation; the only one, therefore, that is a valid reference to Israel's actions in the Palestinian territories today. The Mandate is a product of a particular mindset, a past mindset, that of European colonialism, which sought to impose European presence to areas where non-European natives lived. The racial engineering policy that you defend - the imposition of ethnic-biased, Jewish migration into Palestine - is an expression of such mindset. It goes against the spirit of post-World War 2 international law, a spirit of anti-discrimination and anti-colonialism, to say nothing of UN resolutions, such as the partition vote, which recognizes an area of Arab sovereignty, and the 2012 UNGA vote which acknowledged Palestine as an independent state. Pretending that Jewish colonization of the West Bank is legal, that Palestinians have no moral or legal right to prevent the sack of two-curled thugs from imposing themselves on, and stealing, their land, is to rape that law and deny Palestinians' right to everything that is either already theirs or that they deserve to have in the future - a state, their lands and their livelihood. Jews like you, ethnocentric Jews, who think they're entitled to displace another a people, to deny them a home and livelihoods, are just what gives Hamas legitimacy to its armed struggle. You can't say that you want peace and a two-state solution, that you have the right to exert national self-determination under a legitimate state that is globally recognized, at the same time you deny this same right to another nation, impose yourselves onto their lands without their consent and take over something that doesn't belong to you. This is casus belli to any country.

as long as the civil and property rights of Arabs are respected. (Arabs were under the same obligation to Jews throughout the ex-Ottoman middle east, but where is the Arab or Muslim who can pretend to care about that?)

You're a piece of work, Solomon. You know the first requisite of your sentence - that the Jews respect Arab property - has been violated by Israel since its first day of existence. And it continues today. Look at the picture at the beginning of the thread - it is not portraying Israel 'respecting' Arab property; it's portraying wantom destruction to make room for Jewish-only colonies. Most Jewish colonies in the West Bank - to say nothing of the Golan Heights as well as the settlements that used to exist in Gaza - have the same origin, the same background as the fruit of dispossession of non-Jewish natives. Even inside Israel's Green Line, Jewish settlement has the same origin, effectuated at the expenses of non-Jewish natives. Israeli Arabs, too, have had to be dispossessed by Israel so that the land could be Judaized. Bedouins who, for thousands of years, before there was an Israel, before there was Islam or Judaism, roamed free in the Negev desert, now inhabit about 2% of the area's total space, despite their demographic heft, due to an arbitrary declaration by the Israeli army, a declaration that amounts to theft from ethnic minority, a declaration that is only ever extended to Arab-majority areas, that their lands are now supposed to serve as military training grounds. Even the Druze, the most loyal of non-Jewish citizens to the Israeli state, have had to endure Israel's campaign of dispossession, of land theft, losing about 80% of their lands to their Jewish "protectors" since Israel's foundation. The Druze, this noble sect laudated in early XX century history books as one of the most innovative Eastern peoples, as the creators of most efficient system of agriculture in Asia, have today been reduced to work as low-ranking goons, soldiers and cops, to foreign Jewry, due to their their traditional means of subsistence having been decimated by the Jewish settlement enterprise that you refuse to admit is a violation to the area's Arab natives, both Palestinian and "Israeli Arab". The same tactics of dispossession that you have applied against Israeli Arabs after your "independence", you now apply to Palestinians - the same method of forging documents; bullying residents until they live their lands; declaring their homes an area of military activity; refusing to extend them licenses to build inside their own properties, whereas allowing Jewish settlers to build even on private Palestinian land; depriving residents of water that is their national property while giving excessive amounts to Jews; or just literally imposing yourselves onto someone else's home outright. This is not respecting Arab property, but this is what Israel has been doing in a massive scale against all non-Jewish sects of historic Palestine, Bedouins, Druzes, Palestinians, and Israeli Arabs, since its first day of existence. So don't dare whine about imagined disrespect by Arab natives against colonial property; you're not the victims here; grow out of your pathetic self-victimist attitude.

The rest of your post I won't read because those few first lines already my blood boiling of just how short-sighted, self-centric and self-entitled they are.

 

[waikici]

Zionist Al Qaeda protect the massive colonization of Palestina in 2012 by attacking Syria

Like they protected the JEW invasion of Lebanon in 1982 by attacking Hama