Israel Plans 1400 West Bank Settlement Homes

Bloodrock44

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Apr 20, 2012
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Been waiting for this announcement.

Israel plans 1,400 more West Bank settlement homes, official says

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel plans to build 1,400 homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank and will announce the projects next week after releasing a group of Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli official said on Friday.

The Palestinians have said any further expansion of Israeli settlements on land they seek for a state could derail U.S.-brokered peace talks that resumed in July after a three-year break and are set to last until April.

The United States said Israel had informed it of plans to release the group of prisoners on December 30, a day later than expected.

The release of about two dozen Palestinians, the third group to be freed since the peace talks resumed, is seen by the United States as a vital confidence-building measure.

"Although we had expected the release to occur on December 29, we have been informed that technical issues made it necessary to do the release a day later," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

The Israeli government official said about 600 homes would be announced in Ramat Shlomo, a settlement of mainly Ultra-Orthodox Jews located in an area of the West Bank that Israel annexed to Jerusalem in a move unrecognized internationally.

Another 800 would be built in other West Bank settlements which Israel also plans to keep in any future peace deal, though the list was not yet finalized, the official - who spoke on condition of anonymity - said.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the move would "destroy the peace process" and could be met with retaliation.

"We in the Palestinian leadership would immediately present our application for membership in 63 international organizations, among them the International Criminal Court," the al-Quds newspaper quoted Erekat as saying on Friday.

An Israeli official had said on Wednesday that there were plans to announce more construction in Jewish settlements, but gave no figure for the number of new homes.

Palestinians see the settlements as an obstacle to achieving a viable state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Most countries consider Israel's settlements there illegal.

The Palestinians won an upgrade to their U.N. status in 2012 from "entity" to "non-member state" in a vote perceived as a de facto recognition of statehood and have threatened to join the International Criminal Court to confront Israel there.

Earlier this year, however, the Palestinians agreed to suspend any actions at the United Nations in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

Israel agreed to release 104 long-serving Palestinian inmates convicted of killing Israelis at least 20 years ago as part of the package worked out by Washington to resume talks.

A previous round of negotiations broke down in 2010 in a dispute over settlement construction and since their revival this year, peace talks have shown little sign of progress.
 
Been waiting for this announcement.

Israel plans 1,400 more West Bank settlement homes, official says

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel plans to build 1,400 homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank and will announce the projects next week after releasing a group of Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli official said on Friday.

The Palestinians have said any further expansion of Israeli settlements on land they seek for a state could derail U.S.-brokered peace talks that resumed in July after a three-year break and are set to last until April.

The United States said Israel had informed it of plans to release the group of prisoners on December 30, a day later than expected.

The release of about two dozen Palestinians, the third group to be freed since the peace talks resumed, is seen by the United States as a vital confidence-building measure.

"Although we had expected the release to occur on December 29, we have been informed that technical issues made it necessary to do the release a day later," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

The Israeli government official said about 600 homes would be announced in Ramat Shlomo, a settlement of mainly Ultra-Orthodox Jews located in an area of the West Bank that Israel annexed to Jerusalem in a move unrecognized internationally.

Another 800 would be built in other West Bank settlements which Israel also plans to keep in any future peace deal, though the list was not yet finalized, the official - who spoke on condition of anonymity - said.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the move would "destroy the peace process" and could be met with retaliation.

"We in the Palestinian leadership would immediately present our application for membership in 63 international organizations, among them the International Criminal Court," the al-Quds newspaper quoted Erekat as saying on Friday.

An Israeli official had said on Wednesday that there were plans to announce more construction in Jewish settlements, but gave no figure for the number of new homes.

Palestinians see the settlements as an obstacle to achieving a viable state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Most countries consider Israel's settlements there illegal.

The Palestinians won an upgrade to their U.N. status in 2012 from "entity" to "non-member state" in a vote perceived as a de facto recognition of statehood and have threatened to join the International Criminal Court to confront Israel there.

Earlier this year, however, the Palestinians agreed to suspend any actions at the United Nations in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

Israel agreed to release 104 long-serving Palestinian inmates convicted of killing Israelis at least 20 years ago as part of the package worked out by Washington to resume talks.

A previous round of negotiations broke down in 2010 in a dispute over settlement construction and since their revival this year, peace talks have shown little sign of progress.
Praise to Allah. They should also start calling it Judeah and Samaria, it's name for thousands of years until Arab invaders changed it in 1948.
 
Praise to Allah. They should also start calling it Judeah and Samaria, it's name for thousands of years until Arab invaders changed it in 1948.
This just shows it is Israel who doesn't want peace.

I don't recall you saying the same when they shot poor worker who was minding his own business in Nahal Oz.

Or that when they planted a bomb in a civilian bus two weeks ago.

They shoot and plant bombs, but it's all ok.

We built houses, it's a terrible crime.

Keep losing more sense, Billy-boy.
 
Gaza attacked Israel the other day.
Israel has been talk and will resume talks next week.
Land already part of a land trade, settlements that will be part of Israel want to add new units.
Abbas needs to bring something to the table beside 40 yr old demands, and a gaza that is refusing to be part or even let peace talks continue. The attacks are to disrupt the talks.
If the PA can not get gaza on board any agreement will mean little.



Praise to Allah. They should also start calling it Judeah and Samaria, it's name for thousands of years until Arab invaders changed it in 1948.
This just shows it is Israel who doesn't want peace.
 
Praise to Allah. They should also start calling it Judeah and Samaria, it's name for thousands of years until Arab invaders changed it in 1948.
This just shows it is Israel who doesn't want peace.

So does this mean that you cant build on land that you have bought and paid for then, as you will find the settlements are built on Jewish owned land. Remember that the Jews expelled from the west bank also have a right of return, and are to be given reparations for the lost use of that land. As for Jerusalem that was stolen by Jordan in 1948 against the wishes of the UN and the international community, and should have been taken back by force straight away.
 

The Illegal-Settlements Myth

12.01.09 - 12:00 AM | David M. Phillips

The conviction that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal is now so commonly accepted, it hardly seems as though the matter is even open for discussion. But it is. Decades of argument about the issue have obscured the complex nature of the specific legal question about which a supposedly overwhelming verdict of guilty has been rendered against settlement policy. There can be no doubt that this avalanche of negative opinion has been deeply influenced by the settlements’ unpopularity around the world and even within Israel itself. Yet, while one may debate the wisdom of Israeli settlements, the idea that they are imprudent is quite different from branding them as illegal. Indeed, the analysis underlying the conclusion that the settlements violate international law depends entirely on an acceptance of the Palestinian narrative that the West Bank is “Arab” land. Followed to its logical conclusion—as some have done—this narrative precludes the legitimacy of Israel itself.

These arguments date back to the aftermath of the Six-Day War. When Israel went into battle in June 1967, its objective was clear: to remove the Arab military threat to its existence. Following its victory, the Jewish state faced a new challenge: what to do with the territorial fruits of that triumph. While many Israelis assumed that the overwhelming nature of their victory would shock the Arab world into coming to terms with their legitimacy and making peace, they would soon be disabused of this belief. At the end of August 1967, the heads of eight countries, including Egypt, Syria, and Jordan (all of which lost land as the result of their failed policy of confrontation with Israel), met at a summit in Khartoum, Sudan, and agreed to the three principles that were to guide the Arab world’s postwar stands: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel. Though many Israelis hoped to trade most if not all the conquered lands for peace, they would have no takers. This set the stage for decades of their nation’s control of these territories.

The attachment of Israelis to the newly unified city of Jerusalem led to its quick annexation, and Jewish neighborhoods were planted on its flanks in the hope that this would render unification irrevocable. A similar motivation for returning Jewish life to the West Bank, the place where Jewish history began—albeit one that did not reflect the same strong consensus as that which underpinned the drive to hold on to Jerusalem—led to the fitful process that, over the course of the next several decades, produced numerous Jewish settlements throughout this area for a variety of reasons, including strategic, historical and/or religious considerations. In contrast, settlements created by Israel in the Egyptian Sinai or the Syrian Golan were primarily based initially on the strategic value of the terrain.

Over the course of the years to come, there was little dispute about Egypt’s sovereign right to the Sinai, and it was eventually returned after Nasser’s successor Anwar Sadat broke the Arab consensus and made peace with Israel. Though the rulers of Syria have, to date, preferred the continuance of belligerency to a similar decision to end the conflict, the question of their right to the return of the Golan in the event of peace seems to hinge more on the nature of the regime in Damascus than any dispute about the provenance of Syria’s title to the land.

The question of the legal status of the West Bank, as well as Jerusalem, is not so easily resolved. To understand why this is the case, we must first revisit the history of the region in the 20th century.

Though routinely referred to nowadays as “Palestinian” land, at no point in history has Jerusalem or the West Bank been under Palestinian Arab sovereignty in any sense of the term. For several hundred years leading up to World War I, all of Israel, the Kingdom of Jordan, and the putative state of Palestine were merely provinces of the Ottoman Empire. After British-led Allied troops routed the Turks from the country in 1917-18, the League of Nations blessed Britain’s occupation with a document that gave the British conditional control granted under a mandate. It empowered Britain to facilitate the creation of a “Jewish National Home” while respecting the rights of the native Arab population. British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill later partitioned the mandate in 1922 and gave the East Bank of the Jordan to his country’s Hashemite Arab allies, who created the Kingdom of Jordan there under British tutelage.

Following World War II, the League of Nations’ successor, the United Nations, voted in November 1947 to partition the remaining portion of the land into Arab and Jewish states. While the Jews accepted partition, the Arabs did not, and after the British decamped in May 1948, Jordan joined with four other Arab countries to invade the fledgling Jewish state on the first day of its existence. Though Israel survived the onslaught, the fighting left the Jordanians in control of what would come to be known as the West Bank as well as approximately half of Jerusalem, including the Old City. Those Jewish communities in the West Bank that had existed prior to the Arab invasion were demolished, as was the Jewish quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.

After the cease-fire that ended Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, Jordan annexed both the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But, as was the case when Israel annexed those same parts of the ancient city that it would win back 19 years later, the world largely ignored this attempt to legitimize Jordan’s presence. Only Jordan’s allies Britain and Pakistan recognized its claims of sovereignty. After King Hussein’s disastrous decision to ally himself with Egypt’s Nasser during the prelude to June 1967, Jordan was evicted from the lands it had won in 1948.

This left open the question of the sovereign authority over the West Bank. The legal vacuum in which Israel operated in the West Bank after 1967 was exacerbated by Jordan’s subsequent stubborn refusal to engage in talks about the future of these territories. King Hussein was initially deterred from dealing with the issue by the three “no’s” of Khartoum. Soon enough, he was taught a real-world lesson by the Palestine Liberation Organization, which fomented a bloody civil war against him and his regime in 1970. With the open support of Israel, Hussein survived that threat to his throne, but his desire to reduce rather than enlarge the Palestinian population in his kingdom ultimately led him to disavow any further claim to the lands he had lost in 1967. Eventually, this stance was formalized on July 31, 1988.

Thus, if the charge that Israel’s hold on the territories is illegal is based on the charge of theft from its previous owners, Jordan’s own illegitimacy on matters of legal title and its subsequent withdrawal from the fray makes that legal case a losing one. Well before Jordan’s renunciation, Eugene Rostow, former dean of Yale Law School and undersecretary of state for political affairs in 1967 during the Six-Day War, argued that the West Bank should be considered “unallocated territory,” once part of the Ottoman Empire. From this perspective, Israel, rather than simply “a belligerent occupant,” had the status of a “claimant to the territory.”

To Rostow, “Jews have a right to settle in it under the Mandate,” a right he declared to be “unchallengeable as a matter of law.” In accord with these views, Israel has historically characterized the West Bank as “disputed territory” (although some senior government officials have more recently begun to use the term “occupied territory”).

Because neither Great Britain, as the former trustee under the League of Nations mandate, nor the since deceased Ottoman Empire—the former sovereigns prior to the Jordanians—is desirous or capable of standing up as the injured party to put Israel in the dock, we must therefore ask: On what points of law does the case against Israel stand?

_____________

International-law arguments against the settlements have rested primarily upon two sources. First are the 1907 Hague Regulations, whose provisions are primarily designed to protect the interests of a temporarily ousted sovereign in the context of a short-term occupation. Second is the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, the first international agreement designed specifically to protect civilians during wartime.

While Israel was not and is not a party to the Hague Regulations, the Israeli Supreme Court has generally regarded its provisions as part of customary international law (that is, law generally observed by nations even if they have not signed an international agreement to that effect) and hence applicable to Israel. The regulations are transparently geared toward short-term occupations during which a peace treaty is negotiated between the victorious and defeated nations. The “no’s” of Khartoum signaled that there would be no quick negotiations.

Nonetheless, Israel established and maintains a military administration overseeing the West Bank in accordance with the Hague Regulations, probably the only military power since World War II other than the United States (in Iraq) that has done so. For example, consistent with Article 43 of the Regulations, which calls on the occupant to “respect,?.?.?.?unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country,” Israel has for the most part continued to follow Jordanian law in the West Bank, despite its position that Jordan itself had illegally occupied it. Israel’s stance has been criticized as contradictory, but general continuance of Jordanian law can be justified on grounds of legal stability and long-term reliance reflected in most legal systems, including international law.

Article 46 of the Hague Regulations bars an occupying power from confiscating private property. And it is on this point that the loudest cries against the settlements have been based. Israel did requisition land from private Arab owners to establish some early settlements, but requisitioning differs from confiscation (compensation is paid for use of the land), and the establishment of these settlements was based on military necessity. In a 1979 case, Ayyub v. Minister of Defense, the Israeli Supreme Court considered whether military authorities could requisition private property for a civilian settlement, Beth El, on proof of military necessity. The theoretical and, in that specific case, actual answers were affirmative. But in another seminal decision the same year, Dwaikat v. Israel, known as the Elon Moreh case, the court more deeply explored the definition of military necessity and rejected the tendered evidence in that case because the military had only later acquiesced in the establishment of the Elon Moreh settlement by its inhabitants. The court’s decision effectively precluded further requisitioning of Palestinian privately held land for civilian settlements.

After the Elon Moreh case, all Israeli settlements legally authorized by the Israeli Military Administration (a category that, by definition, excludes “illegal outposts” constructed without prior authorization or subsequent acceptance) have been constructed either on lands that Israel characterizes as state-owned or “public” or, in a small minority of cases, on land purchased by Jews from Arabs after 1967. The term “public land” includes uncultivated rural land not registered in anyone’s name and land owned by absentee owners, both categories of public land under Jordanian and Ottoman law. Inversely, the term excludes land registered in the name of someone other than an absentee owner (regardless of whether the land is presently cultivated), land to which a title deed exists (even if the deed is unregistered), and land held by prescriptive use. The last stipulation requires continuous use of the land for a period of 10 years.

Israel’s characterization of certain lands as “state” or “public” has provoked considerable controversy. In one of the most detailed and cited critiques, B’Tselem, the Israeli human-rights group, concedes that 90 percent of the settlements have been established on what is nominally “state” land but argues that approximately 40 percent of the West Bank now falls within that category. That would represent a vast expansion of the 16 percent of the West Bank that had been considered public under Jordanian control.

....................... etc.
 
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"Settlement opponents more frequently cite the Fourth Geneva Convention these days for their legal arguments.

"They specifically charge that the settlements violate Article 49(6), which states: 'The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies.'

"Frequently, this sentence is cited as if its meaning is transparent and its application to the establishment of Israeli settlements beyond dispute. Neither is the case.

"To settlement opponents, the word 'transfer' in Article 49(6) connotes that any transfer of the occupying power’s civilian population, voluntary or involuntary, is prohibited.

"However, the first paragraph of Article 49 complicates that case. It reads: 'Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.'

"Unquestionably, any forcible transfer of populations is illegal.

"But what about voluntary movements with the antecedent permission or subsequent acquiescence by the occupant?

Who is the "occupant"?

« The Illegal-Settlements Myth Commentary Magazine
 
"Settlement opponents more frequently cite the Fourth Geneva Convention these days for their legal arguments.

"They specifically charge that the settlements violate Article 49(6), which states: 'The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies.'

"Frequently, this sentence is cited as if its meaning is transparent and its application to the establishment of Israeli settlements beyond dispute. Neither is the case.

"To settlement opponents, the word 'transfer' in Article 49(6) connotes that any transfer of the occupying power’s civilian population, voluntary or involuntary, is prohibited.

"However, the first paragraph of Article 49 complicates that case. It reads: 'Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.'

"Unquestionably, any forcible transfer of populations is illegal.

"But what about voluntary movements with the antecedent permission or subsequent acquiescence by the occupant?

Who is the "occupant"?

« The Illegal-Settlements Myth Commentary Magazine

I don't see anyone moving to stop Israel. Nor will they ever. You and Sherri can continue to post your Jew hate 24/7 and it's not going to stop one settlement home. Bibi does not read your and Sherri's posts (gasp). Contrary to your belief, the world does not wake up every morning with the Palestinians on their mind. The world could give a shit about the Palestinians. If they did they would have done something by now. 10 years from now you and Sherri will still be cut and pasting arab propaganda. Genocide blah blah blah, ethnic cleansing blah blah blah, Iran will get the bomb blah blah blah, it's only a matter of time blah blah blah, 100 million arabs blah blah blah, the Liberty blah blah blah, Cast Iron blah blah blah. Geneva Convention blah blah blah. And you won't have stopped Israel from doing one damn thing. Must suck to be you.
 
You cannot call Israel an 'occupying power' as it gained land fought in a defensive war. Therefore building homes that are sorely needed for the housing crises is totally legal.
 
The more settlements and new construction the better. If Arabs don't like it hey too bad, move to an Arab country.

Israel is our's. Always has been, always will be.
 
So does this mean that you cant build on land that you have bought and paid for then, as you will find the settlements are built on Jewish owned land. Remember that the Jews expelled from the west bank also have a right of return, and are to be given reparations for the lost use of that land. As for Jerusalem that was stolen by Jordan in 1948 against the wishes of the UN and the international community, and should have been taken back by force straight away.
The settlements are illegal.

Built on land seized in a war.
 
I don't recall you saying the same when they shot poor worker who was minding his own business in Nahal Oz.

Or that when they planted a bomb in a civilian bus two weeks ago.

They shoot and plant bombs, but it's all ok.

We built houses, it's a terrible crime.

Keep losing more sense, Billy-boy.
The houses are illegal.

And as long as you shoot people fishing and farming, don't talk to me about who shoots who.
 
So does this mean that you cant build on land that you have bought and paid for then, as you will find the settlements are built on Jewish owned land. Remember that the Jews expelled from the west bank also have a right of return, and are to be given reparations for the lost use of that land. As for Jerusalem that was stolen by Jordan in 1948 against the wishes of the UN and the international community, and should have been taken back by force straight away.
The settlements are illegal.

Built on land seized in a war.

No, built on land won in a defensive war, so they are legal.

 
I don't recall you saying the same when they shot poor worker who was minding his own business in Nahal Oz.

Or that when they planted a bomb in a civilian bus two weeks ago.

They shoot and plant bombs, but it's all ok.

We built houses, it's a terrible crime.

Keep losing more sense, Billy-boy.
The houses are illegal.

And as long as you shoot people fishing and farming, don't talk to me about who shoots who.

The shooting is condemned only when Israel does it.

The rockets are ok, the bomb plantings are ok.

Housing is wrong.

Can you be more hypocrite than that?
 
So does this mean that you cant build on land that you have bought and paid for then, as you will find the settlements are built on Jewish owned land. Remember that the Jews expelled from the west bank also have a right of return, and are to be given reparations for the lost use of that land. As for Jerusalem that was stolen by Jordan in 1948 against the wishes of the UN and the international community, and should have been taken back by force straight away.
The settlements are illegal.

Built on land seized in a war.

Soon as you leave California for Europe so the Mexicans can have their country back we'll speak as equals. Until then, shut the fuck up.
 

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