ISRAELI GOVERNMENT CLEARS WAY FOR SETTLEMENT EXPANSION
Saturday 3 August, 1996
LAWE - the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment
PO Box 20873
Jerusalem
Tel: (972) (2) 812364/824559
Fax: (972) (2) 811072
email: lawe@netvision.net.il
On Friday the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu announced its intention to pursue officially the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The government decided to repeal a supposed freeze on settlement expansion undertaken by the previous Labor-led government in 1992. The settlement freeze was initially put in place in response to United States financial pressure, as the US believed that settlements represented the most significant impediment to a peaceful solution to the conflict in the area. The "freeze", however, was in reality only a slow-down from the rapid building that had previously taken place.
This decision to cancel the government order clears another obstacle to the rapid increase of the illegal Jewish settler population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which despite the freeze and declared intent of the Labor government increased by 40% in the last four years.
The fact that the Israeli government has embraced the strengthening of Jewish settlements and the increase of the Jewish population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories reflects an official total departure from the understandings come to during the current peace process. The implementation of this decision will solidify Israeli claims of sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, claims which were actively pursued by the previous Labor administration.
Over 294,964 dunums of land (73,741 acres), or 5% of the total land area of the West Bank, were confiscated by the Labor-led government since the first Oslo accord was signed. In addition to this massive loss of land, since Oslo 1 Israeli bulldozers have demolished 109 homes and destroyed 32,495 olive trees. These policies have served to make into concrete reality, with facts on the ground, the distribution of land as agreed to in the second phase of the Oslo accord, or the Taba agreement.
Under Oslo 2, the 144,000 Jewish settlers of the West Bank will live on some 3,850 sq. kilometers of land, a ratio of approximately 1000 settlers per 27.5 sq. kilometers. But the native 1.1 million Palestinian population is relegated to only 1,950 sq. kilometers of their own already truncated territory, for a ratio of 1000 native residents per 1.77 sq. kilometers. The decision to re-energize the settlement drive in the Occupied Territories, along with the inequitable division of land under the Oslo accords, again clarifies the Israeli intention to maintain permanent control over all of the West Bank.
LAWE - the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment believes that, with the implementation of this new decision, the Likud-led government has de facto announced its intention to end the current peace process. The practical results of the agreements come to in the second phase of the Oslo Accords have resulted in the foundations of a classic South-African style apartheid system, in which the native population is crowded into small reservations. In contravention of UN resolutions and international law, the Israeli government will be able to continue its illegal occupation and maintain its total control over the territories it currently occupies. The Israeli government has taken an aggressive step forward to end the chances for a peaceful settlement in this region.
LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment is a non-governmental organization, dedicated to preserving human rights through legal advocacy. LAWE is also an affiliate member of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.