Settlement & Annexation Report: May 5, 2022

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

**The regular FMEP Settlement & Annexation report is on break, and is planned to return around the first week of August. In the meantime, we are pleased to offer you links to the main settlement-related stories of the past week**

May 5, 2022

  1. Green Light for Ethnic Cleansing in South Hebron Hills
  2. SA/DD – Same Apartheid/Different Day
  3. Settlement Developments – West Bank (general)
  4. Targeting Settlers
  5. Legalizing Violence Outposts
  6. Bonus Reads

Green Light for Ethnic Cleansing in South Hebron Hills

Media

Selected immediate analysis/commentary on Twitter

Basel Adra 5/4/22: “The occupation court just decided: My community will be destroyed. I live in Massafer Yatta, Palestine. An unjust 23 year long trial ended today with a verdict of mass eviction. The army can now place us on trucks, 2,400 people, and expel us from our ancient villages, one by one.”

Thread from B’tselem 5/5/22: “After 20 years of legal proceedings, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that the forcible transfer of hundreds of Palestinians from their homes – for the clear purpose of taking over their lands in the service of Jewish interests – is legal. Proving once again that the occupied cannot expect justice from the occupier’s court, the decision, weaving baseless legal interpretation with decontextualized facts, makes it clear that there is no crime which the HCJ justices won’t find a way to legitimize. [emphasis added] Employing sugarcoated language, hypocrisy, and lies, the justices once again fulfilled their role in Israel’s regime of Jewish supremacy and paved the way for the crime of forcible transfer to be committed. Reversing reality: the ruling cast Palestinian victims as the “unlawful” offenders, while portraying the apartheid regime as the victim. The international community must prevent the forcible transfer of Masafer Yatta communities and make sure, should this crime be committed, that those responsible – including government members, military top echelons and the supreme court justices – will be held accountable.”

Thread from Michael Sfard, renowned Israeli lawyer, 5/5/22:  “Yesterday, on the eve of Memorial Day and almost secretly, the Israeli Supreme Court published its ruling regarding the legality of the eviction orders of thousands of Palestinians living in the south Hebron Hills in an area declared as a firing zone (No. 918). The court rejected the residents’ petition thus ending proceedings Lasting more than 20 years in which the danger of deportation hovers over thousands of Palestinians living in the declared “firing zone”. The ruling rejected the claim that the prohibition of forcible transfer set forth in international law is customary and binding. Judge Mintz ruled that this was a treaty norm, that is, one that expresses agreements between states but is not enforceable in a domestic court. Beyond the fact that this is a cruel decision that could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe, this rationale denying that the prohibition on forced transfer is customary law is nothing less than an embarrassing legal error. So basic that it can be said that its equivalent in political science is to deny the claim that freedom of expression is a principle and characteristic of a democratic regime. The prohibition on forced transfer is perhaps one of the oldest in the prohibitions of modern war laws. In 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, Professor Francis Lieber formulated at the request of President Lincoln a draft code codifying the principles of the laws of war of the period. Lincoln published it as a legally binding proclamation, known as the “Lieber Code .” Article 23 of the Code established the most basic prohibitions on the occupation army, alongside the prohibition of murder and enslavement of the citizens of the Occupied Territories, is the prohibition on “removal of civilians to remote areas.” This principle developed into an explicit and clear prohibition of international law on both deportations (i.e. across the border) and forced transfer (i.e. within the country) and this prohibition was enshrined in the 1949 Geneva Convention and its violation was defined as a war crime the Nuremberg Military Court and a crime against humanity the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Red Cross also stated in a comprehensive study that the prohibition on forced transfer is a binding custom. And it makes so much sense. The world we live in is a world where slavery is forbidden, the murder of civilians is forbidden and deportation is forbidden. It seems to me that this is an intuitive moral principle.So beyond the fact that the Israeli High Court yesterday put thousands of Palestinians in danger of forced transfer and this is, of course, the most serious thing, it also failed in my opinion to apply relevant law and made a serious legal error.”

Thread from ACRI 5/5/22: “Without warning in the middle of the night, the Israeli High Court of Justice published a verdict with unprecedented consequences. The ruling allows the expulsion of approximately one thousand women, men, children and elderly Palestinians from Masfer Yatta. This follows 22 years of local residents waging a legal battle in the High Court against the evacuation orders issued by the army. In the early 1980s, the army declared the homes and private lands of these civilians as a fire training zone. In the early 2000s the evacuation orders were issued, and now the High Court has officially authorized leaving entire families, with their children and their elderly, without a roof over their heads.”

Thread from Breaking the Silence 5/5/22: “After 20+ yrs of legal battles, Israel’s Supreme Ct has published its decision regarding a petition by residents of Masafer Yatta against their impending eviction from their land. The petition was rejected. The forced removal of >1000 Palestinians from their land is now imminent. This will be one of the biggest forced evictions of Palestinians since 1967, on the pretext that the land is needed as a military training area, even though archival documents show it was designated that way specifically to curtail Palestinian growth there. This deplorable decision was handed down at 11pm on the eve of Israeli Independence Day,when public attention to the news is at perhaps its lowest. The Supreme Court has given the go-ahead to this cruel landgrab while cynically using IDF soldiers & national security as an excuse…”

Thread from +972’s Haggai Matar 5/5/22: “…There is one more thing to say about the timing: This ruling was published on the eve of the Israeli Independent Day. It seems the judges of the High Court wanted to reaffirm that Jewish supremacy is the only law of the land. It’s also worth mentioning that Israeli officials have made it clear that the “military training grounds” declared on top of Palestinian villages were INTENDED to push Palestinians out. This is not a side effect of the army’s declaration and the court approval – it is the goal.”

Thread from Yair Wallach 5/5/22: “The Israeli Supreme Court rejected yesterday the appeal by #MasaferYatta population against their forced removal by the military. The ruling, written by a judge who lives in a West Bank settlement, claims that forced removal is not against international law. David Mintz, who ruled that forced removal of occupied population is legal under international law, was born in the UK, immigrated to Israel as a child, and lives in the settlement Dolev in the West Bank. This is a very serious development – it charts the road ahead towards mass forced removal of population within the occupied territories. I don’t expect to see change immediately but the direction of travel is clear.”

Thread from Chris Doyle (CAABU) 5/5/22: “The judge who issues this ruling, enabling forcible transfer, a war crime, is a settler born in England, David Mintz. Judge Mintz is himself party to a war crime.  Mintz lives in the illegal settlement of Dolev, not far from Ramallah, on land confiscated from Palestinian villages. It is also a settlement that as ever is expanding. Netanyahu promised a new neighbourhood there in 2019.”

More legal analysis from Itay Ephstein (Norwegian Refugee Council) 5/5/22, concluding “Adding insult to injury, the Court charged the petitioners – impoverished #Palestinians from #MasaferYatta – with fees of 40K ILS (12K USD), payable to the coffers of #Israel, the occupying power.”

Em Hilton 5/5/22: “On this Independence Day, Israel reminds us that the Nakba is ongoing. #SaveMasaferYatta”

Lara Friedman (FMEP) 5/5/22: (commenting on article about Russia formalizing occupation of Ukraine) “Reminder as you read the article below: the Israeli High Court – the court of last appeal in an allegedly liberal, Western democracy allied closely with the US – just delivered a ruling legitimizing the mass forcible transfer of civilians from occupied territories.”

Targeting this same area, even before the Court ruling

SA/DD – Same Apartheid/Different Day

Israel tightens grip on West Bank with planned restrictions (ABC News 5/5/22)

ICG’s Mairav Zonszein on Twitter 5/3/22: “Defense Minister Benny Gantz expected to authorize thousands of new settlement units in occupied West Bank, as part of what Bennett’s party is posing as a demand to keep coalition intact. He reportedly has been waiting till end of Ramadan to do so, according to @GLZRadio”

New Israeli Border Policies Track, Trace, and Restrict Palestinian Visitors to the West Bank  [“if you’re a Jewish American traveling to visit your family in an Israeli settlement, you don’t have a problem.”] (Jewish Currents 5/3/22)

Americans Are Flying to Israel to Displace Palestinians (Al Jazeera+ 5/3/22)

Israel approves new 31-unit settlement construction in Hebron (Middle East Monitor 4/29/22)

The Israeli army is making millions by seizing Palestinian tractors [“Data shows the military, with settler backing, is intensifying its confiscation of Palestinian agricultural equipment while profiting from release fees.”] (+972 Magazine 5/1/22)

Settlement Developments – West Bank (general)

Israeli settlers seize large tract of Palestinian land south of Bethlehem (WAFA 5/5/22)

Settlers close major West Bank traffic artery to Palestinian traffic (WAFA 5/5/22)

Dror Etkes/Naboth’s Vineyard on Twitter 5/4/22: thread opening with — “The Civil Administration is not willing to pass on to us the results of a land “survey” that was conducted in Jabal Sabih, a place where in recent years one of the records of settlement madness was broken when an outpost was established there that settlers call ‘Eviatar’.”…

Israeli settlers graze their cattle on Palestinians groves south of Bethlehem (WAFA 5/5/22)

Israeli settlers continue to level Palestinian land in northern Jordan Valley (WAFA 5/4/22)

Israeli forces deliver two demolition notices in East Jerusalem area (WAFA 5/3/22)

Israeli Settlers destroy agricultural rooms west of Salfit (WAFA 5/3/22)

West Bank: Israeli settlement guard killed in drive-by shooting – A 27-year-old Palestinian was later killed by soldiers in unrelated army raid near Qalqilya (Middle East Eye 4/29/22)

Targeting Settlers

Right slams gov’t for IDF removal of three West Bank settler caravans (Jerusalem Post 3/2/22)

Hamas claims Ariel terror shooting, vows it ‘won’t be the last’ (Times of Israel 5/2/22)

Israeli forces arrest suspected killers of Jewish settlement guard (The Guardian 4/30/22)

Deadly West Bank attacks follow Israeli raid on Al-Aqsa (Al Jazeera 4/30/22)

Settlers raze Palestinian land in Nablus (Middle East Monitor 4/29/22)

 

Legalizing Violence Outposts

Excerpt from Yesh Din email update dated 5/4/22 (subscribe for Yesh Din’s email updates here):

The MOD [Ministry of Defense] is advancing the authorization of Tapuach Ma’arav [Tapuach West], located on the lands of the village Yasuf, and Adei Ad, located on the lands of Turmusayya, Jalud and Qaryut. Adei Ad and Tapuach West, two of the most violent outposts in the West Bank, are both being fast-tracked for retroactive ‘legalization’, rewarding the acts of violent settlers and nullifying the rights of Palestinian landowners.

On Monday, May 9, a hearing will be held in the Planning Committee of the Civil Administration in Beit El in objections to the proposed plan to ‘regularize’ the illegal outpost Tapuach West. The objections were filed by Yesh Din and Bimkom on behalf of residents of the village of Yasuf. Implementation of this plan will result in the de facto establishment of a new settlement in violation of international law and at the expense of the rights to property and freedom of movement of the residents of Yasuf.

“This hearing comes mere weeks after the Civil Administration rejected an objection to the expansion of the jurisdiction of the new settlement Amichai to include the illegal outpost Adei Ad. The objection was filed by Yesh Din on behalf of residents from the villages Turmusaya, Qaryut and Jalud…

“…For two decades the outpost Tapuach West has been infamous as one of the most violent outposts in the West Bank. The outposts’ residents are comprised mainly of Kahanist hilltop youth, who commit frequent and severe attacks against Palestinian residents of Yasuf and other nearby villages. Yesh Din has documented dozens of incidents in which settlers from Tapuach West violently attacked residents of Yasuf, destroyed trees and other crops, burned a mosque in Yasuf, and regularly trespass on the villagers’ private lands.

“Now, rather than enforcing the law on the illegal outpost, the settlers from Tapuach West are being rewarded for their violent tactics, as Israeli authorities actively promote the retroactive ‘regularization’ of the outpost as a new settlement.

“…Another clear example of the GOI rewarding violent settlers is the MOD’s decision to expand the jurisdiction of the new settlement Amihai, established in 2017 as ‘compensation’ for the evacuation of Amona. The expanded jurisdiction will include hundreds of dunams east of Amihai, including the location of the illegal and violent outpost of Adei Ad…In The Road to Dispossession – a Case Study of the Outpost of Adei Ad, a comprehensive report published by Yesh Din, we demonstrate how violence is used as a tool to take over Palestinian land leading to dispossession and violation of their right to property, and how lack of law enforcement on illegal construction as well as on violent and property offences is in fact indirect support of the Israeli authorities to such acts.”

Bonus Reads

Institute for Curriculum Services: How an Israel Lobby Group Infiltrated US Education (Mintpress News 5/4/22) [“Requested ICS changes to public school textbooks included: — Replace ‘settlers’ with ‘communities,’ ‘occupation’ with ‘control of,’ ‘wall’ with ‘security fence,’ ‘occupied territories’ with ‘captured areas,’ and ‘militant’ with ‘terrorist.’ — Discourage students from conducting open internet research, and instead recommend the Anti-Defamation League’s website and the JewishVirtualLibrary.org. — Delete all references to ‘Palestinian Territories.’ — Change maps to recognize Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, instead of classifying these areas as occupied.”

A European Citizens Initiative to ban settlement products (EuroMed Rights 5/3/22)

West Bank settlers are an existential liability to Israel (Arab News 5/3/22)

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

**The regular FMEP Settlement & Annexation report is on break, and is planned to return around the first week of August. In the meantime, we are pleased to offer you links to the main settlement-related stories of the past week**

April 21, 2022

  1. Settler Violence/Terror, Israeli Army/Govt Role
  2. Land Grab
  3. Israeli Courts, Israeli Policies
  4. Apartheid/Annexation, in Action

Settler Violence/Terror, Israeli Army/Govt Role

Palestinians Attacked Near Settlement; 62-year-old Hospitalized With Head Injury (“The three Palestinians say several dozen settlers from nearby Ma’aleh Amos attacked them with stones, clubs and pepper spray”) (Haaretz 4/27/22) Also see 4/26/22 Tweets (with photos) about the attack, from Basel Adra and the Good Shepherd Collective

Israeli government in cahoots with extremist outpost settlers (Arab News 4/26/22)

Settlers Play Chicken With the Israeli Army in the West Bank (Haaretz 4/25/22)

Israel’s Settler Defense Forces (Haaretz 4/25/22)

West Bank: more attacks on Palestinians by Israeli Jewish settlers (Middle East Monitor 4/25/22)

Israeli settlers attack shepherds in occupied Bethlehem (Middle East Monitor 4/23/22)

Israeli settlers, backed by soldiers, attack Palestinians in Hebron’s old town, damage shops and vehicles (WAFA 4/23/22)

If the PA Is Responsible for Palestinian Violence, Who ‘Ratifies’ Jewish Terrorism? (Haaretz 4/12/22)

Land Grab

Israel’s Attorney General Plans to Deal With Illegal West Bank Outposts Despite Conflict of Interest [“The Israeli attorney general has a conflict of interest in dealing with some West Bank settlements because she represented a regional council beyond the Green Line while a lawyer in private practice, but nevertheless intends on dealing with broader issues relating to this council. Upon taking office in February, Gali Baharav-Miara signed a conflict of interest agreement regarding the Samaria Regional Council – the local government for Jewish settlements in the northern West Bank. However, she still intends on dealing with a number of issues related to the council such as retroactive authorization for the West Bank outpost of Evyatar, linking unauthorized outposts in the council’s territory to the electricity grid, and the unauthorized outpost of Homesh.”]  (Haaretz 4/27/22)

Israeli settlers raze farmlands in Nablus-district villages (WAFA 4/28/22)

Israeli settlers bulldoze land in northern Jordan Valley to expand existing illegal settlement (WAFA 4/24/22)

Settlers uproot olive saplings for Palestinian farmers east of Nablus (4/24/22)

 

Israeli Courts, Israeli Policies

Top Court Asks Israel to Explain How It Plans to Stop Settler Land Grab – “The Israeli Civil Administration gave the residents of the Nokdim settlement 15 days to explain how their construction on private Palestinian land does not constitute incursion” (Haaretz 4/27/22)

Israel: Seven settlers convicted over wedding where they mocked dead [murdered] Palestinian toddler (Middle East Eye 4/27/22) Also see report in Times of Israel

Israeli Court Orders Rehearing in Sheikh Jarrah Family’s Case, Postponing Eviction (Haaretz 4/26/22) [Also see Tweet from B’Tselem’s Sarit Michaeli: “Kicking the can down the road for another few weeks or months. This is all we can expect until Israel is forced to announce a total moratorium on demolitions and evictions of Palestinian families in the Occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem.” (linked to Twitter thread from Ir Amim)

Homesh, Evyatar must be coalition red lines – right-wing politicians (Jerusalem Post 4/23/22)

 

Apartheid/Annexation, in Action

Israel’s housing policies in occupied Palestinian territory amount to racial segregation – UN experts (UN/Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights 4/27/22)

A microcosm of Palestinian struggle: One family’s life in Hebron [“The al-Jaabaris are one of several families in Hebron whose home is sandwiched between Israeli settlements.”] (Al Jazeera 4/26/22)

Israel’s Independence Day Air Show to Fly Over Hebron Settlement for First Time [“Settler leader hails ‘another brick in the building of the land and the settlement in Judea and Samaria’ in the Air Force’s decision to fly over more parts of the West Bank”] (Haaretz 4/24/22) Also see Jerusalem Post

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

**The regular FMEP Settlement & Annexation report is on break, and is planned to return around the first week of August. In the meantime, we are pleased to offer you links to the main settlement-related stories of the past week**

April 21, 2022

  1. Israeli Apartheid/Supremeacy in Action: Outposts Edition
  2. Israeli Supremacy/Apartheid in Action: Elsewhere in the West Bank
  3. Oops! Biden Admin Normalizes & Publicizes Settlement Wine
  4. Deeper Dives

Israeli Apartheid/Supremacy in Action: Outposts Edition

Tweet from +972 Magazine’s Haggai Matar 4/19/22:

“One of the essential problems of media coverage about Israel-Palestine is that a march of thousands of settlers on private Palestinian land, backed by armed soldiers, are not considered “violent”, whereas a Palestinian standing on their land to defend it with a stone – is”

Start of Twitter thread from Haaretz’s Hagar Shezaf 4/19/22, translated from Hebrew:

“In preparation for the settlers’ march to Homs, the military blocked all exits of the nearby Palestinian village of Burqa to Route 60, which is the main road. At the moment, palestinian vehicles on the road are also not allowed to cross at all. Photo: Saddam Salah….” )

Twitter thread from the Good Shepherd Collective 4/19/22:

“Racism and colonization in action. At least 3 Israeli MKs were photographed today in Homesh, an Israeli outpost near Burqa, north of Nablus. MK Silman was seen alongside Bezalel Smotrich, co-founder of Regavim and Itamar Ben Gvir, linked to the Israel Land Fund. The settlers marched in response to the state’s resistance to the re-colonization of this land after the evacuation of Homesh in 2005. This demonstrates the role these settler activists-turned-politicians have in accelerating the agenda of land theft. #DefundRacism…”

Media reports:

Israelis march to West Bank’s Homesh, amid tensions with Palestinians (Jerusalem Post 4/20/22)

Eight Palestinian protesters injured by Israeli soldiers as settlers march in West Bank (PBS NewsHour 4/19/22)

Israeli settlers march in West Bank amid wave of unrest (ABC News 4/19/22)

Palestinians injured after Israeli settlers march to outpost (Al Jazeera 4/19/22)

Palestinians clash with troops in West Bank as settlers march to former settlement (Times of Israel 4/19/22)

Palestinians, Israeli Forces Clash as Thousands March to Evacuated West Bank Outpost

(Haaretz 4/19/22)

Thousands plan march to dismantled West Bank settlement over IDF’s initial objection (Times of Israel 4/18/22)

 

Israeli Apartheid/Supremacy in Action: Elsewhere in the West Bank

Twitter thread from South Hebron Hills activist Basil Adra 4/20/22:

“120,000 Palestinians live in the southern city of Yatta. These people have a single municipal park and this morning ten cars of Israeli occupation forces closed it off to residents in order to allow about 40 Israeli settlers to go in the park. [with photos] In this video, the soldier expels the school students and prevents them from going to their homes, until the settlers finish talking and leave. This provocation occurred by the occupation forces and settlers in area A  [with video].”

Twitter thread from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, 4/20/22:

“Right now, on the road to Jinba in #MasaferYatta, the Israeli army has stopped five Palestinian teachers on their way to school in so-called Firing Zone 918. School has started and the soldiers refuse to answer any questions. There are eight Israeli soldiers here with assault rifles blocking the passage of Palestinian teachers carrying only books and pens. One of the soldiers with long hair and religious garb sneered at a teacher, ‘Once I’m out of my uniform, you’ll see what I can really do to you.’ He is clearly a settler doing his reserve service. The soldiers have now confiscated the car, claiming that it is unregistered (mushtuba). This regime of car registration in the occupied West Bank is yet another bureaucratic tool of Israeli state oppression, as discussed here…Some settlers drove up and started asking us solidarity activists why we were filming, and we explained the the teachers’ situation. One of settlers mocked us, saying that we were making propaganda, and then called one of us a ‘Nazi.’” [with photos & video]

Tweet from B’tselem’s Sarit Michaeli 4/20/22:

“Thousands of Jewish settlers picnic in a closed military zone (i.e. where it’s literally illegal for them to be), protected by the Israeli army. Five Palestinian villages put under lockdown and teargassed for protesting. Israeli apartheid in a nutshell.”

Tweet from B’Selem’s Sarit Michael 4/18/22

“Super important: settlers are enjoying a government cash bonanza to spy on Palestinian rural communities and harass them. Story based on @KNavot work details the state funded “unarmed settler militias” set up in area c. Worth running through google translate.”

Media reports:

IDF to impose closure on Judea and Samaria until Saturday (Jewish News Syndicate 4/21/22)

Israel closes Ibrahimi Mosque to Palestinian worshippers, holds concert for settlers (Middle East Monitor 4/19/22)

Upcoming JNF Vote Could Pave Way for More West Bank Land Purchases (Haaretz 4/18/22)

Israeli Settlers Block Reopening of West Bank Road to Palestinians After Two Decades (Haaretz 4/18/22)

 

Oops! Biden Admin Normalizes/Publicizes Settlement Wine

Media reports:

Madam Vice President: Psagot is a racist settlement (Arab News 4/20/22)

Left-wing Jewish American orgs. blast Biden admin. for serving wine from Israeli settlement (Jerusalem Post 4/18/22)

Vice President Harris Serves Israeli Settlement Wine at Passover Event (Haaretz 4/17/22)

US: Kamala Harris serves wine made in illegal Israeli settlement during Passover seder (Middle East Eye 4/17/22)

 

Deeper Dives

In Masafer Yatta, activism is not a choice but a necessity (+972 Magazine 4/21/22)

Excerpt: “… I decided to become an activist after witnessing the increasing violence of settlers in my village. I remember, for example, returning from school one day when I was in the third grade to find that a settler had chased after my uncle and his herd of goats, stabbing one of the goats 14 times. The threat of violence from the settlers of Havat Ma’on, which is illegal even under Israeli law, also extended to us children. As a result, in 2004 we started having to walk to school under military escort: instead of investigating the settlers’ crimes, Israel decided to send a military jeep twice a day to accompany the children, because that is what was necessary to protect us from the settlers. This absurd situation continues to this day.”

Confiscating Palestinian Land for a Horse Farm (Human Rights Watch 4/21/22)

Excerpt: “If the purpose of this buffer was to keep would-be assailants far from potential targets, it seems not all of Sha’arei Tikvah’s residents got the message. For years, some of them have been passing through the settlement’s original fence to operate horse farms in the buffer zone. The farms sit on land next to the barrier, which in this area consists not of a wall but a high chain-link fence. North of that fence, the Palestinian owners of the land have a clear view of Israelis riding horses among their olive trees.”

The women at the heart of Beita’s resistance (+972 Magazine 4/20/22)

Excerpt: “A general feeling of fatigue has spread under the brunt of escalating state-backed settler violence, punitive measures by the Israeli army, and a Palestinian Authority that is both rife with corruption and shows no interest in sustaining a national movement. But for the three months of round-the-clock resistance, Abu Shamsa is certain that the work of the women’s collective helped sustain the protests.”

When a Military Commander Takes Orders From Settlers (Zahava Galon/Haaretz 4/18/22)

Excerpt: “For decades, the settlers have effectively been the commanders on the ground. Company commanders frequently meet settler leaders in their sectors. Soldiers receive direct commands from settlement security coordinators.”

Professor’s saga highlights nationalists’ reach in Israel (Washington Post 4/17/22)

Excerpt: “Goldreich, 65, and hundreds of other academics signed a petition last year calling on the European Union to halt funding for Ariel University, located in the West Bank, saying it legitimized Israeli settlements. In a research partnership with the EU launched last year, Israel itself agreed not to include the university, along with other West Bank institutions.The outcry prompted the country’s then-education minister to refuse to approve the nomination, saying Goldreich may have violated a 2011 anti-boycott law, and sparked a yearlong legal battle that ended last month when the Supreme Court decided the current education minister, who had also denied Goldreich the prize, must grant it. ‘A person who calls for a boycott on an Israeli academic institution is not worthy of an official prize from the state of Israel, be his achievements what they may,’ Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton, from the nationalist New Hope party, tweeted after the ruling.“

Al-Haq Sends Urgent Appeal to UN Special Procedures on Intensified Violence against Palestinians by Colonial Settlers (Al Haq 4/14/22; text of appeal here)

Excerpt: “The appeal highlights alarming forms and levels of colonial settler violence throughout Palestine in 2021, and intensified price tag attacks in particular, after the killing of a colonial settler by allegedly two Palestinians on 16 December 2021, and recent attacks by Palestinians inside the Green Line since 27 March 2022. While increase of colonial settler attacks have been observed as acts of reprisals after the aforementioned attacks, Al-Haq stresses that colonial settler violence is a direct result of the settlement enterprise illegally initiated and expanded by the Israeli occupying authorities, and has been allowed to continue and escalate due to Israel’s systematic failure to conduct effective investigations and prosecutions of the offending colonial settlers, creating a climate of impunity, as well as the international community’s failure to bring to end Israel’s systematic violations of international law.”

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

**The regular FMEP Settlement & Annexation report is on break, and is planned to return around the first week of August. In the meantime, we are pleased to offer you links to the main settlement-related stories of the past week**

April 14, 2022

  1. Violence/Terrorism
  2. Forging Ahead with “Silicon Wadi” in East Jerusalem
  3. Israel Domestic Politics & Support for Settlements/Outposts/Annexation
  4. Spotlight on Al Walaja
  5. Deep Dive with OCHA

Violence/Terrorism

Center for Jewish Nonviolence 4/14/22: “Yesterday morning, at 2 locations in the South Hebron Hills, settlers + army respectively expeled Palestinian shepherds as they were grazing their flocks. Settlers + the army work together toward a common goal: force out Palestinian residents to make way for more Jewish settlers” [with video]

Israeli settlers assault, injure Palestinian American attending to his land (+972 Magazine 4/13/22)

Qaryut, Nablus District: Settlers filmed stealing water pipes from a farming area after driving farmers away in the presence of soldiers (B’Tselem 4/13/22)

PA officer admits to terror attack plan on Israeli settlement – report (Jerusalem Post 4/11/22)

Settlers gather on Tulkarem-Nablus road, attack Palestinian vehicles (WAFA 4/11/22)

Rare Administrative Detention for Jewish Israeli Approved by Defense Minister Gantz – The man, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, recently finished serving a year in prison for attacking a Palestinian when he was a minor (Haaretz 4/11/22)

Settlers stop Palestinian vehicles travelling on West Bank roads (Middle East Monitor 4/11/22)

Elderly Palestinian man beaten, wounded by Israeli settlers in Tulkarm (WAFA 4/9/22)

 

Forging Ahead with “Silicon Wadi” in East Jerusalem

Government approves first high-tech hub in east Jerusalem (Israel Hayom 4/10/22)

Background:

 

Israeli Domestic Politics & Support for Settlements/Outposts/Annexation

Israeli Commander Invokes ‘Promised Land’ in West Bank Op ‘Endangering Troops’ — “We get to restore the honor to this land and the people of Israel,’ regional military commander tells soldiers securing settler-led repair works at vandalized Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank amid rising tensions” (Haaretz 4/13/22)

Pro-boycott academic to donate Israel Prize grant to anti-settlement groups (YNet 4/13/22)

Bennett: It’s Judea and Samaria, not the West Bank (Jerusalem Post 4/12/22)

Israel Okays Connecting Illegal West Bank Outposts to Power Grid (Haaretz 4/12/22)

Justice Ministry greenlights connecting illegal West Bank outposts to power (Times of Israel 4/11/22)

No movement on settlement issues in Orbach’s ultimatum (Jerusalem Post 4/11/22)

Yesha Council launches campaign against Israeli government over silent settlement freeze (Jewish News Syndicate 4/8/22)

 

Spotlight on Al Walaja

In a Village Divided, Palestinians See Their Hold on Territory Eroding (New York Times 4/10/22) [“…Many of the major events that have shaped this corner of the Middle East have left their mark on Walaja — once a swath of terraced farmland with an ancient olive tree. Today, it serves as a pointed example of how decades of war, diplomatic agreements, Israeli settlement building, laws and regulations have carved up the West Bank and whittled away at territory under Palestinian control.”]

 

Deep Dive with OCHA

Occupied Palestinian territory: Protection of Civilians Report | 22 March – 4 April 2022 (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 4/11/22)

Settlement-related excerpts:

“…On 29 March, a Palestinian man from Ya’bad (Jenin) shot and killed three Israelis, including a police officer, and two foreigners, and injured others in central Israel. The assailant, who had reportedly entered Israel without a permit, was shot and killed by the abovementioned police officer, who later died of his wounds. The following day, a 30-year-old Palestinian man stabbed and injured an Israeli settler near Gush Etzion settlement block (Bethlehem) and was subsequently shot and killed by another settler. The bodies of both assailants are withheld by the Israeli authorities, as of the end of the reporting period.”

“….Overall, 441 Palestinians, including 84 children, were injured by Israeli forces across the West Bank, more than twice as many as in the previous reporting period. Most of the injuries (289) were recorded near Beita and Beit Dajan (both in Nablus), and Kafr Qaddum (Qalqiliya), in demonstrations against settlements…”

“On 27 March, Israeli settlers took over the first floor of the Petra Hotel in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Israeli Police facilitated the move, despite court cases pending since 2004. During the incident, verbal and physical confrontations between Palestinians, Israeli settlers, and Israeli forces were reported nearby, and three Palestinians were arrested.”

“Israeli settlers injured five Palestinians, and people known or believed to be settlers damaged Palestinian property in 35 instances, representing a 75 per cent increase compared with the previous reporting period. The injuries occurred in four separate incidents, when settlers physically assaulted a Palestinian man grazing livestock near Jinba (Hebron), and a man farming his land near Kafr ad Dik (Salfit) and after settlers threw stones at Palestinian vehicles near Huwwara and Deir Sharaf (both in Nablus) injuring three Palestinian men and causing damage to their vehicles. In six other incidents, about 255 Palestinian-owned trees and saplings were uprooted or vandalized near Israeli settlements next to Al Lubban ash Sharqiya (Nablus), Turmus’ayya (Ramallah), Ash Shuyukh (Hebron), and Kafr Qaddum (Qalqiliya). In eleven incidents in Ramallah, Nablus, Jerusalem, Qalqiliya, Salfit and in the Sheikh Jarrah area of East Jerusalem, Israeli settlers punctured the tires of 83 Palestinian-owned cars and attacked nine homes, causing damage to windows and wrote graffiti on the walls. Nine additional incidents were recorded in Salfit, Hebron, Ramallah, and Qalqiliya where agricultural equipment and livestock were stolen and a well and three water tanks were damaged. In another nine incidents, settlers threw stones at Palestinian vehicles near Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus causing damage to at least ten vehicles.”

“People known or believed to be Palestinians injured three Israeli settlers and damaged ten Israeli vehicles. Six Israeli settlers were injured by stone-throwing near Nablus, Ramallah and Jerusalem. Israeli-plated vehicles were damaged by stones or Molotov cocktails thrown at them in 13 incidents.”

 

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

**The regular FMEP Settlement & Annexation report is on break, and is planned to return around the first week of August. In the meantime, we are pleased to offer you links to the main settlement-related stories of the past week**

April 7, 2022

  1. Settlements at the Center of Israeli Domestic Political Upheaval
  2. Violence/Terrorism/Outposts
  3. Jerusalem
  4. Other West Bank Settlement News
  5. Further Reading

Settlements at the Center of Israel Domestic Political Upheaval

Yamina MK issues ultimatum to Bennett on remaining in coalition (Times of Israel) [Excerpt: “Orbach said Thursday he had three demands for remaining in the government: the reversal of the government’s plan to cancel daycare subsidies for yeshiva students; the convening of the planning commission to approve building plans for 4,000 new homes in the West Bank; and the connection of illegal settlement outposts to the power grid.”]

Settlements at center of coalition crisis with MK Orbach ultimatum (Jerusalem Post 4/7/22) [also see: Tweet from JPost’s Lahav Harkov (who authored the article – “So Liberman and Orbach reached an agreement on daycare subsidies for haredim. But that was never the biggest issue, and may have been a red herring. Nor is it chametz. Settlements are at the center of the coalition crisis with MK“]

In Ultimatum, Bennett Ally Demands Settlement Construction for Not Joining Netanyahu’s Opposition (Haaretz 4/7/22)

PA condemns Israel PM’s pledge to continue building settlements in West Bank (Middle East Monitor 4/6/22)

Tweet from ICG’s Mairav Zonszein 4/5/22, re-tweeting/translating tweet from @GLZRadio: “Bennett today: ‘We will continue building in Judea and Samaria [West Bank]; there will be no freeze. Things will happen as per usual.’ In other words, de facto annexation is the natural order.”

Settlers accuse Gantz of freezing plans for 4,000 West Bank homes (Jerusalem Post 4/4/22)

Settler leader threatens to petition High Court over holes in security fence (Jewish News Syndicate 4/4/22)

Israel: Justice minister says gov’t won’t cease settlement building (i24 4/3/22)

Sa’ar vows government won’t freeze settlement building (Times of Israel 4/3/22)

Israel delays approval of thousands of West Bank settlement homes (YNet 4/3/22)

Five Vehicles Set Ablaze in Palestinian Village in Suspected Hate Crime (Haaretz 3/28/22)

 

Violence/Terrorism/Outposts

Much of the daily violence by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank is being documented/reported in real time on Twitter, including threads/video) documenting settler harassment & violence against Palestinians and Israel solidarity activists (and IDF inaction/complicity). For examples, see: Basel Adra; Basel Adra, Center for Jewish Nonviolence; IMEU, Good Shepherd Collective

Jalud, Nablus District: Israeli settlers throw stones at home and burn down five cars (Report + video from B’Tselem 4/7/22)

Mikhmas, Ramallah District: Settlers documented smashing windows of house and vandalizing cars (Report + video from B’Tselem 4/5/22)

Tweet from Israel lawyer Gaby Lasky 4/5/22: “Defense Minister Gantz’s decision to plug the illegal outposts into electricity creates a de facto annexation and trains and launders tens of thousands of crimes. This is a reward for land grab and theft and a blatant breach of all coalition agreements. If anyone thinks there will be no consequences, they are wrong and they should think again” [translated from Hebrew original]

To exact ‘revenge,’ Israeli settlers wreaked havoc in my village (+972 Magazine 4/4/22)

Israeli settlers stone vehicles near Nablus-district town (WAFA 4/4/22)

Israeli settlers attack Palestinian homes in Hebron (The New Arab 4/3/22)

Israel’s Top Court Rejects Petition Calling to Halt Fundraising for West Bank Outposts (Haaretz 4/3/22)

Settlers With Firebombs Descend on a Palestinian Village at Night, Torching Cars (Haaretz 4/1/22) [“Following the terror attack in Hadera, Mohammed Abad, a resident of the West Bank village of Jalud, refused to go to sleep, fearing settlers’ revenge. He went up to his roof when he heard noises, to find his yard in flames”]

Palestine cars vandalised with smashed windows, graffiti by Israel settlers (Middle East Monitor 3/31/22)

 

Jerusalem

Mapping Out the Rapid Judaization of East Jerusalem [summarizing developments/state of play re: Atarot, Beit Safafa, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Old City, Jabal Mukkaber and Isawiyah, Walaja (Haaretz 4/6/22)

The Patriarchate of Jerusalem on the illegal seizure of the Little Petra Hotel (Orthodox Times 4/4/22)

 

Other West Bank Settlement News

14 Years Late, Israel Overcomes Leftist Resistance to Sewage Treatment Plant for Samaria Settlement (Jewish Press 4/1/22)

 

Further Reading

Meron Rapoport: The Green Line is dead. What comes next? (+972 Magazine 4/1/22)

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

**The regular FMEP Settlement & Annexation report is on break, and is planned to return around the first week of August. In the meantime, we are pleased to offer you links to the main settlement-related stories of the past week**

March 31, 2022

  1. Violence/Terrorism
  2. Jerusalem & Al-Walaja
  3. West Bank Outposts
  4. Israeli Politics
  5. Ukraine Crisis & West Bank Settlements
  6. Further Reading

Violence/Terrorism

Palestinians Report 17-year-old Scalded, Hundreds of Uprooted Trees in Spike in Revenge Attacks (Haaretz 3/31/22)

Palestine cars vandalised with smashed windows, graffiti by Israel settlers (Middle East Monitor 3/31/22)

Israeli seriously wounded in terror stabbing near West Bank settlement (Times of Israel 3/31/22)

Tweet from ICG/s Mairav Zonszein 3/30/22 (with video): “Settlers armed with clubs entered the tiny village of Tuba in south Hebron hills, vandalized cars and threw rocks at homes. While everyone is focused on terror inside Israel, this kind of terror continues unabated”

Israeli settlers attack Palestinians across West Bank after shooting (Middle East Eye 3/30/22)

Three arrested for suspected vandalism against Palestinians following terror attack & 3 settlers arrested over vandalized Palestinian cars, ‘Jewish blood isn’t cheap’ graffiti (Times of Israel 3/30/22)

Israeli settlers uproot 170 olive trees near Nablus (WAFA 3/30/22)

Israeli Settlers Burn Cars of Palestinian Families in West Bank (Al Bawaba 3/29/22)

Five Vehicles Set Ablaze in Palestinian Village in Suspected Hate Crime (Haaretz 3/28/22)

Btselem Twitter thread (with video) 3/29/22: “On Sunday, shortly after midnight, settlers entered the village of Jalud in Nablus District. They stoned a village home and set fire to five cars that burned down entirely. This was one of 15 settler violence incidents documented by B’Tselem researchers within one week.Muhammad ‘Abbad (39), a father of six, recounted: ‘While watching TV, I heard noises outside the house and something hitting the window. I immediately went up to the roof to see what was going on and saw my car and my cousins’ cars on fire and settlers running towards the Esh Kodesh settlement. I called my cousins, and together we tried to put out the fire for more than an hour but couldn’t.’ ‘We couldn’t sleep, of course. We don’t feel safe. The settlers can come to our homes at any moment and attack us.’ ‘This isn’t the first time this has happened. On top of that, there’s the financial loss. I work in construction and had a lot of tools in the car.’”

Five Vehicles Set Ablaze in Palestinian Village in Suspected Hate Crime (Haaretz 3/28/22)

Jerusalem & Al-Walaja

Demolition Freeze in al-Walaja Case Remains in Place to Allow for Further Urban Planning Progress  (Ir Amim 3/31)

Tweet from Daniel Seidemann: “The Israeli Supreme Court today deferrered further deliberations/a ruling on fate of 38 homes subject to demolition orders in the Palestinian village of Walajeh, at least until Nov 1. The Court appeared sympathetic to  residents’ planning efforts. We dodged a bullet – for now.”

3/31 thread from @EUPalestinians – “1/2EUREP, MS & like-minded states attended a meeting with the heads of churches to discuss the ongoing settler occupation of the Little Petra hotel at the entrance of the Christian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, owned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. 2/2Urge IL authorities to immediately deescalate the situation and take measures to fully protect the presence and heritage of the Palestinians and Christian community in East Jerusalem” [Also see thread in reply from B’Tselem’s Sarit Michaeli]

Greek Orthodox Church decries ‘extremist’ takeover of Jerusalem hostel (France 24 3/29/22)

Jewish Settlers Move Into Historic Building in Jerusalem’s Old City Christian Quarter (Haaretz 3/27/22)

West Bank Outposts

Settlers set up new outpost near Jericho Bedouin communities (WAFA 3/29/22)

A Huge Security Force Evacuated Two West Bank Outposts. Settlers Began Rebuilding Them the Next Day (Haaretz 3/25/22:) [also see this Twitter thread for context]

Israeli Politics

Terror attacks in Israel turn settlers against Bennett (Al Monitor 3/28/22) [Excerpt: “Disillusioned by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the leaders of the settlers are now campaigning against what they perceive as an unprecedented freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank.“]

Settlement group to launch campaign aimed at toppling the government (Times of Israel 3/27/22)

Bennett speaks of West Bank, not Judea and Samaria, irking Israeli Right (Jerusalem Post 3/27/22)

Abbas urges Blinken to press Israel on settlements, settler violence (i24 News 3/27/22)

Ukraine Crisis & West Bank Settlements

Palestinian Authority PM: Israel ‘exploiting’ Ukraine crisis to boost settlements (Israel Hayom 3/24/22)

Israeli Settlers’ Grim Offer to Ukraine’s Jewish Refugees (Haaretz 3/27/22)

Bonus Reads

In the West Bank, segregated roads displace Palestinians (Norwegian Refugee Council 3/31/22)

In Every Corner of Palestine, There Is a Story of Dispossession (The Nation/Mohamed El-Kurd 3/30/22)

The Israeli Government’s Old-New Palestine Strategy International Crisis Group/US Middle East Project (3/28/22) — settlement-related excerpt below:

“…settlement expansion continues apace. On 27 October 2021, the Civil Administration in the West Bank authorised the construction of over 3,000 housing units in 25 Israeli settlements, most of them isolated and deep inside the territory. At the same time, Gantz has not evacuated settler outposts considered illegal under Israeli law, most prominently Evyatar, with Israel’s outgoing attorney-general in February 2022 removing any legal restrictions on plans for authorising a new settlement at the location. This settlement’s establishment in May 2021 provoked recurrent protests by Palestinians in Beita, a neighbouring village, in which the Israeli military killed at least seven demonstrators.

“Israel is also advancing settlement construction. In early January, local authorities approved 3,557 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem, including a new neighbourhood that will complete a southern ring that will ‘block the potential Palestinian continuum between Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem and Bethlehem [in the West Bank]’.

“In addition, the government threatened to revive dormant plans to build in E1, an area in the West Bank adjacent to the large settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem’s east, which would divide the West Bank in half, severing north from south (that plan has been shelved for now, partly thanks to U.S. pressure). In the nine months since the Bennett-Lapid coalition assumed power, in addition to advancing new settlement plans, Israel began construction of a new settlement in Hebron, allocated significant new funds to settlements and started work on a new underpass designed to enable settlements’ growth by streamlining travel between them and Israel.

“The government has built on its predecessors’ legacy of West Bank settlement, propelled by a powerful settler movement that has been able to expand Israeli settlements, due to official support but also lack of effective opposition, and even without cabinet consensus behind a specific settlement plan. This dynamic finds its expression in master plans for roads and infrastructure, including piped water and sewage, that in turn enable construction of more settler housing in the West Bank and especially in and around Jerusalem, making a two-state solution increasingly difficult to envision.

“An Israeli expert on the master plans described them, overall, as ‘a one-state plan based on a single grid with integrated infrastructure. … A single sovereign takes all decisions in the territory between the [Jordan] river and the [Mediterranean] sea, and has integrated its bureaucracy in order to do so’.

“Tellingly, the plans’ issuing authority is Israel’s transport ministry, which has no jurisdiction in the occupied territories under international law; in the past, Israel’s military-civil government handled infrastructure development there.

“At the same time, the West Bank has seen an increase in settler aggression against Palestinians and their property, including during the October-November olive harvest.

“Settlers have acted with apparent impunity as the Israeli army largely stands by. Between 3 and 16 October 2021, the Israeli rights group Yesh Din recorded at least eighteen incidents of settler violence or vandalism, while B’tselem documented the destruction of at least 1,500 trees, mostly olive trees. The army has also periodically barred Palestinians from access to their land by declaring certain areas closed military zones. On 21 January 2022, a group of settlers armed with clubs attacked Palestinian villagers and Israeli rights activists who were planting trees in the West Bank village of Burin, leaving at least seven people injured. Israeli Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev, deviating from Prime Minister Bennett’s undivided support of settlers, called the incident ‘organised activity by a terror group’ (and was castigated by most governing coalition members for doing so). 

“Occupied East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood continues to be a major flashpoint, with frequent confrontations between Palestinian residents, on one side, and settlers and Israeli police, on the other, as Israeli efforts to uproot Palestinians continue. In October 2021, Israel’s Supreme Court, apparently understanding the gravity of the protests and the intense international pressure, postponed ruling on a lower court’s eviction order and instead offered the families concerned a ‘compromise, allowing them to remain in their home as tenants for fifteen years but without ownership rights. The families rejected the proposed deal; in early March, the court suspended the evictions. In January 2022, in another part of Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli forces evicted a family and demolished their home to make way for a court-approved municipal plan to build a school. In a third case, a family faced a court eviction order that was scheduled to be carried out in March, but in February the Jerusalem Magistrate Court froze it, ostensibly following police concerns about the timing, just ahead of Ramadan and amid persistent tensions. 

“…Related events in Sheikh Jarrah have added fuel to the fire, however. In mid-February, far-right Knesset Member Itamar Ben Gvir reopened a makeshift office in the neighbourhood, claiming he was there to protect the settlers amid police passivity. Ben Gvir’s action provoked renewed protests and clashes, including a physical altercation between Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi and Jerusalem’s pro-settler deputy mayor, Arieh King. Israeli police used skunk water, tear gas and stun grenades to disperse Palestinian protesters, injuring at least fourteen, conducting arbitrary arrests and attacking journalists for trying to report on events at the scene. Police also arrested several Israeli settlers. A few days later, police forcibly dispersed Palestinians and Israelis protesting the evictions. In nearby Silwan, a hundred Palestinian families are also under threat of eviction on similar pretences.”

 

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

**The regular FMEP Settlement & Annexation report is on break, and is planned to return around the first week of August. In the meantime, we are pleased to offer you links to the main settlement-related stories of the past week**

March 24, 2022

  1. Illegal Outposts & Settler Terrorism
  2. Israeli Government Actions/Policies
  3. Planned Mass Demolitions in Al-Walaja Village
  4. South Hebron Hills
  5. UN Special Rapporteur Weighs in on Settlements & Apartheid
  6. Further Reading

Illegal Outposts & Settler Terrorism

Israel Jewish settlers escalate aggression against Palestinians in West Bank (Middle East Monitor 3/24/22)

Time to Put an End to Nationalist Service Volunteers at Illegal West Bank Outposts (Haaretz editorial 3/23/22)

Settlers cancel meeting with Gantz over outpost razing, planning freeze (Jerusalem Post 3/22/22)

IDF mapped out West Bank Homesh yeshiva for demolition, politicians warn (Jerusalem Post 3/22/22)

Security forces raze buildings at two illegal West Bank outposts (Times of Israel 3/22/22)

Important Twitter thread from B’Tselem’s Sarit Michaeli re demolitions in outposts:

“The Israeli authorities demolished 8 structures in two settlement outposts east of Ramallah. A few points: This is all privately owned, registered Palestinian land. The authorities aren’t doing anyone any favours. The settlers are apparently already rebuilding the structures. Activists have informed the Civil Administration. This seems like a “show demolition” to pretend the authorities are enforcing the law equally on settlers and Palestinians. But this is not a symmetric situation. All settlements are illegal and the outposts constructed in this area in recent years have served as base camps for violent attacks against Palestinian herding communities. Much of the construction of these outposts is directly or indirectly state funded. The settler lobby will also utilize the demolition in order to self victimize, in order to extract as much political capital from Bennet and Gantz, for a measure which will have very little impact on the general expansion of violent outposts in the area (because so limited). We should also be prepared for revenge attacks by settlers against Palestinian communities in the area, a common tactic known as “price tag”. For as long as Israel funds and sends soldiers to guard the more than 50 agricultural and herding outposts established in the past decade, that have taken over vast areas in the West Bank through the use of violence, this demolition is little more than a performance.”

Israeli Government Actions/Policies

Israeli Troops’ New Quota: Add 50 Palestinians to Tracking Database Every Shift (Haaretz 3/24/22)

Al-’Auja, Jordan Valley: Israel demolishes house under construction and confiscates community residents’ bulldozer (B’Tselem 3/23/22)

West Bank settler housing starts up 96%, but planning frozen (Jerusalem Post 3/21/22)

Israel demolishes homes of four families in East Taybah (Badu al-Mu’arrajat), leaving 21 people homeless (B’Tselem 3/20/22)

Military rolls out ‘terrorist infiltration’ phone alert for West Bank settlements (Times of Israel 3/19/22)

Planned Mass Demolitions in al-Walaja Village

Decisive Supreme Court Hearing Concerning 38 Homes in al-Walajeh to Take Place on March 30 (Ir Amim & Bimkom Report 3/21/22)

Members of Congress protest:

South Hebron Hills

Unshattered – Palestinian herders struggling under military occupation and settler violence – A photo essay from the Hebron hills. (UN/OCHA 3/23/22)

South Hebron Hills: Israel confiscates prefab used as gas station, and storage and destroys agricultural terraces, uprooting 60 olive trees (B’Tselem 3/22/22)

Palestinians in rural West Bank without water as Israel supplies settlements (The National 3/21/22) [also see: Abbas urges end to Israel’s looting of Palestinian water (Al Anadolu 3/22/22)]

When the Judge Ruling on the Fate of Palestinians Is Himself a Settler (Haaretz 3/22/11)

Coming face-to-face with the man who destroys Palestinian homes (+972 Magazine 3/20/22)

Also see: tweets from Basel Al-Adra documenting regular (daily/weekly) Israeli military operations against Palestinians living in Massafer Yatta

UN Special Rapporteur Weighs in on Settlements & Apartheid

Settlement Expansion Fuelling Violence in Occupied Palestinian Territory, Middle East Peace Process Special Coordinator Warns Security Council (UN – report from the UN Security Council 3/22/22)

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (Advance Unedited Version). Includes a great deal relating to settlements and settlers, and weighs in at length on the issue of apartheid, including:

  1. Is this situation now apartheid? Applying each of the three steps of the amalgamated test from the Convention Against Apartheid and the Rome Statute, the Special Rapporteur has concluded that the political system of entrenched rule in the occupied Palestinian territory which endows one racial-national-ethnic group with substantial rights, benefits and privileges while intentionally subjecting another group to live behind walls, checkpoints and under a permanent military rule “sans droits, sans égalité, sans dignité et sans liberté” satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the existence of apartheid.
  1. First, an institutionalized regime of systematic racial oppression and discrimination has been established. Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs in East Jerusalem and the West Bank live their lives under a single regime which differentiates its distribution of rights and benefits of the basis of national and ethnic identity, and which ensures the supremacy of one group over, and to the detriment of, the other. (The Palestinian Authority exercises restricted jurisdiction and provides services in limited parts of the West Bank that Israel has no interest in delivering.) The differences in living conditions and citizenship rights and benefits are stark, deeply discriminatory and maintained through systematic and institutionalized oppression.
  1. Second, this system of alien rule has been established with the intent to maintain the domination of one racial-national-ethnic group over another. Israeli political leaders, past and present, have repeatedly stated that they intend to retain control over all of the occupied territory in order to enlarge the blocs of land for present and future Jewish settlement while confining the Palestinians to barricaded population reserves. This is a two-sided coin: Israel’s plans for more Jewish settlers and larger Jewish settlements on greater tracts of occupied land cannot be accomplished without the expropriation of more Palestinian property together with harsher and more sophisticated methods of population control to manage the inevitable resistance. Under this system, the freedoms of one group are inextricably bound up in the subjugation of the other.
  1. And third, the imposition of this system of institutionalized discrimination with the intent of permanent domination has been built upon the regular practice of inhuman(e) acts. Arbitrary and extra-judicial killings. Torture. The violent deaths of children. The denial of fundamental human rights. A fundamentally flawed military court system and the lack of criminal due process. Arbitrary detention. Collective punishment. The repetition of these acts over long periods of time, and their endorsement by the Knesset and the Israeli judicial system, indicates that they are not the result of random and isolated acts but integral to Israel’s system of rule.
  1. This is apartheid. It does not have some of the same features as practiced in southern Africa; in particular, much of what has been called ‘petit apartheid’ is not present. On the other hand, there are pitiless features of Israel’s ‘apartness’ rule in the occupied Palestinian territory that were not practiced in southern Africa, such as segregated highways, high walls and extensive checkpoints, a barricaded population, missile strikes and tank shelling of a civilian population, and the abandonment of the Palestinians’ social welfare to the international community. With the eyes of the international community wide open, Israel has imposed upon Palestine an apartheid reality in a post-apartheid world.

Sample of coverage of the new UN report:

UN must hold Israel guilty of crimes of apartheid, investigator says (Jerusalem Post 3/23/22)

Israel is committing apartheid, says UN Special Rapporteur (Amnesty International 3/23/22)

UN Human Rights Council report accuses Israel of apartheid (Times of Israel 3/23/22)

Bonus Reads

Israeli settlers seize Palestinian house in Jerusalem’s Silwan after alleged purchase (The New Arab 3/24/22)

10,000 Americans call for boycott of General Mills over its East Jerusalem factory  (Middle East Monitor 3/24/22)

Where refugees become settlers (+972 Magazine 3/22/22)

The US should be reminded that Israel’s settlement expansion is a war crime (Middle East Monitor 3/22/22)

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

March 18, 2022

  1. Court Delays Decision on Mass Expulsion in Massafer Yatta
  2. Settlers Construct New Outpost on World Heritage Site in Battir
  3. Ma’aleh Adumim to Challenge Government of Delay of E-1 Settlement Construction
  4. This Week in Settler Terrorism
  5. U.S. Ambassador Has Harsh Words for Settlements, But Admits Some Construction Will Proceed
  6. Further Reading

Court Delays Decision on Mass Expulsion in Massafer Yatta

On March 15th, the Israeli High Court held what was expected to be a decisive hearing regarding the fate of eight Palestinian communities facing expulsion — at the hands of the Israeli State — from a large area in the South Hebron Hills known as Massafer Yatta. This is an area that Israel declared to be a closed “firing zone” in the 1980s (known as Firing Zone 918). 

At the conclusion of this week’s hearing the Court did not issue its final ruling, but indicated it will convene another hearing in the coming months at which time it will issue its ruling. If given the green light, the forced expulsion in Massafer Yatta would constitute the largest displacement of Palestinians by Israel in decades — displacement that would be entirely illegal under international law.

This week’s court proceedings were live tweeted by the Israeli human rights group Breaking the Silence, and also covered by Palestinian journalist and activist Basel al-Adraa, who lives in Massafer Yatta. Adraa noted that it is “extremely likely” that the Israeli High Court will rule in favor of the State, and in so doing provide a green light (and legal cover, as far as the Israeli legal system is concerned) to the State’s plans to forcibly relocate some 1,300 people from the their homes and destroy their villages and  their unique way of life.  The State has maintained its argument that the firing zone is essential to state security, specifically for military training exercises because the terrain resembles Lebanon.

+972 Magazine, in a helpful explainer on this topic, explained why this effort to establish a pretense of legality for Israel’s actions against Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills flies in the face of international law and Israel’s obligations under treaties it has signed, writing:

“According to international law, and as detailed in treaties to which Israel is party, it is illegal to use occupied territory for a purpose that serves only the occupier and not the occupied population. In addition, international law prohibits the forcible transfer of the occupied population. The state has further claimed that one reason it needs the land in Masafer Yatta is to train soldiers for a possible war in Lebanon. But here, international law stipulates that such military use of occupied land can only be for the direct management or security needs of the occupied territory itself, making Israel’s declared purpose regarding Lebanon also illegal.”

A lawyer representing the eight communities under threat, Shlomo Lecker of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, told Reuters:

“This case is not about a firing zone, it is about taking control of land because unlike other areas, most of this land is privately owned,” said Shlomo Lecker who, along with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, is representing 200 of the Palestinian families under threat of displacement. In effect this is land expropriation without compensation.”

Basel al-Adraa wrote for +972 Magazine:

“Our expulsion from Masafer Yatta has never ceased over the last two decades. Lacking the ability to expel everyone at once, like in 1999, the army has tried to slowly dispossess us. To immiserate us until we leave. Every year, I have watched as Israeli soldiers seal our wells, cut water lines, and destroy the roads that connect our villages. The dangerous road conditions here are a constant reminder of a racist reality governed by an army that denies us our ability to live on our land legally. Even our vehicles are confiscated by soldiers when they feel like it. Our lives have become nearly impossible. We want to build families and homes, but know the army will destroy those as well.”

Settlers Construct New Outpost on World Heritage Site in Battir

In the early morning hours of March 14th, a group of settlers accompanied by Israeli soldiers set up a new outpost on a piece of land in the Palestinian village of Battir, located near Bethlehem, on land that is registered UNESCO world heritage site. Settlers reportedly moved in two caravans, a large tent, and sheep – suggesting an intent to establish a so-called agricultural outpost. The sheep pen was reportedly removed from the area on the same day it was brought in. 

Since the outpost was set up, Middle East Eye reports that Israeli soldiers have been continuously patrolling the area to prevent any Palestinians from approaching the site – and attacking those who attempt to protest the new outpost. This is the fourth time settlers have attempted to establish an outpost in the area of Battir.

An local activist from Battir, Hassan Muamer, explained the settlers strategy:

“The settlers want to connect these two outposts [the new outpost and an outpost established in 2019 in the nearby Al-Makhrour Valley] together, and confiscate hundreds of acres of land in the process..This is all part of their plan, to shorten the distance between the two outposts, confiscate more land, and eventually connect these outposts to the settlements of Har Gilo, Gilo, and Gush Etzion, creating a massive settlement bloc that extends from Jerusalem, through Bethlehem, all the way to Hebron.”

Peace Now said in a statement:

 “It is no coincidence that this illegal outpost is established while most of the public’s attention is drawn towards the war in Ukraine. The current government has already failed several times in stopping a handful of settlers in Eviatar, Homesh, and other places and has refrained from evicting illegal outposts immediately upon their establishment. The government must not fail this time, so the outpost will not be established.”

Ma’aleh Adumim to Challenge Government of Delay of E-1 Settlement Construction

The Jerusalem Post reports that the settlement council of Ma’aleh Adumim is preparing to submit an appeal against the State of Israel for delaying construction of the E-1 settlement, contending that Prime Minister Bennett and Defense Minister Gantz lack the authority to freeze the plans at this stage. The petition will be submitted to the Jerusalem Local Court, according to the report.

As a reminder, the E-1 settlement plan remains on the precipice of construction. In January 2022, the Bennett government intervened to stop a key hearing on the project. At the time, reports suggested that the political echelon had put on “indefinite hold” on the plan, largely due to U.S. pressure. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides seemed to confirm that U.S. pressure was exerted at that time to stop E-1 from moving forward, telling Peace Now recently:

“I went full board [sic] on E1… It is a very important area which if [built] could cut off any possibility of a capital for the Palestinians.”

Also as a reminder: in its current form, the E-1 plan provides for the construction of 3,412 new settlement units on a site located northeast of Jerusalem. The site is home to several Palestinian bedouin communities, including Khan al-Ahmar, which Israel has already undertaken to forcibly displace (many attempts). Long called a “doomsday” settlement by supporters of a two-state solution, construction of the E-1 settlement would sever East Jerusalem from its West Bank hinterland, preventing East Jerusalem from ever functioning as a viable Palestinian capital. It would also cut the West Bank effectively in half, isolating the northern West Bank from the southern West Bank and foreclosing the possibility of the establishment of a Palestinian state with territorial contiguity.

Israel’s “answer” to the latter criticism has long been to argue that Palestinians don’t need territorial contiguity, and that new roads can instead provide “transportational continuity.” To this end, Israel has already built the so-called “Sovereignty Road” – a sealed road that enables Palestinians to pass through, but not to enter, the E-1 area. That road is wholly under Israel’s control (meaning Israel can cut off Palestinian passage through it at any time). In January 2021, then-Prime Minister  Netanyahu promised to increase funding for the “Sovereignty Road” as part of the drive to get E-1 built.

And another reminder: there have been attempts to promote the E-1 plan since the early 1990s, but due to wall-to-wall international opposition, the plan was not advanced until 2012, when Netaynuahu ordered it to be approved for deposit for public review (a key step in the approval process), ostensibly as payback for the Palestinians seeking recognition at the United Nations. Following an outcry from the international community, the plan again went into a sort of dormancy, only to be put back on the agenda by Netanyahu in February 2020, when he was facing his third round of elections in the two years. 

Also, as a reminder: under the Trump Plan (which the Biden Administration has yet to comment on), the area where E-1 is located is slated to become part of Israel.

This Week in Settler Terrorism

On March 14th, an Israeli-licensed car drove into an IDF checkpoint, in an apparent attack, near the illegal Homesh outpost, lightly injuring two Israeli soldiers. It’s unclear what happened next, as the IDF has not said if the perpetrator – who is thought to be an Israeli settler, given the license plate on the car – was arrested. What is clear is that the IDF did not respond with lethal force, as is almost always the case when Israeli soldiers perceive themselves to be under attack by a car driven by a Palestinians.

This week’s apparent car ramming attack transpired two days after settlers from the site of the former settlement of Homesh (which is supposed to be a closed military zone) arrived at the checkpoint to stage a stone-throwing attack on Palestinian cars. The settlers ended up battling IDF soldiers who attempted to stop their terrorism. An IDF soldier subsequently filed a complaint with the Israeli police about the incident.

Elsewhere, Israel arrested two settlers on suspicion of involvement in vandalism and destruction of Palestinian property in the village of Fara’ata on March 15th. One of the detained settlers serves as the security coordinator for the Gilad outpost, and the second arrestee is a bodyguard. Following the arrest and remand of the settlers, security coordinators for various other Israeli settlements and outposts announced they will be going on strike.

It’s also worth noting that Defense Minister Benny Gantz signed an order this week to place an unnamed 21-year old settler under administration detention on suspicion of involvement with terrorism against Palestinians and Israelis. Though administrative detention is a familiar military tool used to keep Palestinians incarcerated without charge, Haaretz reports this will be the first such order signed against an Israeli since February 2020.  There are currently 490 Palestinians being held as administrative detainees according to Addameer.

The detained settler is believed to be from the Givat Ronen outpost, an outpost from which settlers attacked Palestinians and Israeli activists who were planting trees on privately owned Palestinian land near the village of Burin in the northern West Bank in January 2022. Footage of the attack shows settlers wielding clubs, throwing stones, and burning a car — in the process injuring six people. Following the attack, the Israeli authorities delivered demolition notices to five structures at the Givat Ronen outpost (also known as Sneh Ya’akov), where the attackers are believed to be illegally living. The notices were posted on January 23rd.

Subsequently, the apparently undaunted settlers attacked an IDF soldier during riots near the Givat Ronen outpost. Haaretz reports that dozens of settlers participated in the attack, which included stone throwing and tear gassing Israeli troops.

Kerem Navot – an anti-settlement watchdog – provides critical history on the Givat Ronen outpost and how violence is at the center of settlers’ drive to takeover Palestinian land, tweeting:

“The outpost of ‘Givat Ronen,’ known also as ‘Sneh Yaakov,’ is named after the man who founded it in 1998–Ronen Arusi…Givat Ronen is one of two outposts located around the isolated, violent, and extremist settlement of Har Bracha, which was established overlooking the city of Nablus in 1983. Givat Ronen is located about a kilometer south of the settlement…The two outposts surrounding this settlement (like all outposts in the West Bank) are used for the same function: to take over land surrounding the settlement. In this case, the lands of the village of Burin. The approach is simple: you build an outpost on land that was looted by the state by declaring it to be “state land”; from there you continue to take over cultivated agricultural land surrounding the outpost by way of violence ​​most of which were previously cultivated by Palestinians. In practice, as a result of the settler violence that is backed by the army, Palestinians are not able to access any of this land, or any of the land within the much larger area around the settlement covering about 5,400 dunams that this land is located in, unless they work in construction in the settlement of Har Bracha. The scumbags who carried out this pogrom below the outpost have learned this tactic well: employing murderous violence in order to increase the size of the territory that Palestinians cannot enter. They have every reason in the world to assume that in this case, as in every case, no one will bother to leverage the law against them.”

U.S. Ambassador Has Harsh Words for Settlements, But Admits Some Construction Will Proceed

Speaking to a virtual event organized by Americans Peace Now, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Nides called Israeli settlement construction “infuriating” and “stupid.” Nides, while deriding the settlement growth, conceded that the U.S cannot (or will not?) stop Israel from all settlement construction,  saying:

“We can’t do stupid things that impede us for a two-state solution…We can’t have the Israelis doing settlement growth in east Jerusalem or the West Bank. I’m a bit of a nag on this, including the idea of settlement growth – which infuriates me, when they do things – just infuriates the situation, both in east Jerusalem and the West Bank… [I] would be lying [if he said that it was possible to avert] every single house that is built. I can’t stop everything, just so we are clear.”

Bonus Reads

  1. “Major New Developments: Plans being advanced around the Old City and the Court verdict regarding Sheikh Jarrah evictions” (Terrestrial Jerusalem)
  2. “Instead of Army Service, Israel Allows People to Volunteer at Illegal West Bank Outposts” (Haaretz)
  3. “US envoy looks to bolster West Bank economy with 4G service, tech offerings” (The Times of Israel)
  4. “PA complains to US over ‘settler terrorism’” (Arutz Sheva)

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

March 11, 2022

  1. Settler Population Continues to Surge
  2. Bennet Government Delays Khan al-Ahmar Decision
  3. Major Ma’ale Adumim Settlement Expansion Advanced
  4. Palestinians Continue Weekly Protests Against Expansion of “American Road” in Jerusalem
  5. High Court to Rule on Expulsion of Palestinians in South Hebron Hills “Firing Zone”
  6. Former U.S. VP Mike Pence Hangs out with Kahanists in Hebron
  7. Further Reading

Settler Population Continues to Surge

The Israeli Ministry of Interior released new figures on the growth of the West Bank settler population over the past 13 months (January 1, 2021 through Jan 31, 2022). The data shows that growth in the Israeli settler population, which surged during President Trump’s overtly pro-settlement term in office, has continued to accelerate. This population growth follows the surge in settlement construction that took place during the Trump presidency.

The data was compiled by Yaakov Katz, who is the former Chair of the Board of Directors of the settler-run Arutz Sheva media outlet. Katz currently publishes West Bank Jewish Population Stats (a project of “Bet El Institutions”, associated with the settlement of Beit El – a settlement closely associated with Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman). The data reveals that over the reporting period:

  • The number of West Bank settlers grew to a total of 490,493 (not including the ~330,000 East Jerusalem settlers), representing a nearly 3.2% rise over 13 months. 
  • The following settlements increased their population size by over 10% over the reporting period:
    • Rechan, located in the northern West Bank;
    • Alei Zahav, located in a string of settlements stretching across the northern West Bank. Alei Zahav and its settlement neighbors create a contiguous Israeli populated areas linking Israel proper (west of the Green Line) all the way to the Ariel settlement, located in the heart of the West Bank (the eastern end of Ariel is closer to the Jordan border than to the Green Line). Notably, Alei Zahav is one of the settlements in which the “market principle” has been applied to legalize settlers theft of land recognized by Israel as belonging to Palestinians (see our July 2019 report).
    • Amichai, a brand new settlement established  by the Israeli government in 2017 and continuously expanded, located in the central West Bank;
    • Naaleh, in the central West Bank;
    • Bruchin, in the central West Bank;
    • Yitzhar, the radical and violent settlement located near Nablus in the central West Bank. The Yitzhar settlement serves as the home base of the “Hilltop Youth” settler movement;
    • Nokdim, located south east of Bethlehem;
    • Metzad-Asfar, located south east of Bethlehem;
    • Kfar Etzion, located south of Bethlehem;
    • Beit HaArava, located in the Jordan Valley;
    • Maskiot, located in the Jordan Valley;
    • Negohot, located in the South Hebron Hills;
    • Susya, located in the South Hebron Hills; 
    • Pnes Hever, located in the South Hebron Hills;
    • Sansena, located in the South Hebron Hills.

The report goes on to predict that the settler population will cross the 1 million threshold in 2046.

Bennet Government Delays Khan al-Ahmar Decision

This week the Bennett-led government asked the High Court of Justice to extend the deadline for submitting its position on the forcible relocation of the Khan al-Ahmar bedouin community (a war crime). The State was facing a March 6th court deadline (which has already been delayed once at the request of the State), and initially requested a two-day extension – which the Court granted. On March 8th, the State requested a 30-day extension, citing the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a time consuming matter for senior officials whose input is needed on the Khan al-Ahmar plan.

Regavim – the settler group behind the Court case seeking to force the government to demolish Khan al-Ahmar – slammed Bennett for the repeated delays and also stated that they might challenge the latest delay, saying: 

“As far as we know, Prime Minister Bennett has already returned from his trip to Europe, and the additional rejection request smells like smearing. We will consider appealing to the Supreme Court for a ruling.”

Prior to this most recent delay, reports suggested that the government was preparing a plan that would see the demolition of the Khan Al-Ahmar only to (bizarrely) rebuild the community some 300 meters from where it currently stands. As a reminder, the High Court has ordered the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar, which it declared to be illegally built (i.e., lacking Israeli building permits that are virtually impossible for Palestinians to obtain). 

It’s also worth recalling that the Supreme Court, in its September 2020 decision to grant the government a six-month delay, explicitly expressed its impatience to bring this matter to a close. It called the government’s request “embarrassing” and said:

“the expectation is that at the end of [the six-month] period a clear decision will be presented to this Court, after all options have been explored and exhausted. The period of mapping out alternatives and exploring courses of action is about to run its course, and what follows is the decision stage. Our aim is to conclude the hearing of this petition immediately after the [government’s updated statement] is submitted, and the plaintiff’s response is received, one way or another.”

Major Ma’ale Adumim Settlement Expansion Advanced

On March 3rd the local building committee of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement, located just east of Jerusalem, approved what is reportedly the largest settlement expansion plan in over a decade. The plan would allow for 3,300 new settlement units as well as areas for public buildings. Assuming (conservatively) an average family size of 5, this means construction for at least 16,500 new settlers. The plan will now be sent to the Israel High Planning Council for its consideration and approval. 

Ma’ale Adumim is the largest settlement by size and population. In past negotiations, Israel has always included Ma’ale Adumim and the surrounding area as one of the “settlement blocs” that would be annexed to Israel under a final agreement. The Israeli political consensus around the annexation of Ma’aleh Adumim (which has not been meaningfully challenged in past negotiations) has, by and large, resulted in the implied acceptance that expansion of Ma’ale Adumim is treated as non-controversial or not as geopolitically consequential as new units built in settlements and outposts in other locations. However, it should be emphasized that the term “settlement bloc” has no legal definition or standing — not under Israeli law, or under international law, or in the context of the Oslo agreement — and the fate of Ma’ale Adumim, like all settlements, is a matter for future negotiations. Nonetheless, the Israeli government has for years deployed the “settlement blocs” terminology in an effort to legitimize settlement expansion in areas it wants, in effect, to unilaterally take off the table for any future negotiations. For more context, see resources from Americans for Peace Now here and here.

Palestinians Continue Weekly Protests Against Expansion of “American Road” in Jerusalem

For the past month, Paelstinians have gathered in front of Jerusalem’s City Hall to protest a plan to expand the so-called “American Road” — expansion that will come at the expense of 62 residential structures that are home to 750 Palestinians in the Jabal al-Mukaber neighborhood of East Jerusalem. 

As  a reminder, the so-called “American Road” is a section of north-south highway that is meant to more seamlessly connect settlements located in the north and south of Jerusalem to one another, and to serve as a bypass for settler traffic to cut through East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods. While the road will be accessible to Palestinians (a fact touted by Israel as proof of Israeli good intentions), its clear primary purpose is to entrench Israel settlements, expand Israeli control over all of East Jerusalem, and close off Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhoods from the rest of the West Bank, thereby (further) torpedoing Palestinian hopes of one day establishing a capital in East Jerusalem. 

Israel began work on this road in June 2020, and recently completed the first phase of construction.

The second phase of construction directly threatens Palestinians, involving the demolition of 62 buildings in Jabal al-Mukhaber. According to Middle East Eye, the Jerusalem Municipality has come up with a proposal, as reported by one of the threatened homeowners:

“The municipality suggested alternatives for residents with demolition orders, but they are neither realistic nor fair, Muhammad says. The proposal stipulates erecting buildings upwards on each side of the road. In them, four stories must be exclusively allocated for parking, another four for commercial use, and only two stories for residential use, each containing four apartments. The estimated cost for each of those buildings is between 20 and 25 million shekels ($6m to $7.7m), which many Palestinians in the area can’t afford without loans.  The options left for residents are either expulsion or indebtedness. One strategy the municipality is taking is to empty the area completely of its inhabitants and replace them with commercial centres, Muhammad says. ‘They want to force the residents to resort to local or external investors, or to resort to banks to take out loans, which would mean that the landowners would only receive a single residential apartment, while the investors or banks would retain the lion’s share,’ Muhammad told MEE. ‘The Jabal al-Mukaber residents refuse this unequivocally, considering vertical building to be incompatible with the rural context to which they have grown accustomed to’.”

See Orly Noy’s reporting for a detailed history of this plan’s evolution as well as a moving portrait of some of the Palestinians who are affected by this plan.

In a deeply researched report on how infrastructure like roads is a means for settlement expansion and annexation, Breaking the Silence explains:

“While Israeli authorities justify many of the projects described in this document by claiming that they serve both the settler and the Palestinian populations in the West Bank, it is important to note that these roads are designed with Israeli, not Palestinian, interests in mind. Many of the roads that are technically open to Palestinian traffic are not intended to lead to locations that are useful to Palestinians.16 Instead, these roads are primarily designed to connect settlements to Israel proper (and thus employment and other services) via lateral roads, rather than to connect Palestinian communities to one another. Further, roads intended to connect Israeli settlements to Jerusalem (many of which are currently under construction) do not serve West Bank Palestinians outside of Jerusalem, as they are not allowed to enter Jerusalem without a permit. In addition, an extensive system of checkpoints and roadblocks allows Israel to control access to bypass roads and the main West Bank highways, and it can restrict Palestinian access when it so chooses.

This prejudice against Palestinian development is even starker when one considers that, according to an official Israeli projection, the expected Palestinian population in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) in 2040 is 4,600,000 individuals. Even if the vision of settler leaders to arrive at 1,000,000 settlers is realized by 2040, the Palestinian population would still be four times the size of the settler one. Despite this discrepancy, priority is still given to settler infrastructure development.

West Bank road and transportation development creates facts on the ground that constitute a significant entrenchment of the de facto annexation already taking place in the West Bank and will enable massive settlement growth in the years to come. By strengthening Israel’s hold on West Bank territory, aiding settlement growth, and fragmenting Palestinian land, this infrastructure growth poses a significant barrier to ending the occupation and achieving an equitable and peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

High Court to Rule on Expulsion of Palestinians in South Hebron Hills “Firing Zone”

On March 15th, the Israeli High Court is expected to issue a ruling on the mass expulsion of 12 Palestinian communities in the Massafer Yatta region of the South Hebron Hills. These 12 villages are located on land that Israel declared a “firing zone” – Firing Zone 918 – in the early 1980s. Palestinian and Israeli activists have launched an international campaign to bring attention to the matter in the hopes of stopping the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their land.

In a recent article for +972 Magazine, Ali Awad – a journalist and activist from Massafer Yatta – contrasted the plight of his community to the success of chicken farms established by settlers on nearby land, writing:

“In Umm al-Khair, we find it especially absurd that the chicken farms have better infrastructure than our residents. We suffer from a constant lack of water and are prevented from connecting to the electricity grid; the farms, meanwhile, have constant access to water, and are not only permanently connected to electricity but also have backup generators in case of an emergency. Seeing the electricity lines pass directly over our village is a constant reminder that the animals get rights that we as Palestinians are deliberately denied. More importantly, we know that building these farms in Masafer Yatta is yet another strategy of the occupation to displace us Palestinians from our homes, and is no less dangerous than its policy of declaring 12 of our villages as falling under Firing Zone 918 — thereby sanctioning our displacement. Israel is even still using the outdated Ottoman Land Code in the occupied territories to transfer Palestinian pasture into “state land,” which it then leases to settlers in order to establish other kinds of farms.  They are multiple laws and policies, but they all serve one goal: to take over Palestinian land.”

Over the past months, FMEP has hosted a series of webinars and podcasts highlighting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Massafer Yatta, including:

Former U.S. VP Mike Pence Hangs out with Kahanists in Hebron

During his visit to Israel this week, former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence found time to meet with far-right settler leaders including Kahanist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir while visiting the Tomb of the Patriarchs/al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, a city that is perhaps the clearest example of Israeli apartheid policies. 

According to the Hebron Fund (the U.S. 501c3 charity that raises funds for the Hebron settlers), Pence was accompanied by Simon Falic (Duty-Free America), who is a major supporter of the Hebron settlers. Photos showed Pence also accompanied by Baruch Marzel, the former right-hand man of the Kach party’s Rabbi Meir Kahane. For extra fun, here’s video of Marzel introducing Pence to Ben-Gvir, who Marzel says “represents us in the Knesset.” Pence shakes Ben-Gvir’s hand and says: “stay strong – we’ll stand with you… It’s my great honor.” Falic is also visible in the video.

During his time in Israel, Pence also received an honorary degree (alongside former U.S. Ambassador David Friedman) from Ariel University, at a ceremony held at the settlement. During the ceremony, Pence made his thoughts on settlements clear, saying:

“It’s great to be here in Ariel. I’m told that some people say that you shouldn’t go to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. I obviously have a different opinion.”

Pence also received an award from a group of Evangelical supporters in recognition of his support for Israel. That ceremony was held in Jerusalem. Many speculate that Pence is prepping for a run for the 2024 Republican nomination for the presidency, and making stops in Israel to court the Evangelical vote.

As a reminder, the parties associated with the now deceased Rabbi Meir Kahane – Kach and Kahane Chai – are U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations. Ben Gvir’s political party, Otzma Yehudit, is a clear present-day incarnation of those parties and is devoted to Meir Kahane’s teachings. For more on Kahanism in Israel, please see “Mainstreaming the Extreme: How Meir Kahane’s Vision of Jewish Supremacy Conquered Israeli Politics” and FMEP webinar hosted in March 2021 featuring Amjad Iraqi (+972 Magazine), Shaul Magid (author & Dartmouth College professor), Natasha Roth-Rowland (University of Virginia) in conversation with Lara Friedman (FMEP).

Bonus Reads

  1. “Editorial | Jewish Settlers in La La Land” (Haaretz)
  2. “ Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Weekly Update, March 3 – 9, 2022)” (PCHR)

Welcome to FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, covering everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week.

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

March 4, 2022

  1. Israeli High Court Temporarily Freezes Evictions of Four Sheikh Jarrah Families, Will Revisit Land Ownership Claims
  2. Plan to Expand National Park onto Church-Owned Land in Jerusalem Back on Agenda
  3. Israel to Advance Plan to Expand Mount Scopus Slopes National Park in Jerusalem
  4. High Court Says Settlements are a Significant Part of (and Benefit to) Israel’s “Security Doctrine” & Refuses to Return Land to Palestinians
  5. Israel Advances Plan to Build Tourist Promenade Over Muslim Cemetery Along Jerusalem’s Old City Walls
  6. New Report on Israel’s Collective Punishment of Beita As Palestinian Protests Against Evyatar Outpost Continue
  7. Further Reading

Israeli High Court Temporarily Freezes Evictions of Four Sheikh Jarrah Families, Will Revisit Land Ownership Claims

On March 1st, a three-judge panel of the Israeli High Court issued an order to temporarily freeze the eviction of four Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. With this new decision, the High Court granted the Al-Qasim, El-Kurd, Iskafi, and Jaouni families the right to appeal decades worth of previous decisions by lower courts that recognized settler ownership of the land on which they live. The High Court ruled that final ownership of the land has not been determined and must be revisited, and that until that determination is made (via the settlement of title and registration processes), the families are permitted to remain in their homes as legally “protected tenants,” paying rent into an escrow account managed by lawyers involved in the case – funds that won’t go to the settlers who claim ownership unless and until the title and registration processes conclude that the land does, in fact, belong to the settlers.

Haaretz reports that the Court’s decision in these four cases has the potential to affect the proceedings of 13 other cases of settler-led expulsion in Sheikh Jarrah, and comes just one week after a decision by a lower Israeli Court to temporarily delay the eviction of the Palestinian Salem family from their Sheikh Jarrah home in favor of settlers, fearing renewed violence. Taken together, the Courts may be attempting to calm tensions in Sheikh Jarrah and across East Jerusalem. — tensions that have been mounting in anticipation of the Salem family eviction, with the deliberate provocation of a Kahanist Member of Knesset who established his “office” in Sheikh Jarrah; and with the upcoming convergence of major religious holidays (Ramadan, Easter, and Passover). As a reminder, the four cases revisited this week provided a significant spark for the Palestinian Unity Intifada that unfolded in 2021 and ultimately led to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

In response to the Court’s decision, a group representing Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah issued the following statement:

“The battle to solidify our rights in our lands and our homes is far from over – rather, it has started anew. The Occupation authorities weaponize ‘land settlement and registration’ as a tool to control land in occupied Jerusalem. We reaffirm: our cause is righteous and we will continue our fight. We know we will not receive justice from Israeli Occupation courts. Rather, we count on the population and global movements that have accomplished the unprecedented feat of forcing the court to cancel the imminent expulsion. Yet, the threat of dispossession is still looming over our community. Through this decision, the Occupation’s Supreme Court imposed on the four families the status of ‘protected tenant,’ a special legal status in which families deposit an annual amount to a trust account held by the lawyers until the ‘title settlement and registration’ procedures are complete. However, such procedures can take anywhere between months to years. Therefore, we must rely on continual and persistent grassroots efforts until this battle is officially over and our families – and all Palestinian families – can live in their homes without fear of exulsion.”

As a reminder: With its annexation of  East Jerusalem following the 1967 war, Israel suspended the process of land registration and settlement of title in East Jerusalem. Israeli lawmakers have pointedly stated over the past two years their intentions to reinitiate these processes, and reports have suggested that Israel has begun to do so – secretively – in Sheikh Jarrah. The launching of an Israel-run process of registering ownership of land in East Jerusalem land will have far-reaching consequences for Palestinians, who have not had a formal, legal avenue for registering land ownership with the Israeli government since East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel in 1967 – meaning, for example, that if a property owner has died, his/her heirs have had no legal way to register as the current owners. As a consequence, such a process is liable to be used against Palestinians by settlers.

Plan to Expand National Park onto Church-Owned Land in Jerusalem Back on Agenda

Despite reports last week that Israel has abandoned a highly controversial and sensitive plan to expand the boundaries of the Jerusalem Walls National Park to include privately owned Palestinian land as well as land owned by major Christian churches on which sits prominent holy sites, Israeli planning authorities are (once again) scheduled to take up a discussion of the plan at two meetings scheduled for August 24th and 31st . The discussion of this plan proceeded despite reports last week that consideration of the plan was being tabled following widespread outcry by the heads of major Christian denominations, who linked the plan to ongoing efforts by Israeli settlement organizations to “minimize…any non-Jewish characteristics of the Holy City.”

Peace Now said in a statement:

“This plan is part of a process of transforming the symbolic, religious, and political import of the Old City Basin by augmenting the Jewish religious and national significance of this area while eroding the multi-religious and multi-cultural nature of the space and blurring the Palestinian presence in its bounds. This plan is not justified from a planning perspective and is of no value to the protection of historical assets. Its sole purpose (alongside other discriminatory laws and policies) is to serve a religious right-wing agenda for the Old City Basin. It is a cynical misuse of heritage and environment protection discourse as a tool for justifying settlement expansion, restricting Palestinian development, and further entrenching Israeli sovereignty. The current plan should be canceled and in its place the Israeli government should promote a plan to reduce the size of the National Park Surrounding the Old City Walls in a way that does not include Wadi Hilweh and al-Hizbe in the National Park’s boundaries, hereby allowing them to develop into equitable urban neighborhoods. Such development can be done in a way that will not harm the landscape and the visibility of the Old City Walls. This should be done while simultaneously promoting implementable and adequate urban plans for these areas.”

Israel to Advance Plan to Expand Mount Scopus Slopes National Park in Jerusalem

On March 1st the Jerusalem District Planning & Construction Committee met to hear objections to a plan that, if approved, would significantly expand the borders of the Mount Scopus Slopes National Park to include land that is currently open space between the Palestinian neighborhoods of al-Isawiyyah and A-Tur. This move would isolate those neighborhoods and restrict their growth. Notably, the designation of  this land as an  Israeli national park would extend Israeli control  from the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus ever more solidly towards the area designated for the construction of the E-1 settlement.

As a result of the hearing, the Jerusalem District Planning & Construction Committee said it will convene another hearing on the matter, but did not set a date and noted that it will be a closed meeting, not open to the public. This plan is in the final  stages of the approval process

Ir Amim explains the history and significance of this plan:

“The National Park plan was initiated over a decade ago, however, essentially frozen since 2014. From the outset, the plan was intended to block any expansion of the adjacent Palestinian neighborhoods who already suffer from acute housing shortages, overcrowding and an ongoing planning stranglehold. In addition to its severe implications on Palestinian housing and development rights, this National Park would enable Israel to create further territorial contiguity between Jerusalem and the E1/Maaleh Adumim area, while increasing fragmentation of the Palestinian space. Together, these measures further erode conditions for any agreed political resolution in the future. The Mount Scopus Slopes plan must be seen within the context of the INPA’s recent attempts to advance an extension of the National Park around the Old City Walls. While the plans are technically separate, if the dots are connected, it essentially extends the emerging ring of Israeli control around the Old City Basin, marked with a constellation of national parks, settler enclaves, and touristic settlement sites.”

High Court Says Settlements are a Significant Part of (and Benefit to) Israel’s “Security Doctrine” & Refuses to Return Land to Palestinians

In a ruling issued February 28, 2022, the Israeli High Court rejected an appeal filed by the Palestinian Muncipality of Hebron challenging the Israeli military’s 1980 seizure of land for “security purposes.” The land in question previously served as Hebron’s central bus station, and is located in the heart of the Old City of Hebron on Shuhada Street – the main road leading to the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tomb of the Patriarchs that in the wake of the 1994 massacre of Palestinians at prayer in the Ibrahimi Mosque, by an American-Israeli settler, has been completely or mostly off-limits to Palestinians.

In making this ruling, the author of the Court’s opinion, Justice Alex Stein, dismissed legal objections against the questionable process by which Israel made parts of the land – originally seized for “security purposes” – available for settlement construction. In doing so, he overturned High Court precedent (dating back to 1979) to assert that, in the view of the High Court today, building and maintaining civilian settlements in the West Bank is part and parcel of Israel’s security doctrine, saying:

“A Jewish civilian presence constitutes part of the regional security doctrine of the Israel Defense Forces in the area. This is because the presence of citizens of the country who hold the seized property makes a significant contribution to the security situation in that same area, and makes it easier for the army to carry out its mission.”

According to Haaretz, the legal argument that settlements are a valid security mechanism has not been tested in the Courts since it was rejected in the Elon Moreh settlement case. The Haaretz Editorial Board bluntly wrote: 

“Stein is turning back the legal clock and claiming that a settlement is a security asset.”

Background: 

  • The land in question is located in the Israeli-controlled H-2 area of Hebron (where approximately 500 Israeli settlers live amongst around 40,000 Palestinians). Israel seized this land in the 1980s, from the Hebron Municipality, for “military purposes.” 
  • In 2007, the Civil Administration’s Legal Advisor issued an opinion stating that once Israel is done using the land for military purposes, it must be returned to the Hebron Municipality, which has protected tenancy rights to the land. 
  • Nonetheless, in 2015, the Israeli Civil Administration, with the consent of the Minister of Defense, quietly authorized the Housing Ministry to plan the area for Israeli settlement use, paving the way for that same ministry to subsequently present a plan for the 31 settlement units. 
  • In October 2018, with legal challenges to Israel’s using the land for settlements still pending, the Israeli Cabinet voted to expedite the planning of the new settlement and allocated approximately $6.1 million (NIS 22 million) for the project, which will require Israel to significantly renovate the bus station/military base in order to build the 31 new settlement housing units, as well as a kindergarten, and “public areas” for the new settler residents. This is a new settler enclave in the city and is, in effect, a new urban settlement, disconnected from already existing settlements in the city. It will be the first new settlement construction approved in downtown Hebron – where Palestinians already live under apartheid conditions – since 2002.
  • Notwithstanding the ongoing legal battle over the land, Israel went ahead and began construction on the new settlement at the site back in October 2021.
  • The Palestinians’ appeal – rejected on 2/28/22 by the High Court – argued that the State’s actions in recent years prove that the land was not seized for security purposes at all, but rather for the political purpose of expanding settlements in Hebron. The High Court rejected this argument, affirming that this Court – in effect – views the building settlements as, ipso facto, a security purpose for the State of Israel. 

Peace Now explained the significance of the States actions to build a settlement on this land, a move that the Court has now approved: 

“The approval of the building permit in the heart of Hebron is an extraordinary move not only because it is a new settlement in Hebron for the first time since 2001, but because it indicates a significant change in Israeli legal interpretation of what is allowed and forbidden in occupied territory. The area in question was owned by Jews before 1948, and it was leased by the Jordanian government in protected tenancy to the Hebron municipality for the purpose of establishing the central bus station. Since 1967, the Israeli authorities managed the land and continued the lease to the Hebron municipality, until in the 1980s when the area was seized for military purposes, the bus station was closed and a military base was established there. A legal opinion of the Judea and Samaria Attorney General on the issue in 2007 emphatically stated that by law the municipality’s protected lease must not be revoked.”

Israel Advances Plan to Build Tourist Promenade Over Muslim Cemetery Along Jerusalem’s Old City Walls

Map by Haaretz

Haaretz reports that the Jerusalem District and Planning Committee – with the support of the Israeli Minister of Environmental Protection Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) – has rejected appeals by the Muslim Waqf to stop plans to build a new promenade for tourists on land which is owned by the Waqf and that is part of a Muslim cemetery, located just outside the northeast corner of Old City Walls of Jerusalem. In October 2021, human remains were found in this area.

According to Sami Arshid, a lawyer representing the Waqf, the land in question has been leased by the Waqf for more than a century to successive regimes controlling Jerusalem (Turkish, British, Jordanian, Israeli). But in 2018, Arshid reports that Israel stopped paying rent and instead began advancing plans to build on the area. Though the Israel Nature and Parks Authority said in a statement that Israel does not plan to formally expropriate the land (it will merely build upon it without the consent of its owners), the planning committee said that it was important to advance the plan “without reference to those who hold rights within it.” 

Arshid told Haaretz:

“This plan was born in sin. It deprives the owners of the land of their rights and infringes on people’s basic rights as well as harming the delicate balance in the fabric around the Old City. The planned project also harms the Old City walls and the world heritage of the place.”

New Report on Israel’s Collective Punishment of Beita As Palestinian Protests Against Evyatar Outpost Continue

B’Tselem has published a new report documenting the death and violence surrounding the ongoing saga of the Evyatar outpost, which was built illegally by Israeli settlers on land known to Palestinians and Mount Sabih – just south of Nablus. The outpost has sparked sustained protests led by Palestinians demanding the outpost be removed and the land returned, protests which have been violently suppressed by the Israeli military. Seven Palestinians have died and many dozens have been injured as a result.

B’Tselem writes on the other means by which the Israeli military is punishing Palestinian resistance:

“In addition to implementing a lethal open-fire policy, Israeli security forces have arrested dozens of town residents since the protests began. To wear down the protesters, the military closed off the main entrance to the town for a month and a half, and military bulldozers blocked and dug up agricultural roads leading to the demonstration flashpoints, damaging about a kilometer of agricultural terraces and some 2,000 trees about a kilometer away from the outpost. The deputy council head of Beita told B’Tselem that Israel revoked the work permits of about 150 residents. Soldiers also used severe violence against Israeli protesters who came to the demonstrations to show solidarity with the Palestinian protesters, and arrested them on false pretenses. Evyatar was established on Palestinian land – not on the private initiative of several settlers, but as part of Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank, with the full cooperation of all the relevant Israeli authorities. However, the state is not content with appropriating the land and building a settlement there. It also insists on forbidding the Palestinian residents from protesting these acts and forcibly prevents any attempt at resistance — including with lethal force. Let us reiterate: the establishment of settlements is illegal under international law, and the International Criminal Court in the Hague is currently investigating Israel’s policy on the matter. Israel’s choice to prevent area residents from protesting the establishment of Evyatar, to implement a lethal open-fire policy in circumstances that do not endanger soldiers’ lives, and to uphold this policy even after its fatal outcomes have become clear – adds insult to injury.”

Bonus Reads

  1. “Eight Settlers Arrested for Attacking Soldiers, Palestinians Near Illegal West Bank Outpost” (Haaretz)
  2. “Israeli army blocking activists from calling ‘hotlines’ to report settler violence” (+972 Magazine)
  3. “Israel Surpasses 1,000 Demolitions in the Occupied West Bank Since Joe Biden Took Office” (The Intercept)