Settlement & Annexation Report: March 24, 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**

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)

 

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.

February 25, 2022

  1. The Israeli Plans to Expand “National Park” Onto Church (& Palestinian) Property in East Jerusalem
  2. Israel Freezes Salem Family Eviction in Sheikh Jarrah
  3. U.S. Ambassador Nides Reiterates His No-Visiting-Settlements Policy, Invites Settlers to Meet with Him
  4. Further Reading

The Israeli Plans to Expand “National Park” Onto Church (& Palestinian) Property in East Jerusalem

News broke this week that the Jerusalem Local Planning Committee was scheduled to take up at its April 10th meeting a plan to take control of more land in East Jerusalem – including church-owned land on the Mt. of Olives, where many sacred Christian sites are located, as well as privately-owned Palestinian land. Following widespread outcry, the Israeli government postponed (but by no means permanently abandoned) the Committee’s consideration of the plan, after the Israeli National Parks Authority, which has authority over the initiative, announced that the plan is no longer considered ready for discussion.

Map by Haaretz

First reported by Terrestrial Jerusalem, the plan was initiated over a year ago and outlines a significant expansion of the boundaries of the territory designated as the “Jerusalem Walls National Park” — to add land on the Mt. of Olives, in the Ben Hinnom Valley, and in the Kidron Valley. Christian church leaders (who are already in conflict with the Israeli government over settler actions) immediately protested, with the heads of three major Christian churches – the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, the Catholic Custos Francesco Patton and the Armenian Patriarch Nurhan Manougian –  writing an unusually pointed letter to Israeli Minister of Environmental Protection Tamar Zandberg (Meretz), stating:

“In recent years we cannot help but feel that various entities are seeing to minimize, not to say eliminate, any non-Jewish characteristics of the Holy City by attempting to alter the status quo on this holy mountain. They have failed due to the objection and lack of cooperation from the Churches. After their attempts failed, they resorted to statutory powers by advancing a plan to declare vast parts of the mountain as a national park…This is a brutal measure that constitutes a direct and premeditated attack on the Christians in the Holy Land, on the churches and on their ancient, internationally guaranteed rights in the Holy City. Under the guise of protecting green spaces, the plan appears to serve an ideological agenda that denies the status and rights of Christians in Jerusalem.”

In addition to the impact on church-owned properties, the plan has enormous significance for the viability and contiguity of Palestinians in Jerusalem, as Terrestrial Jerusalem explained:

“The ramifications of this plan are not routine. While the ringing of the Old City on the north and the south is proceeding apace by means of settlement expansion in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, respectively, the expansion of the National Park will remove the remaining obstacles for the development of settlement-related activities to the East. By doing so, it will complete the total encirclement of the Old City by means of settlements and settlement-related projects that are fragmenting the Christian and Palestinian expanses in the visual basin surrounding it.”

Terrestrial Jerusalem then predicted, correctly: 

“the Plan will no doubt be interpreted as part of a systematic Israeli policy that seeks to engrave the increasingly hegemonic Jewish-Biblical narrative of East Jerusalem settlers on the landscape surrounding the Old City. This will marginalize both the Christian and Islam equities in that landscape.”

Indeed, the Israeli government has already outsourced a significant part of the operations of the Jerusalem Walls National Park to the settler group Elad, specifically in the Silwan neighborhood where Elad is establishing touristic settlements while waging a house-by-house campaign to evict Palestinians from their homes in favor of Jewish Israeli settlers. 

Regarding the relationship between (and goals of) the Israeli government and Elad, Terrestrial Jerusalem explains:

“For many years, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (“the INPA”) together with other similar governmental bodies, such as the Israel Antiquities Authority, served as the long arm and subcontractors of the East Jerusalem settler organizations. The objective of these symbiotic relationships are clear and coherent:

– encompassing of the Old City through settler-controlled built-up areas, national and municipal parks and trails towards the end of securing the territorial integration of the Old City and its visual basin into the borders of pre-1967 Israel;

– creating a public domain in which the landscape is embedded with distinct expressions of the pseudo-Biblical ideology of the East Jerusalem settlers, while marginalizing the Christian and Muslim presence and ties to Jerusalem;

– fragmenting the urban fabric of Palestinian East Jerusalem in a manner that further undermines the very possibility of a future permanent status agreement.

“These policies are not new and have driven the actions of Israel in and around Jerusalem’s Old City for many years. What IS new is the aggressive application of these policies to Jerusalem’s holy sites, in the framework of a strategic thrust to galvanize sole Israeli control and rule over all of Jerusalem, East and West. The Plan is not an isolated event. One of the major manifestations of these policies may be found in numerous Israeli projects currently being implemented in and around the settlement enclaves to the north of the Old City, in Sheikh Jarrah, and to its south in Silwan. This entails a number of major government and settler projects that aspire to create a pincer maneuver that will surround the Old City with settlements and a settler-inspired public domain, effectively cutting off the Old City and its visual basin from the rest of East Jerusalem.”

A number of Israeli peace and human rights organizations — Bimkom, Emek Shaveh, Ir Amim and Peace Now — issued a joint statement laying out how this “national park” expansion plan fits into other settlement related developments and policies in Jerusalem:

“There is a direct link between what is happening in Sheikh Jarrah [the ongoing evictions of Palestinian families from their homes] and the expansion plan. These are various mechanisms used by Israel in East Jerusalem to entrench its sovereignty, to marginalize non-Jewish presence and to prevent much needed development of Palestinian neighborhoods hereby increasing the pressure to push them out of the Old City basin. This plan is part of a process of transforming the symbolic and political importance of the Historic Basin, by increasing the Jewish religious and national significance of this area while increasing the pressure on the Palestinian residents. We object to the cynical misuse of heritage and environment protection as a tool by Israeli authorities for justifying settlement expansion, for re-shaping the historical narrative and for determining ownership over the historical basin.”

Israel Freezes Salem Family Eviction in Sheikh Jarrah

On February 22nd the Jerusalem Magistrate Court published a decision that would temporarily freeze the eviction orders against the a Palestinian family living in Sheikh Jarrah (the Salem family) as soon as the family deposits a 25,000 shekel ($7,700) “guarantee” with the Court related to a new petition it has filed. 

The Salem family has been fighting efforts by settlers to evict them from their longtime home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The settlers claim to have bought the house from the Jewish family that owned it before 1948 — based on an Israeli law that gave Jewish Israelis the right to “reclaim” properties lost in the 1948 War. In contrast, the Salem family, under Israel law, lacks legal claim both to the home in Sheikh Jarrah where they have lived since being displaced from their home inside the Green Line during the 1948 War, and to their original home inside Israel. With Israeli law fully on their side, the settlers obtained a court-order for the eviction of the Salem family, scheduled by the Court to happen sometime between March 1st and April 1st (the exact date was left vague, in order to give security forces the element of surprise, thereby preventing Palestinians from organizing any protest). That eviction order is now considered frozen until the Court rules on an appeal submitted by the Salem family. 

Meanwhile, Kahanist Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben Gvir continues to operate a makeshift “parliamentary office” on a plot of land directly adjacent to the Salem family home — a deliberate provocation that has succeeded in stoking tensions and conflict in Sheikh Jarrah.

For further background on the Salem family’s case (including on the Israeli laws that were expressly designed to enable the eviction of Palestinians in favor of settlers), see reporting by Ir Amim and Peace Now.

U.S. Ambassador Nides Reiterates His No-Visiting-Settlements Policy, Invites Settlers to Meet with Him

In a meeting with the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations on February 21st, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides reiterated that he will not travel to Israel’s illegal settlements. Instead, Nides declared that he will meet with “anyone who wants to meet with me,” and invited settlers to visit the Embassy [note: this is a return to the pre-Trump/Friedman status quo]. Nides went on to note that he had gone out for drinks with a right-wing rabbi who had taken offense to earlier comments Nides made on his decision to not travel to the settlements. This week Nides also appeared to downplay any policy implications of such a travel ban, saying instead that traveling to a settlement with a large motorcade would stoke controversy. 

Bonus Reads

  1. “Palestinian Teen Suffers Head Wound by Rubber-tipped Bullet During West Bank Protests” (Haaretz)
  2. “The Palestinian village squeezed dry by Israel’s tight water control“ (Middle East Eye)
  3. “Two Unprecedented Scenarios Emerge in Battle for Control of Jewish Agency” (Haaretz)

 

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.

February 18, 2022

  1. Israeli Court Agrees to Hear Case on Settlements & Discriminatory Land Allocation 
  2. Government Data Shows: Over Past 5 years, in Area C Israel Granted 33 Building Permits for Palestinians, compared to more than 16,500 for settlers
  3. A Perfect Storm – For a Major Crisis – Gathers Over Sheikh Jarrah
  4. Maaleh Ahuvia Outpost Demolished, Immediately Rebuilt
  5. Settlers are Running a Government-Backed Program for Israeli Kids on Palestinian Land in East Jerusalem
  6. Lapid: Israel Will Refrain from the Most Problematic Settlement Expansion
  7. Further Reading

Israeli Court Agrees to Hear Case on Settlements & Discriminatory Land Allocation 

The Israeli High Court has moved forward with a case challenging Israel’s discriminatory allocation of “state land” in the West Bank, 99.8% of which Israeli authorities have summarily handed over for the benefit of settlements. On February 10th, the Court gave the Israeli government a May 1st deadline to submit an explanation for why — in the context of this specific case — it refuses to consider allocating to Palestinians any of the “state land” previously allocated for the expansion of the Efrat settlement (to build the new “Givat Eitam/E2” settlement on a hilltop known to Palestinians as a-Nahle ). 

This is the first time the High Court has elected to take up the matter of discriminatory land allocation. The decision to do so was prompted by a petition filed by over a dozen Palestinian landowners in May 2020, with the assistance of Peace Now. This petition was filed after previous legal efforts failed to overturn Israel’s declaration of their land, part of the Palestinian village of a-Nahle, as “state land”. Past attempts to use litigation in Israeli courts to challenge Israel’s use of “state land” declarations in order to expand settlements have typically not continued past this point. This is in part because in order to challenge how “state land” is allocated, the Palestinian petitioner must, in effect, concede that the land in question (which Israel has seized from them) is legitimately “state land” in the first place — something Palestinian landowners are understandably loathe to do. Thus, this petition represents a novel challenge for the Court.

While the Court’s decision to allow the case to go forward is significant, it is important to note, too, that the wording of the Court’s order to the government indicates that the Court is only considering a limited part of the petition. That is: rather than examining the underlying principle of discriminatory land allocation practices, it is pursuing a limited consideration of why the State chose not to allocated parts of the land to these specific petitioners, in this specific case.

Peace Now said in a statement: 

“For more than 50 years, Israel has allocated the precious resource of land in the West Bank to Israelis only. This policy confirms the claims of those who accuse Israel of applying an Apartheid regime in the Occupied Territories. The allocation of the land in E2 for a settlement is immoral, illegal and disproportionate in a way that cries to heaven. Although the order given by the court does not cover the entire area of ​​the petition, the court signals that this discrimination must not continue.”

As a reminder, the settlement at the heart of the case is called Givat Eitam by settlers, but it is called “E-2” by anti-settlement watchdogs, in light of its dire geopolitical implications for any future Palestinian state (similar to those of the E-1 settlement on Jerusalem’s eastern flank). The construction of Givat Eitam/E-2 would significantly expand the Efrat settlement in the direction of Bethlehem, effectively cutting Bethlehem off from the southern West Bank and completing the city’s encirclement by Israeli settlements. 

Government Data Shows: Over Past 5 years, in Area C Israel Granted 33 Building Permits for Palestinians, compared to more than 16,500 for settlers

Directly relevant to the court case regarding the allocation of state land to the Efrat settlement for the construction of a new settlement (see above), new data released by the Israeli government has revealed that over the past five years, Israel has issued only 33 building permits to Palestinians living in Area C while over the same period and for the same area, it issued over 16,500 building permits to settlers.

As a reminder, Area C is the 60% of the West Bank where Israel enjoys total authority and in which Israel has systematically denied Palestinian building rights, while promoting the expansion of settlements and unauthorized outposts, and in parallel systematically demolishing Palestinian un-permitted construction. This trend pre-dates the 5-year period covered in the new government data — for example, from 2016-2018, Israel issued only 21 building permits to Palestinians, while  during that same period issuing 2,147 demolition orders against Palestinian construction.

These trends are part of the continuing efforts of Israeli settlers and the Israeli government to entrench and expand Israel’s control over (and de facto annexation of) the entirety of Area C. Notably, in September 2020 the Israeli government allocated 20 million NIS ($6 million USD) for the newly created Settlement Affairs Ministry to survey and map unauthorized (by Israel) Palestinian construction in Area C — construction which Israel has been aggressively demolishing. In addition to funding the expansion of policies that systematically discriminate against and dispossesses Palestinians in Area C, this funding further empowers a domestic Israeli body to exert extraterritorial sovereignty over Area C – in effect, treating the area as land already annexed by Israel. 

The Knesset has also to a great extent adopted the narrative of settlers and pro-settler organizations — a narrative predicated on the idea that Area C belongs to Israel and must be defended against Palestinian efforts to steal it (framing that in effect dismisses the legitimacy of any Palestinian landownership in Area C). The Knesset has repeatedly hosted forums to discuss the alleged (by settlers and their allies/advocates) “Palestinian takeover of Area C.” Consistent with this framing and pushed by outside groups, many members of the Knesset have criticized the Israeli government’s alleged failure  to robustly “defend” Israel’s rights/ interests in Area C — demanding that the government do more to prevent and demolish “illegal” Palestinian construction (even as it refuses to issue permits for Palestinians to build “legally), that it must prevent foreign projects that support Palestinians’ presence in the area, that it must clear Palestinians out of areas targeted by settlers, and that it must do more to expand settlements and consolidate state-built settlement infrastructure.

A Perfect Storm – For a Major Crisis – Gathers Over Sheikh Jarrah

Israeli settlers and police have provoked significant violence and rising tensions in Sheikh Jarrah ahead of Israel’s imminent forced displacement of the Salem family from their home of 60+ years in favor of settlers. That eviction is slated to be carried out by Israel sometime between March 1 and April 1. The latest violence has centered on the area around the Salem family home, where on February 13th, Kahanist Knesset Member Itamar Ben-Gvir erected a makeshift outpost — which he calls a “parliamentary office”– directly outside of the home.

Ben-Gvir’s action — which he clearly intends as a provocation — sparked a series of events that continue to result in violence, injury, and an increasing Israeli police presence in the neighborhood.

The escalation of conflict in Sheikh Jarrah has caused many – including in the Israeli government and the Biden Administration – to worry about a repeat of the events of May 2021, when a crisis centered on Sheikh Jarrah and the Temple Mt/Haram al Sharif ultimately sparked direct conflict between Hamas in Gaza, and the Israeli military, with devastating results for Gaza. The looming eviction of the Salem family mirrors the events which sparked those events last summer, with the added context of the convergence of three important religious holidays: Passover, Ramadan, and Easter. A U.S. official called this a “recipe for disaster in Jerusalem.”

Mohammed El-Kurd (whose family is also facing eviction in Sheikh Jarrah) writes about events transpiring around the Salem family home this week:

“While the Israeli regime has long managed to conceal its practices of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and colonial expansion behind a mix of complex legislation, Hasbara, and the rhetoric of “war and peace,” politicians like Ben-Gvir increasingly do not bother to play that game. And they are not so fringe. Palestinians know that Ben-Gvir’s eliminationist rhetoric is cemented, albeit in more polished form, in Israeli policies of mass transfer. His office stunt is merely a more explicit version of the Zionism that Israeli leaders have governed with for the past seven decades—one predicated on replacing Palestinians with settlers. As I write this, colonial violence continues in my neighborhood and across colonized Palestine. Israeli forces have shot and killed Nihad Barghouti, a Palestinian teenager who was protesting in occupied Nabi Saleh, Ramallah; attacked protesting students with tear gas canisters at Abu Dis University; assaulted a disabled activist in Sheikh Jarrah while providing protection for Ben-Gvir’s entourage; and demolished a Palestinian’s home in the South Hebron Hills, shortly before brutally detaining him. As the injuries and arrests mount, it’s hard not to see the parallels between today’s events and the events that sparked last year’s Unity Uprising and the devastating assault on the besieged Gaza Strip. Many hold their breath, anticipating the repression that accompanies resistance, the steep price of revolt.”

For further background on the Salem family’s case (including on the Israeli laws that were expressly designed to enable the eviction of Palestinians in favor of settlers), see reporting by Ir Amim and Peace Now.

Ma’aleh Ahuvia Outpost Demolished, Immediately Rebuilt

On February 8th, the IDF dismantled the illegal outpost of “Ma’aleh Ahuvia.” Hours later, the IDF failed to prevent settlers from promptly (and illegally) rebuilding and improving the outpost – demonstrating the lack of either willpower or lack of efficacy of Israeli officials in the West Bank to constrain settler activity. That evening, settlers from the outpost carried out a so-called “price tag attack” on the nearby Palestinian village of Deir Jarrar, damaging cars and inflicting terror.

Prominent Israeli solidarity activist, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, documented settlers rebuilding the site, and wrote:

“Army vehicles pass by every day on the way to a base the message to Palestinian victims of violence, of ravaged vineyards, orchards and fields, and of theft Palestinians even susect that the water container and other items in the outpost were stolen from them.) will continue with no relief from Israel. The message to settlers is they have nothing to fear. They continue to wreak terror.”

As a reminder, this outpost is a named for Ahuvia Sandak, a settler “hilltop youth” who died when the car he was traveling crashed as it was fleeing Israeli police with a group of settler youth who allegedly has been stoning Palestinian cars. Settlers and their supporters have painted Israeli police as perpetrators of a crime of negligence (or worse) against the settler youth; the Knesset has taken up the issue; and Sandak has been memorialized as a hero and a martyr to the cause of Greater Israel.

Settlers Are Running Government-Backed Program for Israeli Kids on Palestinian Land in East Jerusalem

Haaretz reports that the radical settler group Elad is running a program that enables Israeli students to earn school credit for doing work on land in the Ben Hinnom Valley. The land in question is privately owned by Palestinians (and recognized as such by Israel). However, the government of Israel has issued “landscaping orders” (also called “gardening orders”), and order which allows Israel to “temporarily” (at least in theory) take over privately owned land for what are ostensibly public purpose.

Elad’s student program on the private Palestinian land has been operating under the auspices of the Jerusalem Municipality in partnership with the Israel Nature & Parks Authority, once again demonstrating how settlers and the Israeli state work hand-in-hand to assert Israeli control over Palestinian land.

Fearing that the setters’ control over the land will become permanent, the Palestinian owners of the land in question have filed an appeal against the landscaping orders. The Jerusalem District Court recently heard arguments on the appeal, where a lawyer representing the Palestinian landowners argued that there is no precedent for using “landscaping orders” to take over so much land.  The judge hearing the appeal did not issue a decision, instead postponing judgment.

As a reminder: In June 2019, the Jerusalem Municipality used the issuance of “landscaping orders” to take control of 12 plots of privately owned Palestinian land near an area where the Elad settlement group has been active – again, based in part on the argument that the owners were not presently using the land.  However, the land in question is located in an area that Israel has declared to be a national park. With that “national park” declaration, Israel legally barred the private landowners from using their own land. With its subsequent “landscaping orders,” Israel has in effect asserted that since the owners weren’t using the land (that they were legally barred, by Israel, from using), that land can now, in effect, be seized by Israel for its own purposes (the landscaping orders last for a period of 5 years, with the likelihood of extensions after that — tantamount to expropriation). 

Emek Shaveh’s Executive Director Alon Arad told Haaretz:

“People who love Jerusalem and care about its heritage don’t harm its landscapes or push out its people. The Israel Nature and Parks Authority, through Elad, is promoting development that essentially changes the landscapes, damaging the historical heritage of the valley and reshaping it to fit political interests. It is shameful that this work is being done by a political organization that drafts teens and children for its own needs under the framework of fulfilling their educational obligations.”

Lapid: Israel Will Refrain from the Most Problematic Settlement Expansion

Standing alongside the German Foreign Minister at a press conference, Israel Foreign Minister (and alternate Prime Minister) Yair Lapid stated that Israel will not build settlements that prevent a two-state solution (a statement that reflects an Israeli mindset according to which there can be “peace” based on Israel dictating to Palestinians what areas of the West Bank will become part of Israel). Lapid insisted that Israel will only approve plans that accommodate the “natural growth” of settlements (of course, there is nothing “natural” about growth of settlements, given that such growth is possible only due to Israeli government policies that support and enable the establishment and expansion of settlements, and policies that actively incentivize and support Israel citizens moving to and living in the West Bank).

A quick survey of recent settlement plans and projects, as summarized weekly by this report (archived here), highlights the dishonesty in even this weak commitment by Lapid to keeping the two-state solution alive. These include the State’s efforts to retroactively legalize the Evyatar outpost, to reestablish the Homesh settlement, and to advance plans for six new settlements in East Jerusalem; in addition to the myriad of unofficial mechanisms by which the State grants increasing control over land in the West Bank to the settlers.

Bonus Reads

  1. “One Year Report on Demolitions and Seizures in the west Bank, Including East Jerusalem (Reporting Period: 1 January 2021 – 31 December 2021)” (European Union)
  2. “Opinion: Palestinians have denounced Israeli apartheid for decades. As the world catches up, how will it react?” (Mariam Barghouti in the Washington Post)
  3. “Violent Israeli Settlers Are Starting to Resemble the KKK” (Michael Sfard in Haaretz)
  4. “Terrorizing a Nation: Israeli Settler Violence Against the People of Palestine – A Yer in Review (2021)” (PLO-NAD)
  5. “A broken ankle, a demolished home, and a crushed water cistern” (Ali Awad in +972 Magazine)
  6. “The “Father of the Settlements”” (Arutz Sheva)

Welcome to an abbreviated version of FMEP’s Weekly Settlement Report, this week providing you a list of resources that cover everything you need to know about Israeli settlement activity this week. The Settlement Report will return to its normal format next week.  To subscribe to this report, please click here.

Jerusalem

Reports this week suggest that the Bennett government has (for now) tabled the E-1 settlement plan, due largely to U.S. pressure. At the same time, the Israeli government continued to advance other major new settlement projects across East Jerusalem (most notably Givat HaShaked, and “Silicon Wadi”). And all of this comes, of course, in addition to the looming mass displacement of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, as the result of the joint efforts of Israeli settlers, Israeli courts, and the Israeli government. 

  • E-1 tabled (?): “Israel freezes plans to connect Jerusalem to Maale Adumim due to US, Meretz pressure” (Israel Hayom)
  • Advancing new settlement of “Givat HaShaked”: “District Planning Committee to Discuss Settlement Plans for ‘Givat HaShaked’ and Pisgat Ze’ev” (Ir Amim)
  • Demolition Orders in Wadi Joz to pave way for Silcon Wadi: “Dozens of Palestinian commercial facilities in Jerusalem receive demolition orders from the Israeli municipality” (WAFA). For Background on the “Silicon Wadi” project, see here.
  • Looming mass displacement in Sheik Jarrah/Silwan: PODCAST: “Sheikh Jarrah Showdown” (Terrestrial Jerusalem)

The Evyatar Outpost

With the legal backing of the Israeli Attorney General’s office and the reported support of Defense Minister Gantz, the drive to retroactively legalize the Evyatar outpost continues to advance, despite opposition from leaders of the Yesh Atid and Meretz parties. For detailed background on the Evyatar outpost, see here. For further info on recent developments, see:

  • “Bennett’s gov’t bent on legalizing Evyatar outpost, Minister says” (Jerusalem Post)
  • “Top Israeli Official Explains Why Evyatar Won’t Be Legalized” (Haaretz)
  • “Settlers Score Decisive Win Against Israeli Government” (Haaretz)
  • “Israeli Attorney General’s ‘Parting Gift’ to Government: A Land Mine” (Haaretz)
  • “Opinion | Legalizing the Illegal Pretense of Evyatar” (Zvi Bar’el in Haaretz). 

The Homesh Outpost & Yeshiva

Facing a court-mandated deadline to state its position on the unauthorized Homesh outpost and yeshiva, the Israeli government told the Court last week that it is “working hard to enforce the law” but that Defense Minister Gantz is ultimately responsible for what happens. A few days later, the IDF removed *some* of the illegally built structures that settlers have been using for many years as a yeshiva at the site of the former Homesh settlement (which was dismantled by the Israeli government in 2005, but the land was never returned to its Palestinian owners). However, the main yeshiva building was left intact (the buildings that were removed had been used as dormitories). For background on the Homesh outpost and yeshiva, see here. For further info on recent developments, see:

  • “Israeli Government Says Fate of Illegal Outpost of Homesh in Gantz’s Hands” (Haaretz)
  • “IDF razes settler buildings at West Bank’s Homesh, yeshiva remains” (Jerusalem Post)
  • “Security forces demolish structures at Jewish outposts in West Bank, Negev” (The Times of Israel)
  • “Yamina MK Nir Orbach supports repeal of Disengagement Law” (Arutz Sheva)

More on Outposts

Significantly, the Knesset this week rejected a bill that would have connected some 70 West Bank settlement outposts (illegal even under Israeli law) to the Israeli power grid. Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party (which had previously backed the bill when it was in the opposition, back when Netanyahu was still Prime Minister) voted against the bill. For more details, see:

  • “Opposition bill on connecting illegal West Bank outposts to power grid shot down” (The Times of Israel)
  • “Security forces demolish illegal outpost named for teen killed in police chase” (The Times of Israel)
  • “Vehicles Vandalized in Palestinian Village Hours After Israel Evacuates Outpost” (Haaretz)

More Developments – Quick Hits

Khan Al-Ahmar

  • “Binyamin Council rejects establishment of Khan al-Amar on its territory” (Arutz Sheva)

Settler Violence

  • “Illegal Outpost Resident Arrested After Attack on Left-wing Activists” (Haaretz)
  • “Charges Are Pressed Only in 4% of Settler Violence Cases” (Haaretz)
  • “Israeli minister keeps up campaign against growing settler violence” (Al-Monitor)

Radar-Worthy

  • “Approved Monday, relatively unknown AG will take office amid falling trust” (The Times of Israel)

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.

February 4, 2022

  1. Israeli Attorney General Approves Retroactive Legalization of the Evyatar Outpost (Final Decision to be Made by Government)
  2. Another Palestinian Family to Be Forcibly Dispossessed of its home in Jerusalem
  3. New Tender Issued for Settler Foot Bridge Over Ben Hinnom Valley
  4. Knesset Committee Recommends Expanding Israel Antiquities Authority Oversight into the West Bank
  5. Further Reading

Israeli Attorney General Approves Retroactive Legalization of the Evyatar Outpost (Final Decision to be Made by Government)

Haaretz reports that in the final hours of his tenure outgoing Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandleblit issued a legal opinion that provides a basis for granting retroactive legalization to the Evyatar outpost (which would mean authorizing Evyator as a fully-approved new settlement, “legal” under Israeli law). 

As a reminder: the Evyatar outpost was illegally built by settlers on land located just south of Nablus, in the very heart of the northern West Bank. The site of the outpost is known to Palestinians as Mount Sabih, and has historically belonged to the nearby Palestinian villages of Beita, Yatma, and Qablan. With this new opinion, the Israeli Attorney General has decided that enough of the land on which the illegal outpost was built can be declared as “state land,” which means the Israeli government can give the area to the settlers.

As another reminder, this time from Peace Now: 

“the declaration of state lands is a procedure that was used by Israel since the 1980’s in order to take over nearly one million dunams in the occupied territories. The declaration is based on a draconian Israeli interpretation of the Ottoman Land Law according to which if land is not cultivated for a certain period it becomes public land and is managed by the state (and in the case of Israeli occupation of the territories, it is managed by the Civil Administration).”

With the legal opinion of the Attorney General, the Bennett government is now in a position to authorize Evyatar as a new settlement. If granted government approval, Defense Minister Benny Gantz can issue a formal declaration of “state land” (more on that process here). In January 2022, reports indicated that Gantz had agreed to the plan to legalize Evyatar.

That said, the Bennett government could, theoretically, still elect to not authorize the outposts, but that outcome is extremely unlikely, to say the least – notwithstanding the fact that Foreign Minister (and alternate Prime Minister) Yair Lapid has reportedly warned Prime Minister Bennett that authorizing Evyatar will damage Israel-U.S. relations. Also, the Israeli Labor and Meretz parties (both part of the governing coalition) oppose the legalization of Evyatar. 

Palestinian Authority settlement officer Ghassan Daghlas told Haaretz:

“Israel is trying to establish facts on the ground and the timing of the announcement is not coincidental, a day after the publication of the Amnesty report.”

Map by Peace Now

In the very early days of the Bennett-Lapid coalition government, it was decided that the government would undertake an “investigation” into the status of the land on which the outpost was illegally established. That investigation was part of a package deal meant to both appease the settlers who were illegally squatting at the site and their allies. The package was also intended to quell Palestinian protests against the outpost and the international attention they were increasingly gaining – attention linked in larger part to the violent reaction against Palestinians by settlers and IDF soldiers, including most notably in Beita, which saw the death of several protestors, including children.

In addition to the “investigation,” the package also sought to balance bitter divisions within the Bennett government over whether to evacuate the outpost or grant it retroactive legalization. In the end, the government reached a “deal” which saw the settlers (temporarily) voluntarily vacate the outpost on July 2, 2021. In return, the government agreed to leave the settlers’ illegal construction at the site in place (i.e., did not demolish it) — including buildings and roads —  while it carried out its investigation into the status of the land. In this way, the “compromise” left the outpost intact and allowed Israel to maintain complete control over the site during the “survey” process, clearly signalling that the government’s objective was never to enforce Israeli law, but, rather, was always about finding a legal and political “solution” to enable them to launder the settlers’ actions and accommodate their demands. Indeed, the terms of the Evyatar “compromise” made clear that the Bennet government was confident that it would find a pretext on which to assert that the land on which the outpost stands is “state land,” which can be used by the state as it sees fit (which nearly 100% of the time means, will be used to benefit the settlers)).

Peace Now said in a statement: 

“Instead of stopping the ideological delinquency of a handful of settlers who allow themselves to establish facts on the ground against the law, and contrary to the Israeli interest, the government seeks to encourage them and give them a reward. The establishment of a new settlement in the depths of the West Bank is a security burden, and a threat to the chances for peace. Coalition members who oppose the occupation and support two states must demand that the Defense Minister stop the madness and not approve the settlement in Eviatar.”

Another Palestinian Family to Be Forcibly Dispossessed of its home in Jerusalem

Ir Amim reports that Israeli authorities have officially cleared the way for the Palestinian Salem family to be evicted from its longtime home in Sheikh Jarrah. The eviction can take place at any time between March 1st and April 1st. Once evicted, the Salem family home will be handed over to two settlers, one of whom is Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Aryeh King – suggesting that, at least in this case, the Israel government’s agenda and the settlers’ agenda are one and the same. 

The Israeli registrar, in publishing its approval of the eviction window, also ordered the Salem family to pay 5,000 shekels (~$1,500 USD) for legal expenses.

The Salem family told WAFA news that they intend to appeal their eviction to the Israeli High Court, though a member of the family made it clear that the Israeli courts are part of a system designed to dispossess them:

“The Israeli court is biased. It only aims at emptying Jerusalem from Palestinians to give our place to settlers…even if we appeal, we don’t trust the Israeli court system. We depend only on solidarity in Palestine and beyond…We are three brothers living with our families, including seven children and our 74-year-old mother, Fatima Salem, the head of the family…We were all born here and have nowhere else to go. If they do expel us, we will continue to live in the street, right here”. 

On the possibility of delaying the Salem family’s forcible displacement, Ir Amim notes:

“Although the Selam family’s legal representation may appeal the Enforcement and Collection Authority’s decision authorizing the family’s eviction and request an injunction to freeze it, there is no guarantee the court will approve such a request. The family’s attorney has hence made it clear that the remaining legal remedies are extremely limited. Therefore the only real effective means of preventing the family’s impending displacement is through state intervention.”

Israeli settlers and police had specifically requested a window in which to carry out the eviction to enable them to carry out the eviction by surprise — thereby (theoretically) making it harder for the family and protesters to prepare and for large crowds to gather. It must be understood that this flexible date is just the latest twist on the cruelty and hardship endured by the Salem family for years. It’s also worth recalling that earlier this month, in the context of a similar approval for the eviction of a Palestinian family living in the same neighborhood (the Salihiya family), Israel chose to implement the eviction in the dead of night, on one of the coldest nights of the year.

For further background on the Salem family’s case (including on the Israeli laws that were expressly designed to enable the eviction of Palestinians in favor of settlers), see reporting by Ir Amim and Peace Now.

New Tender Issued for Settler Foot Bridge Over Ben Hinnom Valley

Ir Amim reports that the Moriah Jerusalem Development Corporation issued a tender for a settler-initiated project to build a new pedestrian footbridge over the Ben Hinnom/Wadi Rababa Valley in Jerusalem. Bidding on the tender is set to close on February 28, 2022. An appeal against the plan, filed in 2018 by Israeli NGOs Peace Now and Emek Shaveh, was rejected by the Courts.

The bridge will serve to connect two settler-operated tourist facilities located on opposite sides of the valley – one in the  in the Palestinian Abu Tor neighborhood and the other in the Silwan neighborhood.

On the Abu Tor side of the bridge, the Elad settler organization runs and operates a cultural center and cafe named “House in the Valley,” which opened in 2019 after Elad evicted a Palestinian family and renovated the space. A week after Elad’s new cultural center was opened, the Jerusalem Municipality issued “gardening orders” to take control, for a period lasting 5 years (with the likelihood of extensions after that), of 12 nearby plots of privately owned Palestinian land. “Gardening orders” allow Israel to “temporarily” take over privately owned land for what are ostensibly public purposes (like establishing a parking lot or public garden), based on the argument that the private owners are not presently using the land. In this case, Israel has in effect made rules that guarantee that the latter condition applies: as Emek Shaveh has noted, the 12 plots in question are located in an area declared by Israel to be a national park, meaning that private landowners are legally barred from using their own land. 

On the Silwan side – a neighborhood where Elad (alongside other settler organizations, including Ateret Cohanim) is waging a house-by-house campaign to displace Palestinians in favor of settlers and settler-run tourist sites – the bridge will end near the Sambuski cemetery, which until recent years was a relatively unknown, neglected site that even Israel did not recognize as a holy site. Under the Trump “Peace to Prosperity” plan, the Sambuski cemetery suddenly became a place of prime historical and religious importance to Israel. The Israeli NGO Emek Shaveh – which has a special expertise on archaeology and the weaponization of archaeology to serve the political agenda of the settlers and the state – wrote a report on exactly how the Trump “Vision” supports settler efforts to use Jerusalem’s history and antiquities to promote Israeli-Jewish hegemony and control over the city.

Ir Amim writes:

“As part of the intensifying band of settlement around the Old City, the Wadi Rababa/Hinnom valley area is of particular significance as it stretches along the seam between Silwan and West Jerusalem and serves as the main entrance into the neighborhood from this direction. In recent years, there has been an increase of tourism projects in and around this location promoted by the government and the Elad settler organization, which together create a more seamless link between West Jerusalem and Elad’s constellation of settlement sites in Silwan.”

Knesset Committee Recommends Expanding Israel Antiquities Authority Oversight into the West Bank

On January 24th, the Knesset’s Education Committee held a hearing to discuss the alleged destruction of Jewish antiquity sites in the West Bank by Paelstinians and the Palestinian Authority, and what Israel should do to stop it. The Committee made several recommendations, including the suggestion for the government to expand the jurisdiction of the Israeli Antiquities Authority to include Area C, which would amount to yet another act of de facto annexation of some 60% of the West Bank. The Committee also recommended offering formal authorization for settler regional councils to “protect” and manage antiquity sites in Area C, which settlers are already doing on their own accord (with State funding and the help of the IDF in some cases). These archaeologically-focused annexation efforts run in parallel to other ongoing efforts by settlers and their political allies to unilaterally (and openly) annex Area C.

The hearing  was based on a report on this very subject authored by a group calling itself the “Guardians of Eternity.” That group is an offshoot of the settler group Regavim. Emek Shaveh – an Israeli NGO focused on archaeology – called the report “highly questionable,” noting that the scientific editor of the report is anonymous, the report did not use acceptable archaeological methodology when surveying different sites, and the data on which the report based its conclusions and recommendations has not been made public.

Emek Shaveh’s Executive Director, Alon Arad, briefly addressed the Knesset Committee, urging the Members to understand the political agenda at play. Arad said:

“​​The destruction of antiquities should not constitute a pretext for political action and I think we should also refrain from camouflaging the political nature of this discussion as an archaeological act. Blurring the lines between archaeology and heritage on the one hand, and settlement and annexation, on the other endangers the future of archaeology.”

Emek Shaveh later said in a statement:

“There are approximately 6000 antiquity sites in the West Bank. The significance is that practically in every village or town there are archaeological remains of varying scale from a watering hole to a multilayered mound. It follows that there is always a tension between the need for modern development and the safeguarding of heritage sites. It is also clear that the problem of antiquity destruction is used by settlers and right-wing MKs as a justification for displacement…in just two years from 2017-2019, there was a 162% rise in demolition orders citing archaeology…Emek Shaveh believes that the destruction of antiquities should not be used as a justification for settlement expansion nor for promoting actions which advance de facto annexation. The appropriate approach to safeguarding antiquities in Area C must include the following: Israel must respect International Humanitarian Law and conventions which outline its duties vis-à-vis cultural heritage sites as the occupier in occupied territory, including maintaining separation between the IAA and the Staff Officer for Archaeology. Israel should promote cooperation with the Palestinian Authority on all levels: information sharing, oversight, and enforcement – something that was mutually agreed in the Oslo Accords. Israel must outlaw the trade in antiquities which gives impetus to antiquity theft.”

The Knesset Committee’s discussion of this subject comes on the heels of a decision by Israeli Minister of Heritage and Jerusalem Affairs, Ze’ev Elkin, to allocate $1.57 million (5 million NIS) towards “reconstruction” of the Sebastia archaeological site (located in the northern West Bank, near Nablus), pending approval from the Israeli Civil Administration. The Ministry further said that an additional $787,000 will be allocated towards the “rehabilitation” of other archaeological sites in the West Bank, as well as about $470,000 towards the Civil Administration’s ramped up efforts to “protect” West Bank archaeological sites.

As FMEP has chronicled, settlers and their allies are intent upon using claims of Palestinian damage/neglect as a pretext for Israel taking control of archaeological sites and artifacts across the West Bank. For example, in February 2021 settlers used a construction mishap to raise claims to the Mt. Ebal site. 

Bonus Reads

  1. “Israeli soldiers force closure of Palestinian stores in Hebron’s Old City” (Basel al-Adra – +972 Magazine)
  2. “The purpose of settler terrorism” (Edo Konrad – +972 Magazine)
  3. THREAD: “During a discussion in the government about settler violence the Chief of Staff stated Israeli soldiers don’t have the authority to detain Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinians…” (Oren Ziv – Twitter)

 

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.

January 28, 2022

  1. Israel Destroyed The Salihiya’s Home in Sheikh Jarrah. Now The Salihiyas Are Appealing to the ICC
  2. Knesset Committee Chair Vows to Protect Homesh Outpost & Yeshiva
  3. A War Crime in the Making: Israel Finalizes Plan for Forcible Relocation of Khan Al-Ahmar
  4. Settlers Attack Palestinians & Israel Human Rights Activists
  5. Settlers Violently “Parade” Through West Bank Town
  6. Israeli Government Increases Funding for Annexation/Dispossession via Archaeology Effort
  7. Israel FM Denounces Effort to Connect Outposts to Israeli Services — While Israeli Communications Goes Ahead and Does Just That (for one outpost)
  8. Further Reading

Israel Destroyed The Salihiya’s Home in Sheikh Jarrah. Now The Salihiyas Are Appealing to the ICC

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has announced it will file an appeal with the International Criminal Court on behalf of the Salihiya family, whose members was forcibly displaced by Israeli forces from their home in Sheikh Jarrah last week. The Salihiya family home(s) and business were demolished by Israel, on the basis of Israel’s 2017 unilateral expropriation of their land ostensibly for “public use.” The ICC appeal accompanies ongoing efforts by the Salihiya family and its lawyer in Israeli courts, where the family’s lawyer recently announced they intend to file an appeal with the High Court of Justice to compel the State to rebuild the family home. 

According to the ICJP press release, the Salihiya family has been a client of the London-based law firm Bindmans Solicitors since October 2021, and will be finalizing its appeal this week.

ICJP Director Crispin Blunt (a member of the British parliament) said: 

“The Sheikh Jarrah case is already notorious.  ICJP is proud and privileged to stand alongside this family as they represent not just their own interests, but the century of historic injustice meted out to the Palestinian people individually and collectively. For Israel’s sake, for all Palestinians, and for humanity’s sake, the Sheikh Jarrah case needs to be a turning point where justice and our common humanity starts to count for more than people’s insecurities driven by fear.  Given that what has happened is wrong on any moral basis let us find the route to justice for all our sakes. ICJP stands with the victims against violence and fear. Stand with us for justice and the best of our shared interest in a just peace and the rule of a just law.”

As a reminder, on March 3, 2021, the International Criminal Court (ICC) formally opened an investigation into the “Situation in Palestine.” The investigation is expected to look at, among other things, potential war crimes committed by Israelis involved in the settlement enterprise. This could include the prosecution of Israeli officials involved in establishing settlements in the occupied territory – which are illegal under international law. For a rich discussion of the ICC case and the complexities involved in it, watch this recent FMEP webinar, ”Israel-Palestine at the International Criminal Court: What Next?”

Knesset Committee Chair Vows to Protect Homesh Outpost & Yeshiva

On January 27th, Knesset House Committee Chairman Nir Orbach, from the Yamina party (the party of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett) vowed that the government “do[es] not intend to evacuate Homesh.” The government is expected to issue a position on the illegal Homesh outpost and yeshiva (Jewish religious school) on February 6th. In the meantime, settlers who continue to visit the illegal (even under Israeli law) Homesh yeshiva also continue to regularly terrorize surrounding Palestinian villages and drivers.

The government is facing a court-mandated deadline to file its response to a 2019 case that is still pending before the Israeli High Court. That case – initiated by residents of the Palestinian village of Burqa, with the legal assistance of Yesh Din – calls for the removal of the Homesh outpost and demands that the land be returned to its Palestinian owners (and that the IDF ensures that Palestinians are indeed able to access their land). Since the Israeli government dismantled the Homesh settlement in 2005 (as part of Ariel Sharon’s “disengagement”), Palestinian have been denied access to the land, even as settlers have been permitted regular access and have been granted de facto (but not formal) permission to establish and maintain a yeshiva and outpost there.

While the government formulates its response to the case, settlers and their allies continue to raise the political stakes for the Bennett government, with the settler-run Arutz Sheva outlet even running a piece that equates the Homesh situation the Alamo (a piece which also launches a defense of the notoriously violent and frequently anarchist Hilltop Youth settler movement).

In a particularly incisive report by the Associated Press on the Homesh outpost — focusing on the settlers who illegally established and now attend yeshiva there, and the IDF’s role in enabling their continued presence — a Homesh devotee makes clear how the settlers view Palestinians:

“Ben Shachar, the teacher at the yeshiva, said farmers [referring to Palestinian landowners currently unable to access the area] should coordinate their entry with the Israeli military. He said he’s open to dialogue with ‘any Arab who accepts that the Land of Israel [which he makes clear includes all of the West Bank] belongs to the Jewish people,’ but that terrorism is ‘part of the DNA of Arab society’.”

A War Crime in the Making: Israel Finalizes Plan for Forcible Relocation of Khan Al-Ahmar

The Times of Israel reports that the Israeli Security Cabinet will soon vote on a plan to demolish the Khan Al-Ahmar bedouin community and (bizarrely) rebuild it some 300 meters from where it currently stands. The State is under the pressure of a March 6th court deadline (which has already been delayed once at the request of the State) to implement the Court-ordered demolition of Khan al-Ahmar, which the Court declared to be illegally built (i.e. lacking Israeli building permits that are virtually impossible for Palestinians to obtain). 

Residents of Khan al-Ahmar – who have been living for years under a sustained threat of forcible displacement (a war crime) and are routinely harassed by Israeli forces – reportedly oppose this plan to forcibly displace them, and are planning a protest for January 30th. 

At the same time, many Israeli lawmakers and right-wing groups also reject this plan – not out of concern for displacing the Bedouin, but out of concern that it doesn’t achieve the desired effect of removing them from this part of the West Bank — a strategic area in the eyes of Israeli settlers and their allies who want to build settlements encircling Jerusalem and cleanse Area C of its Palestinian residents.

Yoav Kisch of the Likud party and Religious Zionism MK Orit Strock issued a joint statement saying:

“This is a fake evacuation with highly dangerous repercussions. The damage in legalizing Khan al-Ahmar is immense. The de facto meaning is that the State of Israel approves the Palestinian plan to take over this strategic area.”

Regavim CEO Meir Deutsch said:

“The area in question, the Mishor Adumim area, is the most strategic, lying between Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley Jericho and Ramallah. That’s why the place gets so much attention from the PA and the EU…This is a small collection of huts, one of dozens in the same area, one of hundreds established in Area C. The strategic location is what draws this attention. The defense minister’s desire to whitewash the place is the realization of the Palestinian strategy to take over the area. It establishes land grabs in the heart of this strategic area…The idea the Defense Ministry came up with is about moving three hundred meters and fixing them in the heart of this strategic area, and this is not an agreed plan. The villagers have already announced that they oppose any movement, even one meter. So it makes no sense to move them. The State of Israel must do what is good for it….The state is trying, but through the displacement of 300 meters it is not avoiding confrontation, because the residents have announced that they will not move and so this solution also does not prevent conflict. It is the worst of all worlds, because it establishes a Palestinian outpost in the heart of the territory without preventing a confrontation.”

Settlers Attack Palestinians & Israel Human Rights Activists

On January 21st in broad daylight, settlers from the illegal (even under Israeli law) Givat Ronen outpost violently attacked Palestinians and Israeli activists who were planting trees on privately owned Palestinian land near the village of Burin in the northern West Bank. 

Footage of the attack shows settlers wielding clubs, throwing stones, and burning a car — in the process injuring six people. Despite video footage of the incident, Israel has made no arrests (so far), though reports suggest the Israeli Shin Bet and Israeli police have opened an investigation.

The presence of, and injuries to, Israeli citizens attracted media attention and rare condemnations from the Israeli political class (and even some typically mum Jewish American organizations). Public Security Minister Bar Lev (Labor) said:

“It appears, the way I see it, that we are talking about an organized activity by a terror group that acted together to come and harm primarily Israeli citizens who had come to protest at the site. They harmed them and torched their car.”

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.

Apparently undaunted, video taken on January 26th shows settlers attacking 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.”

Settlers Violently “Parade” Through West Bank Town

On January 24th settlers believed to be from the Yitzhar settlement staged a violent parade of cars through the West Bank village of Huwwara in celebration of a settler from the Yitzhar settlement being released from Israeli prison. The “celebration” terrorized Huwwara — with settler stone-throwing resulting in injuries to at least three people (including one child), and significant damage to at least 25 Palestinian vehicles and several businesses. Video of the attack shows Israeli forces in plain view during the rampage, but doing nothing to stop it. Israeli police have said that an investigation has been opened, but no arrests have been made.

Haaretz reports:

“Kaid Amar, the owner of a plumbing fixture store that was the target of stone-throwing, alleged in comments to Haaretz that the settlers had the protection of the soldiers at the scene. ‘They broke up my store and caused me 40,000 shekels [$12,600] in damage. My car was also wrecked. The soldiers were there around [the settlers’] cars and didn’t do anything,’ he said. Hawara Mayor Mueen Damidi said, ‘Israel says it’s a democracy, but if Palestinians were to have thrown stones, what would they have done? Shoot them. We are suffering greatly from the situation’.”

Israeli Government Increases Funding for Annexation/Dispossession via Archaeology Effort

On January 25th, the Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Ministry announced that it will allocate $1.57 million (5 million NIS) towards “reconstruction” of the Sebastia archaeological site (located in the northern West Bank, near Nablus), pending approval from the Israeli Civil Administration. The Ministry further said that an additional $787,000 will be allocated towards the “rehabilitation” of other archaeological sites in the West Bank, as well as about $470,000 towards the Civil Administration’s ramped up efforts to “protect” West Bank archaeological sites.

Announcing the funding, Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Ze’ev Elkin said:

“The destruction of the sites, which is being carried out under the auspices of the P.A., is destroying the history of the entire region, and I will make every effort to fight it. The conservation of heritage sites in Judea and Samaria is a national mission.”

Settlers have been openly agitating – with some success – for Israel to assert control over the archaeological site in Sebastia for years. In January 2021, Emek Shaveh (an Israeli NGO expert in – and focused on – archaeology) wrote about what is happening in Sebastia, saying:

“The archaeological site of Sebastia is identified with Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom of ancient Israel in 9-8 BCE. The site also features ruins from the Hellenistic, Roman and later periods. The village of Sebastia is situated within Area B while the site itself is located mainly in area C. Over the past few years, the Samaria Regional Council has been organizing tours to the site, particularly during the school holidays.  Several times this year, the Civil Administration has removed a Palestinian flag from the village and the site. In the most recent incident, a flag was raised following renovation works funded by the Belgian government. In their response the regional council blamed the Palestinians for destroying a site central to Jewish history and UNESCO for supporting the Palestinians. Sebastia is on the tentative list of World Heritage sites in Palestine….the integration of ancient sites into an organized strategy designed to weaken Palestinian hold on Area C is worrying. The formalization of this approach is likely to result in a steep rise in actions over ancient sites and structures, from water cisterns found in many villages, to major sites such as Sebastia. The justification for preserving and developing ancient sites familiar to us from East Jerusalem is now being applied wholesale to hundreds of places in the West Bank to the detriment of the Palestinians living near the sites and to the multilayered heritage inherent in the ruins which will be distorted for political ends.”

As FMEP has chronicled, settlers and their allies are intent upon using claims of Palestinian damage/neglect as a pretext for Israel taking control of archaeological sites and artifacts across the West Bank. For example, in February 2021 settlers used a construction mishap to raise claims to the Mt. Ebal site. 

In January 2021, the state of Israel committed funding to a new settler initiative to surveil archeological sites under Palestinian control. While the objective of protecting antiquities might appear uncontroversial and apolitical, the true (and transparently self-evident) objective behind this effort are: to support yet another pretext to surveil and police Palestinians; to establish and exploit yet another means to dispossess Palestinians of their properties; to expand/deepen Israeli control across the West Bank; and to further entrench Israeli technical, bureaucratic and legal paradigms that treat the West Bank as sovereign Israeli territory. It is the result of a campaign that has taken place over the past year in which settlers have escalated their calls for the Israeli government to seize antiquities and “heritage sites” located in Palestinian communities across the West Bank, especially in Area C, which Israel today treats as functionally (and legally) indistinguishable from sovereign Israeli territory. The new funding committed by Israel for West Bank “heritage sites” should be understood in this context.

Previous victories for the settlers include the Israeli Civil Administration’s issuance in 2020 of expropriation orders – the first of their kind in 35 years – for two archaeological sites located on privately owned Palestinian property northwest of Ramallah. The settlers’ pressure is also credited as the impetus behind the government’s clandestine raid of a Palestinian village in July 2020 to seize an ancient font. 

In June 2020, a settler group calling itself “Shomrim Al Hanetzach” (“Guardians of Eternity”) began surveying areas in the West Bank that Israel has designated as archeaological sites, looking for Palestinian construction (barred by Israel in such areas) that they could then call in Israeli authorities to demolish. The group communicates its findings to the Archaeology Unit of the Israeli Civil Administration (reminder: the Civil Administration is the arm of the Israeli Defense Ministry which since 1967 has functioned as the de facto sovereign over the West Bank). The Archaeology Unit, playing its part, then delivers eviction and demolition orders against Palestinians, claiming that the structures damage antiquities in the area. 

As a reminder, in 2017, Israel designated 1,000 new archaeological sites in Area C of the West Bank. The “Guardians of Eternity” group, not coincidentally, is an offshoot of the radical Regavim organization, which among other things works to push Israeli authorities to demolish Palestinian construction (on Palestinians’ own land) that lacks Israeli permits (permits that Israel virtually never grants).

Israel FM Denounces Effort to Connect Outposts to Israeli Services — While Israeli Communications Goes Ahead and Does Just That (for one outpost)

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid made a statement to the press opposing efforts by the Knesset (including members in his own governing coalition) to connect illegal (even under Israeli law) outposts to Israeli municipal services. This is a key, longtime demand of the settlement movement and was the subject of a recent meeting between Minister Ayelet Shaked (a proponent of the outposts) and Benny Gantz (who, as Defense Minister, is ultimately responsible for implementing any such decision). 

Meanwhile, Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel attended a ceremony inaugurating the installation of fiber-optic cables in the unauthorized Magen Dan outpost, located in the northern West Bank settlement of Elkana. This is the first unauthorized outpost to be connected to the Israeli fiber optic grid.

Bonus Reads

  1. “‘We’re here to pressure the village’: Israeli troops admit collective punishment policy” (+972 Magazine)
  2. “Israel Closes Case Against Police Involved in Deadly West Bank Car Chase” (Haaretz)
  3. “Palestinian farmers caught between Israeli rock and PA hard place” (Middle East Eye)
  4. “Explained: How Israel’s Absentees’ Property Law keeps Palestinians from their homes” (Middle East Eye)
  5. “Opinion | The Israeli Occupation’s Problem Isn’t Just a Few Violent Settlers” (Avshalom Zohar Sal / for Haaretz)
  6. “Palestinians call for probe into Israeli massacres in Tantura” (Al Jazeera)
  7. “A Progressive Jewish Response to the Discriminatory Policies of the KKL-JNF” (Breaking the Silence). From the author: 

“The report begins with an executive summary, which is followed by three main sections. The first section provides an overview of the parts of KKL-JNF’s work that has displaced Palestinians and further entrenched the occupation. The second section offers a detailed explanation of the often opaque structures of the organization, including its relationship to the World Zionist Organization and the Israeli government, as well as its internal structure and budget. The final section of the report provides initial suggestions on how progressive Jews can begin to counter the work of KKL-JNF.”

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.

January 21, 2022

  1. Under Cover of Darkness & Cold, Israel Evicts Palestinian Family & Demolishes Their Homes in Sheikh Jarrah
  2. Israel Advances Plan for New Settlement in East Jerusalem
  3. Settlers Continue To Press For “Legalization” of Homesh Outpost & Yeshiva
  4. New U.S. Ambassador Will “Absolutely Not” Visit Settlements
  5. Further Reading

Under Cover of Darkness & Cold, Israel Dispossessed Palestinian Family & Demolished Their Homes in Sheikh Jarrah

At approximately 3:00am on Wednesday, January 19th Israeli forces undertook a major operation in order to forcibly remove the Salhiya family from their longtime home in Sheikh Jarrah — rendering 7 adults and 5 children homeless in the middle of the night in the freezing rain. Israeli forced then moved to promptly demolish the home. The action followed Israel’s aborted two days earlier, on January 17th, to remove the family, during which it razed part of the Salhiya family plot, including a plant nursery. 

As a reminder, Israel pursued this dispossession after unilaterally expropriating the plot of land owned by the Salhiya family in 2017 for “public use.” Israeli authorities say that they intend to use the land to build schools to serve Palestinians, who have long suffered from a shortage of school facilities. As has been noted, this argument is hard to take seriously, given that land exists elsewhere in Sheikh Jarrah on which schools could be built without evicting and rendering an entire Palestinian family. Ir Amim explains:

“Although Israeli law allows for the expropriation of private property for public purposes, it is typically only carried out in the absence of alternative options. The authorities have had various options at their disposal, including use of other plots of open land in the neighborhood, which would not have necessitated the Salahiya family’s eviction. Rather than using such plots, the municipality saw it reasonable to dispossess a Palestinian family to meet such needs.”

In order to carry out this forcible dispossession, Israel forces first cut power to the entire (Palestinian) area in which the Salhiya house and businesses were located. Accounts from those present at the eviction/demolition reported that Israeli forces violently assaulted several members of the Salhiya family including children. Israeli forces also arrested eighteen human rights defenders – including members of the Salhiya family — for resisting the eviction (for a detailed update on these cases, please see this report by Human Rights Defenders Fund). An additional six human rights defenders were arrested later on January 19th during a protest  against the demolition, held in front of the Jerusalem Mayor’s home. Human Rights Defenders Fund, which is funding the legal representation of those arrested, said:

“HRDF opposes the unjust evictions of family homes in Sheikh Jarrah and will continue to stand with Palestinian HRDs defending their basic human rights for property and shelter. We will continue to closely monitor Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and oppose any illegitimate attempt to change its demographics.”

The overnight evictions have been roundly criticized by human rights groups and several international governments. The European Union slammed the eviction/demolition, along with separate statements issued by individual European nations. The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield also spoke out (weakly, in a statement framed in classic bothsides-isms).

Israel Advances Plan for New Settlement in East Jerusalem

On January 17th, the Jerusalem District Planning Committee approved for deposit for public review a new settlement plan in East Jerusalem – called the “Lower Aqueduct” plan. The new settlement is intended to connect the controversial settlements of Givat Hamatos and Har Homa, establishing an uninterrupted continuum of Israeli settlements on the southern rim of Jerusalem, and destroying the contiguity of Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

As laid out in new reporting from Terrestrial Jerusalem, the plan is being promoted by the Jerusalem Municipality together with the Israel Lands Authority, but – as the reporting predicts – 

“when the smoke clears, it will become evident that the same protagonists that are facilitating settlements in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Givat Shaked, Musrara – i.e. the Custodian General and the Absentee Property Custodian – are deeply implicated in the Plan.”

Terrestrial Jerusalem further notes that the plan is being advanced at an expedited pace, giving the appearance that “someone senior and in a position of authority is expediting the Plan at [a] highly irregular pace.”

In total, the plan provides for the construction of 1,465 new units – around half of which will be constructed over the 1967 Green Line the demarcates (in the eyes of the international community) the line between Israeli-annexed West Jerusalem and Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem. The plan also provides for open public spaces and buildings including schools and a gymnasium. 

Importantly, the new settlement will impinge on the two neighboring East Jerusalem Palestinian villages of Sur Baher and Umm Tuba, and will involve the expropriation by Israel of privately owned Palestinian land. Most notably, in order to pave a new access road for the new settlement, the State will likely expropriate land privately owned by Palestinian residents of Umm Tuba.

Ir Amim’s Aviv Tartarsky told The Times of Israel:

“This is another way in which Israel is erasing the Green Line in Jerusalem, ending Palestinian contiguity, and expropriating the lands of Palestinians. When Palestinians tried to plan construction there, it was rejected — and now the territory will be confiscated.”

Following the committee’s decision to this week to advance the plan, the European Union, France, Germany, Spain and Italy all issued statements calling for Israel to reverse the move. France also published a joint statement with Ireland and Estonia.

Settlers Continue To Press For “Legalization” of Homesh Outpost & Yeshiva

In a display of brazen lawlessness, more than 1,200 Israeli Jews managed to enter the closed military zone that is the site of the former Homesh settlement – where settlers have illegally established and operated a yeshiva for years – in order to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shvat, as part of their ongoing campaign to pressure the government to reestablish the settlement.

To reach the site, settlers (identified as yeshiva students by The Jewish Press) marched en masse for two hours with armed guards through the outskirts of the Palestinian village of Sebastia. On their way, settlers passed easily through at least two IDF checkpoints — meant to stop traffic towards the Homesh area, though Israeli soldiers in practice prevented only the freedom of Palestinian traffic in that direction. Sebastia is a routinely besieged city, suffering closures in the wake of the murder of settler Yehuda Dimentan and as a consequence of Israeli settler’s focus on archaeological sites in the city [as has been covered in the Settlement Report regularly: settlers, in collaboration with Israeli authorities, are openly seeking to exploit archeology as a tool to dispossess Palestinians in the West Bank]. 

In Jerusalem, settler leaders and their allies continued their mass protest in front of the Prime Minister’s residence in a bid to pressure Bennett to authorize Homesh, amongst other demands.

New U.S. Ambassador Will “Absolutely Not” Visit Settlements

In an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth news outlet, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Nides said that he will not visit Israeli settlements in the West Bank, unlike his immediate predecessor David Friedman. 

When questioned about his travel policy as compared to Friedman’s, Nides said:

“Because just like I ask both the Palestinians and Israelis not to take steps that inflame the situation, I don’t want to do things intentionally that would create disrespect or anger among people. Now, listen, I’ll make mistakes. I’ll say things that will aggravate people. I’m sure that in this interview, I’ll say something that will aggravate someone. But I don’t want to intentionally anger people.”

It’s worth recalling that the Biden Administration has not reversed or publicly rejected the Trump Administration’s “Pompeo Doctrine,” which made it U.S. policy to view Israeli settlements as not “per se inconsistent with international law.” The overwhelming majority of the international community holds that all Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank are illegal pursuant to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states:

“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.

Bonus Reads

  1. “PODCAST: Excavating Israel’s underground settlements” (+972 Magazine)
  2. “Palestinian Activist Dies Two Weeks After Being Run Over by Israeli Police Truck” (Haaretz)
  3. “There’s a Mass Palestinian Grave at a Popular Israeli Beach, Veterans Confess” (Haaretz)
  4. “JNF Board Members Demand End to Controversial Tree-planting in Negev Until Questions Answered” (Haaretz)