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.

September 20, 2018

1. 2018 Settlement Construction Starts (& Finishes) Are Surging
2. Settlement Projects Advance in Sheikh Jarrah, Jabal al-Mukaber
3. Israeli Authorities Approve Plan to Seize Palestinian Land & Legalize Outpost Near Hebron
4. Israel Issues “Gardening Orders” to Take Control of More Land in Silwan
5. Israeli Tourism Ministers Boasts About Bankrolling Tourism Projects to Expand Settlements
6. Shaked’s Judicial Interference is Subject of Special Knesset Session
7. Bonus Reads

Comments, questions, or suggestions? Email Kristin McCarthy at kmccarthy@fmep.org. To subscribe to this report, please click here.

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2018 Settlement Construction Starts (& Finishes) Are Surging

Recently released data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics show that since January 2018, construction has started on a total of 1,073 new settlement units, and total of 1,075 new settlement units (started in previous years) have been completed  – representing new housing for more than 10,000 settlers (assuming, conservatively, a family size of 5-6 people). Together the numbers mark a 66% increase over the same period in 2017. Though settlement plans have advanced at an alarming rate since the beginning of the Trump Administration, actual on-the-ground construction starts did not seen a significant surge until the second quarter of 2018, which saw a 187% increase over the first quarter. 

Peace Now released a statement saying:

“The Netanyahu government continues to destroy the chances for peace. Further construction in the settlements undermines Israel’s interest in reaching a two-state solution, as such a solution will not be stable without a viable Palestinian state, which settlements increasingly threaten. Unfortunately, since Trump’s election, we have seen a sharp increase in the approval of the plans and tenders, and now we are beginning to see the consequences of these approvals on the ground.”

Settler leaders were characteristically dissatisfied with the pace of construction. The Director of the Yesha Council (and umbrella group representing all Israeli settlements), Yigal Dilmoni, told the Jerusalem Post:

“We are talking about a few hundreds units, which is very little, relative to thousands built throughout the country. Judea and Samaria still have the low building numbers, we expect and hope that we will be given more building permits.”

Settlement Projects Advance in Sheikh Jarrah, Jabal al-Mukaber

Ir Amim reports that two plans for new settlement buildings in the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah have been deposited for public review. If implemented, the two plans would build two new 6-story buildings in the Um Harun section of Sheikh Jarrah, one with 3 settlement units and the second with 10 settlement units. If implemented the plans will also involve the demolition of two buildings and the eviction of five Palestinian families living there.

The plans were originally approved for deposit in July 2017. As Ir Amim reported in detail at the time, both plans (numbers 14151 & 14029) are linked directly to Jerusalem settlement impresario Aryeh King. King can now count several significant victories for his settlement projects in sensitive Jerusalem neighborhoods over the past two weeks, totalling 309 new settlement units: Two plans were advanced in Sheikh Jarrah, totalling 14 units; one plan was advanced in Beit Hanina, totalling 75 units; also this week, King reportedly announced (though details are scant – stay tuned) that the government has approved a plan for 220 new units in the Nof Zion settlement enclave, located inside the Jabal al-Mukaber neighborhood. It is worth noting that, back in September 2017, the government was poised to issue permits for 176 units in Nof Zion – it is not clear if the 220 include those units, or are in addition to them, or if the numbers are inaccurate or deliberately misleading.

Settlement advancements in Sheikh Jarrah are becoming alarmingly routine. In addition to the developments this week, the inflammatory plan to build a Jewish religious school (known as the Glassman yeshiva project) was recommended for final approval. If implemented, an eight story building will be erected at the entrance to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The massive building will also include dormitories for young religious men and eight units to house “lecturers visiting from abroad.”

Israeli Authorities Approve Plan to Seize Palestinian Land & Legalize Outpost Near Hebron

The Land Research Center, a Palestinian organization, reports that the Israeli Civil Administration – the arm of the Israeli Defense Ministry that runs all affairs in the West Bank – has published a detailed plan to expand the borders of the Tene-Omarim settlement to include an outpost that was built without Israeli government authorization, located on lands claimed by the Palestinian village of Dahriyeh.

In order to carry out the plan, the Israeli Civil Administration will add 260,000 square meters of land (roughly 64 acres) to the settlement. The plan calls for 150 new units in Tene-Omarim in addition to new roads and open areas to connect the settlement to an outpost northeast of its borders. 

In May 2018, the Israeli Civil Administration advanced plans for 143 new settlement units in Tene-Omarim.

Israel Issues “Gardening Orders” to Take Control of More Land in Silwan

On August 24th, the Israeli NGO Emek Shaveh reported that the Jerusalem Municipality had  issued “gardening orders” as a means of taking over new areas of privately owned land in the Silwan and Abu-Tor neighborhoods of East Jerusalem (in the area known in Hebrew as the Ben Hinnom Valley). Under Israeli law, the Jerusalem municipality can issue orders to use private land for public purposes if it deems the land “unutilized” by its owners. News of the orders broke the day before U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton attended a dinner party in Silwan hosted by the radical settler group Elad.

The orders seize 27 plots of land owned by Palestinians, based on the argument that the plots are not being used by their owners. The orders disingenuously note that Palestinian owners can seek to reclaim their land in the event that they obtain Israeli-issued building permits (without which they are unable to utilize the land for their own purposes). This explanation, as Emek Shaveh notes, ignores the fact that “the land owners cannot receive construction permits because their land is situated within a national park which, according to law, precludes construction.”

Emek Shaveh goes on to report:

“The gardening orders are the latest in a series of development activities in the Ben Hinnom Valley/Silwan area and will no doubt complement the Elad Foundation’s initiatives in the valley and efforts to link it with tourism ventures in the City of David/Wadi Hilweh. The Elad Foundation together with government ministries are currently promoting several projects within the area covered by the gardening order including a café in Abu Tor, the planned cable car intended to link West Jerusalem to the Kedem Center, and the archaeological excavations which the Elad Foundation has been funding in recent years adjacent to the Catholic cemetery.”

Israeli Tourism Ministers Boasts About Bankrolling Tourism Projects to Expand Settlements

At a meeting with the Yesha Council (the powerful umbrella group representing all Israeli settlements), Minister of Tourism Yariv Levin (Likud) told settler leaders:

“Tourism in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) is at a point of tremendous momentum. We now have a window of opportunity to make big moves in the tourism industry and this is a time of desire that should definitely be exploited. We will continue to establish and bankroll activities in Judea and Samaria in addition to establishing facts on the ground.”

Minister Levin boasted of having directed USD 11.15 million (NIS 40 million) to West Bank tourism projects over the past three years of his tenure.

In addition to his work directing taxpayer funds to the settlements, Minister Levin has also been pushing legislation and procedural rules that advance the direct application of Israeli laws over the settlements (an act of de facto annexation).

Shaked’s Judicial Interference is Subject of Special Knesset Session

On September 17th, the Knesset held a special session (during the Knesset recess) titled, “Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked’s attack on the High Court of Justice and the danger to democracy.” As FMEP has extensively documented, Justice Minister Shaked has been hard at work transforming the Israeli judicial branch in favor of pro-settlement and pro-annexation policies.

Meretz Chairwoman MK Tamar Zandberg opened the the special session defending her own party against accusations of political interference with the Court (Shaked denies a quote attributed to her saying that the High Court is an “arm of the Meretz party”). Zandberg said:

“the High Court of Justice was never a branch of Meretz. We often far from agree with the rulings of the High Court of Justice, which legitimized settlements, but we live in a democratic country governed by the rule of law, and the independence of the judicial system is one of its basic principles. The High Court of Justice is the focus of an extreme, unbridled attack aimed at clipping its wings and distorting the foundations on which it was established.”

One of many speakers, MK Michal Rozin (Meretz) said:

“Ayelet Shaked’s commander’s spirit is felt in the justice system – from the deepening of her control in the Judicial Appointments Committee, which has become a committee for the appointment of conservatives, to rulings which adopt her anti-constitutional lines, such as allowing the theft of Palestinian lands by the Jerusalem District Court. This spirit is aimed at applying sovereignty in the conquered territories, reducing the freedom of the citizens and expanding the Orthodox control on our daily lives.”

Appearing at the hearing under summons on behalf of the government, Justice Minister Shaked told her critics in the Knesset:

“I understand your anger about the fact that Jews are not being evacuated from their homes, but you must pull yourself together. We have a country to protect. The rule of law must be preserved. We cannot accept a situation in which your criticism of the court is sinking to such depths to which you have recently deteriorated. As the Minister of Justice, I call upon those who sit in this House – on the Left and the Right – to maintain dignified discourse. We don’t have another legal system. Of course it is legitimate to express criticism against a ruling. It is acceptable to argue over ideas, it is permissible to argue over areas of authority. I do so from time to time, but we must maintain respectability and dignified discourse.”

Bonus Reads

1. “APN Peace Cast w/ Hagit Ofran” (Americans for Peace Now)
2. “How Peace Keeps Receding in the Middle East” (Washington Post)

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

To subscribe to this report, please click here.

September 7, 2018

1. Israel Advances Plan for New Settlement in East Jerusalem
2. Even More East Jerusalem Settlement Plans Advanced
3. Israel Demolishes Homes in al-Walajah, Advancing “Greater Jerusalem” Project
4. State Admits to High Court it Built Settler Road on Palestinian Private Land
5. Prominent Human Rights Activists Arrested While Leading Tour of Hebron Region
6. Government Official Claims Jerusalem Cable Car Project Will Benefit Palestinians in Silwan
7. BonusReads

Comments, questions, or suggestions? Email Kristin McCarthy at kmccarthy@fmep.org. To subscribe to this report, please click here.

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Israel Advances Plan for New Settlement in East Jerusalem

On September 5th, the Jerusalem Local Planning and Building Committee advanced a plan to build a large new settlement enclave (150 units) within yet another Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The project – a pet project of Jerusalem settlement financier (and since 2013, Jerusalem city council member) Aryeh King – would be the first-ever authorized settlement project in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of East Jerusalem, located north of the Old City.

The plan would build housing for approximately 75 settler families (which, based on a conservative estimate, would mean a population of around 500 settlers in Beit Hanina). If built, it would be one of the largest Israeli settlement enclaves inside any Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

According to the plan, 75 units units would theoretically be earmarked for Palestinians – a point used by the plan’s supporters to suggest that it is actually benevolent. The key word here, however, is: theoretically. As noted by Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann in another context:

“Since 1967, the Government of Israel has directly engaged in the construction of 55,000 units for Israelis in East Jerusalem; in contrast, fewer than 600 units have been built for Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the last of which were built 40 years ago.”

In announcing the approval of the plan, Israel’s deputy mayor made clear what part of the plan the Municipality is actually focused on:

“We’re happy to announce today that we’ve approved construction of 150 housing units in Beit Hanina, and especially that 75 Jewish families can now live there.”

Notably, the Jerusalem Local Planning and Building Committee advanced the plan through the first stage of the planning process, despite an objection filed by the private Palestinian company that owns 45% of the land upon which the new units would be built (ownership that the Israeli government tried – and so far failed – to cancel, through efforts to rescind the sale of the land to that company). The Committee explained its decision to ignore the objection by asserting that it was only discussing planning schemes and not ownership issues. The Jerusalem Municipality also weighed in, suggesting that the Palestinian company is too late in asserting its rights, saying that the ownership issue was “examined as part of the examination of the plan’s preconditions.”

Director of the Peace Now Settlement Watch program, Hagit Ofran, rejected that argument, saying:

“this is not a real estate project but a project of defiance and settlement. The fact that Israeli entrepreneurs, who own only half of the land, have prepared a plan without consulting Palestinian owners [of the other half] indicates that they have no intention of coexistence and peace.”

A handful Israeli settlers already live in Beit Hanina, having directly acquired private property in the heart of the neighborhood. This small group of settlers clearly benefit from the plan, both because it lends legitimacy to their presence in and broader claims to the neighborhood, and because the new project would create a territorial linkage between the new settlement in Beit Hanina and the large ultra-Orthodox settlement of Ramat Shlomo to its south.

The historic nature of the Beit Hanina settlement plan is being hailed by pro-settlement media and activists. The Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Yossi Deitch, said, “I hope approval of the units will be the sign and signal that construction in the city will be unfrozen next year throughout the city and for all sectors. I’ll do everything possible to thaw the construction freeze in Jerusalem.”

Israel has increased home demolitions across East Jerusalem, including Beit Hanina, over the past year. In Beit Hanina, many homes are under the threat of demolition because they lack Israeli-issued building permits – permits that Palestinians find all but impossible to secure. Just this week, Israel demolished the Farrah family home in Beit Hanina, built over 16 years ago – despite the fact that the family has spent years attempting to obtain the necessary permits and has paid 250,000 shekel ($69,362) fine to the Israeli government.

 Even More East Jerusalem Settlement Plans Advanced

In addition to the Beit Hanina settlement plan, Ir Amim reports that Jerusalem authorities have advanced several other inflammatory settlement projects in East Jerusalem over the past week:

1. The Local Planning and Building Committee discussed issuing a permit to retroactively legalize unauthorized settlement construction – several shops and offices – in Silwan, located at the entrance of the settler-run City of David National Park. The buildings were constructed, without permits, under the direction of the radical Elad settler group, which is contracted by the Israel National Parks Authority to run the City of David National Park. As a reminder, Elad’s mission is to establish a permanent Jewish presence in Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. The retroactive permit, in addition to legalizing the current buildings, would also allow the group to build an additional story to one of the buildings, to serve a”lookout” point. Demonstrating government collusion with the settlement enterprise in Jerusalem, the permit request was filed by the Israel National Parks Authority, not Elad.
2. The Local Planning and Building Committee committee discussed public objections filed against a plan to build a 6-story office building for settlers at the entrance of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The office building, if approved, would be located adjacent to the site of a planned Jewish religious school to also be built in Sheikh Jarrah – called the Glassman Yeshiva. That school, once it is built, will house dozens of young religious settlers. Together, the two projects will flank the road leading into Sheikh Jarrah and become part of a settlement bridge/corridor connecting the isolated settlement enclaves in the heart of Sheikh Jarrah to West Jerusalem. Ir Amim notes that both settlement projects have been advanced “despite the area being zoned for public buildings for a Palestinian neighborhood sorely lacking in social services.” This latest advancement was anticipated and noted in last week’s Settlement Report.
3. The Jerusalem Local Committee advanced two plans to increase the number of new units authorized to be built in the Gilo and Neve Ya’akov settlements. In both instances, the Local Committee discussed plans that increase the number of units permitted to be built under already-approved plans (adding an additional 48 units in both cases, bringing the Neve Ya’akov project to 86 units total and the Gilo project to 148 units total).

Israel Demolishes Homes in al-Walajah, Advancing “Greater Jerusalem” Project

On September 3rd, Israeli officials demolished four buildings in the al-Walajah village, on the pretext that they lack required Israel-issued building permits. Israeli security forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets at a crowd of protestors who gathered to try to stop the demolition, injuring several.

The demolitions were in the Ein Juweza neighborhood of the village – an area that is technically located within the municipal borders of Jerusalem (the border runs through the village, leaving the rest of al-Walajah in the West Bank), and therefore subject to Israeli planning and building laws. An additional 189 homes in al-Walajah have demolition orders issued against them.

The lawyer representing al-Walajah residents in this case said,

“The residents’ attempts to submit a master plan [without which it is impossible for residents to even apply for permits to build on their own land] were thwarted by the objection of the state and subsequently, the planning authorities. In this situation of criminal neglect of the village and its residents, the only service the state gives them is ‘home demolition service.’ This is an impossible, illegal situation that contradicts the most minimal fairness.”

Ir Amim reports:

“While refusing to allow building in Walajeh, in the area around the village Israel is promoting construction of thousands of housing units for Israelis on lands – some of which were confiscated from Walajeh – in the settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo. To the north of the village, within the Green Line and on lands that belonged to Walajeh until 1948, a construction plan of over 4,000 housing units is being advanced. These construction plans, together with the national park declared on al-Walajeh land in 2013, are meant to create an Israeli continuum between Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion settlements surrounding Bethlehem. This morning’s demolitions in Walajeh are an inherent part of the policy to transform this area into an Israeli space.”

As FMEP has previously reported, residents of al-Walajah have long been struggling against the growing encroachment the nearby Etzion settlement bloc and the Israeli government’s attempt to de facto annex the bloc as part of “Greater Jerusalem.” Ir Amim explains several prongs of this effort, including a particularly problematic section of the separation barrier around al-Walajah that has been planned in order to (a) almost completely encircle the village, (b) turn its valuable agricultural land into an urban park for Jerusalem, and (c) enable construction of a highway that will connect the Etzion settlement bloc to Jerusalem with Israeli-only bypass roads.

State Admits to High Court it Built Settler Road on Palestinian Private Land

The Israeli government admitted to the High Court of Justice that it cut and paved a road on land that is privately owned by Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills. The State claimed it did so by mistake, believing the land in question, which had been included in construction plan for the settlement of Shima – despite the fact that Palestinian owners objected as soon as construction started in 2015. Even after the objections were lodged against the construction, Israeli authorities took months before issuing a stop work order, allowing the road to be completed/paved in the meantime.

In the brief submitted this week, the State asked the High Court to dismiss the case regarding the road, explaining that the Civil Administration had already taken action to correct the borders of the Shima settlement to, in effect, return the land to is owners (now paved with a road for the settlers). The State says that action was prompted in 2015 when the Civil Administration “Blue Line” team released new mapping of the area, which clarified that the land is indeed privately owned by Palestinians.

Commenting on the story, a spokesperson for Rabbis for Human Rights told Haaretz:

“The state acted like the ‘hilltop youth’ [a radical settler group]. You can’t explain this away using the excuse of an innocent mistake, given that even after our warnings it took a long and embarrassing legal procedure to get them to do the obvious: check who actually owns the land.”

Prominent Human Rights Activists Arrested While Leading Tour of the Hebron Region

Israeli security forces arrested three prominent human rights activists while they were leading a sizeable group on a tour of settlements and outposts in the Hebron/South Hebron Hills area. Avner Gvaryahu (Executive Director of Breaking the Silence), Michael Sfard (a prominent Israeli human rights lawyer), and Achiya Schatz (Communications Director for Breaking the Silence) were released after three hours of detention.

The men were arrested near the Mitzpe Yair outpost in Hebron, the same spot where activists from Taayush – “Israelis & Palestinians striving together to end the Israeli occupation and to achieve full civil equality through daily non-violent direct-action” – were violently attacked by settlers the previous week, with at least four wounded seriously enough to be evacuated to for medical treatment. In that attack, IDF soldiers reportedly stood by and did nothing (and in its aftermath, the Israeli government and senior officials, including Netanyahu, said nothing).

Breaking the Silence related the events, saying:

“As we drove up the road leading to the outpost, we were blocked by a Border Police jeep. Within minutes, we were presented with a ‘closed military zone’ order, signed by the brigade commander. We were given one minute to evacuate a group of 120 participants, some of whom weren’t so young. When we asked for more time to get everyone on the buses, the arrests started. As was reported in the media, the arrests were aimed at the leaders of the tour, which reinforced our suspicion that they were initially meant to sabotage the tour….Upon arriving at the police station, Avner, Achiya, and Michael had been told that they were in fact not arrested but rather detained, and that there was no immediate need for investigations or arrests. They were then told to return in a month and a half for further investigation.”

The group’s email to supporters ends:

“we refuse to cave in to settler violence and to surrender to their intimidation, incitement, and violence directed against those who oppose the immoral reality of the occupied territories.”

Government Official Claims Jerusalem Cable Car Project Will Benefit Palestinians in Silwan

On September 5th, the Society for the Protection of Nature held a public forum to discuss the planned cable car project in Jerusalem, which is slated to have its final stop at the settler-run Kedem Center in Silwan. The Kedem Center is a project of the radical Elad settler group, which works to settle Jewish Israelis inside Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.

Sami Arsheid, a lawyer representing Palestinian residents of Silwan (who will be deeply impacted by the project), attended the town hall event to raise their concerns. Arsheid said that Palestinians had not been consulted and noted that the invitation to the meeting was written in Hebrew only.

A Israeli government official responsible for planning the cable car project, Aner Ozeri, stressed how the project will ease movement and alleviate transportation pressures, and insisted that the project will, in fact, benefit Palestinian residents of Silwan. Even if that claim turns out to be true, it glosses over the fact that, assuming the most benign intent,  the Israeli government is engaging in planning in Silwan that rejects/ignores the views of the vast majority of the residents (i.e., the only residents of Silwan whose voices are listened to in this process are the settlers). Moreover, in the case of this plan the intent, entirely unhidden by planners, is by no means benign: the purpose of the cable car project has nothing to do with the interests of Palestinian residents – rather, its purpose is to facilitate tourist visits to Jewish sites in East Jerusalem, in a manner that prevents tourists from seeing or encountering Palestinians.

The meeting was also attended by government officials tasked with explaining and defending the project, as well as architects, academics, preservation experts, and tourism professionals who criticized the plan on a myriad of bases – mostly highlighting how the project will damage the historic landscape of Jerusalem.

Bonus Reads

1. “In West Bank Settlements, It’s a Bull Housing Market” (Haaretz)
2. “Israeli right wing party aims at one million settlers” (Al-Monitor)

 

***NOTE: This week the Israeli government unleashed a massive wave of approvals to advance plans for settlement construction — in excess of 2,000 units — in highly sensitive and strategically significant areas deep inside the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. More approvals/advancements are expected in the coming weeks. See below for detailed coverage of the individual plans, keeping in mind both the significance of each approval on its own, and as part of the overarching Israeli government agenda clearly intending to both prevent any possibility of a Palestinian state and to further the march toward formal annexation of the West Bank. Also keep in mind, importantly, that there has been zero public push back from the Trump Administration against this surge, which comes on the heels of Ambassador Friedman’s statement last week that Israel will never be required to remove any settlements.***

August 24, 2018

1. Settlement Wave, Part 1: High Planning Council Advances Plans for 1,004 Settlement Units (96% Located Deep in the West Bank)
2. Settlement Wave, Part 2: Housing Ministry Published Tenders for 420 Settlement Units
3. Settlement Wave, Part 3: Jerusalem District Committee Advances Plans for 603 Settlement Units in East Jerusalem
4. Settlement Wave, Part 4: More Settlement Construction Coming Soon
5. U.S. Stands by Israeli “Intentions” on Settlements
6. State Tells High Court: We Can Annex the West Bank – International Law Be Damned
7. This Week in Ariel: Settlers Celebrate 40 Years, A Construction Boom, A Medical School, & An Evangelical “Leadership Camp”
8. Amana (the Official Settler Movement) Moves Its HQ to Sheikh Jarrah
9. Settlement Gains in East Jerusalem Result in Palestinians Self-Demolitioning Their Homes
10. Bonus Reads

Comments, questions, or suggestions? Email Kristin McCarthy at kmccarthy@fmep.org. To subscribe to this report, please click here.

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Settlement Wave, Part 1: High Planning Council Advances Plans for 1,004 Settlement Units (96% Located Deep in the West Bank)

On August 22nd, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s High Planning Council (the body in the Israeli Defense Ministry responsible for regulating all construction in the West Bank) advanced plans for 1,004 new settlement units, 96% of which are located deep inside of the West Bank. Of the total, 620 units were approved for deposit for public review and 382 units were given final approval for construction.

As reported by Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, the plans approved for deposit for public review (totalling 620 units) are:

• 370 units in the Adam settlement (aka Geva Benyamin). This project was urged on by Defense Minister Liberman following a stabbing attack in the settlement, which resulted in one death and injuries to three others. The 370 units are part of a larger plan for 1,000+ units that will, if built, connect the Adam settlement to two large settlements in East Jerusalem (Neve Ya’akov and Pisgat Ze’ev) that are on the Israeli side of the separation barrier (the route of the barrier juts far beyond the 1967 Green Line to include Pisgat Ze’ev and Neve Ya’akov on the Israeli side while the Adam settlement is on the West Bank side). If the larger plan is implemented, the Adam settlement will have built up areas on both sides of the separation barrier, which could (in all likelihood) present Israel an opportunity to re-route the barrier around Adam — which would de facto annex even more West Bank land to Israel and further choke off Palestinian East Jerusalem from the West Bank to its north. [Note: FMEP’s Lara Friedman and Peace Now’s Hagit Ofran published an op-ed in Haaretz in 2008 warning of this plan – you can read that background here].
• 85 units in Karnei Shomron settlement. Israel has repeatedly confiscated as “state land” located between Karnei Shomron and the Palestinian village of Qalqilya (which is literally surrounded on three sides by the separation barrier). In November 2017, Israel began clearing landmines from that “state land” in order to prepare for settlement construction. At the time, Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan said that the new construction in the Karnei Shomron area will bring “a million Jews [to] live in Judea and Samaria in the future.”
• 84 units in the Kiryat Netafim settlement, located about half way between the Ariel settlement and the cluster of settlements close to the 1967 Green Line that are slated to be united into a “super settlement” area (Oranit, Elkana, Shiva Tikva, and others). The expansion of Kiryat Netafim will go towards creating a contiguous corridor of Israeli settlements stretching from sovereign Israeli territory, though the super settlement, to Ariel. As FMEP has repeatedly said, the Ariel settlement is located in the heart of the northern West Bank, reaching literally to the midpoint between the Green Line and the Jordan border. The future of Ariel has long been one of the greatest challenges to any possible peace agreement, since any plan to attach Ariel to Israel (with a finger of land running through settlements like Kiryat Netafim) will cut the northern West Bank into pieces.
• 52 units in the Beit El settlement. This is the second major approval for new units in Beit El in 2018, with a third plan for 300 more units coming soon, according to Israel Hayom. The construction boom is being hailed by the settler-aligned Arutz Sheva outlet, which wrote that the plans will increase the size of Beit El by 65%. If any of the units are constructed it will be first new, government-sanctioned construction in Beit El in over 10 years. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman is closely associated with the Beit El settlement, having donated to and fundraised for it prior to his appointment as ambassador (including in his capacity as the President of the American Friends of Beit El, reportedly from 2011 until he became ambassador).
• 29 units in the Otinel settlement, located south of Hebron. MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) lives in Otinel.

Plans that gained final approval, meaning no additional formal approvals are required to move ahead with construction (totalling 382 units) are:

• 168 units in the Tzofim settlement, located on the Israeli side of the separation barrier, but jutting towards the Karnei Shomron settlement, which also received advancements this week. See the section on Karnei Shomron, above, for context and news regarding this area of settlements.
• 108 units in the Nofim settlement, located on the Israeli side of the separation barrier but jutting towards the Karnei Shomron settlement, which also received advancements this week. See the section on Karnei Shomron, above, for context and news regarding this area of settlements.
• 56 units in the Barkan settlement, located near the Kiryat Netafim settlement. Both Barkan and Netafim are located about half way between the Ariel settlement and the cluster of settlements slated to be united into a “super settlement” area (Oranit, Elkana, Shiva Tikva, and others). See the section on Kiryat Netafim, above. for context and news regarding this area of settlements.
• 44 units in Ma’ale Adumim, the mega settlement just east of Jerusalem.
• 6 units in the Avnei Hefetz settlement, located southeast of the Palestinian city of Tulkarem.

Notably, Netanyahu intervened to remove two items from the High Planning Council’s agenda, both of which would have led to the retroactive legalization of illegal outposts. Those plans are:

1. A plan to retroactively legalize the Ibei Hanahel outpost, which is a non-contiguous “neighborhood” of the Ma’ale Amos settlement, located deep in the southern West Bank. The plan would have allowed the outpost to be demolished and then rebuilt legally with residential units, transforming the outpost into a new, fully authorized settlement.
2. A plan to build an education center in the Nofei Prat South outpost, which is a non-contiguous“neighborhood” of the Kfar Adumim settlement, located northeast of Jerusalem. The land on which the project would be built is located just 1.5 km away from the Khan Al-Ahmar Bedouin community – the same one that the Israeli government plans to forcibly evacuate in order to cleanse the area of Palestinians and expand settlements. The outpost was established by the Haroeh Ha’ivri (“the Hebrew Shepherd”) nonprofit association, which is funded by the Israeli Education Ministry.

In response to Netanyahu’s directive to remove these two items from the agenda, the heads of the Knesset’s “Land of Israel Lobby,” Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) and Yoav Kisch (Likud), said that the Prime Minister should “ act with greater rigor to promote settlement, rather than doing the opposite.”

Settler leaders were also unsatisfied with the High Planning Council’s overall numbers. Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council (a municipal body for settlements in the northern West Bank), said:

“We are happy about every new house in Samaria, but we have to tell the truth. Hundreds of housing units are not enough for an area that constitutes 12% of the State of Israel…We expect the government to step in the gas, stop worrying about what they will say overseas, and develop this beautiful region.”

Settlement Wave, Part 2: Housing Ministry Published Tenders for 420 Settlement Units

On August 23rd, one day after the Defense Ministry’s High Planning Council advanced a huge tranche of settlement plans (detailed above), the Israeli Housing Ministry published tenders for a total of 425 settlement units (under plans previously approved by the High Planning Council).

Those tenders include:

• 211 units in the Ma’ale Efraim settlement, located in the Jordan Valley.
• 54 units in the Givat Ze’ev settlement, located north of Jerusalem.
• 52 units in the Beit Aryeh settlement, which comes in addition to the the publication of tenders for 511 units in the settlement last week.
• 42 units in the Ariel settlement. See reporting below for extensive coverage of the many reasons settlers in Ariel are celebrating this week.

Settlement Wave, Part 3: Jerusalem District Committee Advances Plans for 603 Settlement Units in East Jerusalem

In addition to the tranche of settlement plans advanced by the Defense Ministry’s High Planning Council and the tenders published by the Housing Ministry (detailed above), the Jerusalem District Committee deposited for public review (one of the final steps before approval) plans for a total of 608 new settlement units in East Jerusalem, with 345 units slated for the Gilo settlement and 263 units in the Ramot settlement. 

On the plan for the Gilo settlement, Ir Amim explains:

“The Gilo plan is being promoted in tandem with development of the new Green Line branch of the Light Rail (construction of which was launched in May), which will be built adjacent to the settlement expansion. This sequencing of events once again exemplifies a pattern of the state investing billions of shekels in transportation infrastructures to allow for extensive construction beyond the Green Line.”

As Ir Amim notes, this week’s advancements come on the heels of Israel’s August 15th decision to publish tenders for 603 units in Ramat Shlomo, and its June 2018 advancement of plans for 1,064 settlement units in the Pisgat Ze’ev settlement — bringing Israel’s two-month total of settlement advancements in East Jerusalem to 2,275 units.

As a reminder, approvals/advancement of settlement plans is not the only ongoing threat to Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Settlers and settler-run organizations continue their campaign to take over sensitive areas in East Jerusalem neighborhoods neighborhood – like Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah – and to create more settler run tourist sites – like the Jerusalem cable car, the Kedem Center, the Abu-Tor footbridge, the Yemenite “heritage center,” and more – to erase the visibility of Palestinians in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, pending legislation in the Knesset seeks to gerrymander the borders of Jerusalem to create a Jewish majority by annexing settlements and cutting out Palestinian neighborhoods from the borders of the city. Sounding the alarm on all of these trends, Ir Amim writes:

“It is vital that the traditional calculus of settlement building be readjusted to a) treat these coordinated efforts to consolidate control of the Old City and surrounding Palestinian neighborhoods with the same urgency afforded to settlement building throughout the whole of East Jerusalem; b) ensure a holistic response that regards private settlement inside the Old City Basin and touristic settlement not as individual phenomena but as multiple elements of a unified and politically lethal strategy.”

Settlement Wave, Part 4: More Settlement Construction Coming Soon

In addition to the plans for 1,004 units that were advanced this week by the High Planning Council, the 425 tenders published by the Housing Ministry, and the 608 units advanced in East Jerusalem (all detailed above), this week saw reports that additional plans are expected to advance soon. Those are:

1. Ir Amim reports that on September 2nd, the Jerusalem District Committee is expected to discuss a plan to build a six-story building in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in which at least 75 families face eviction by radical settlers, with the backing of the Israeli government and courts. For detailed reporting on the building, plans for which were deposited for public review in May 2018, see FMEP reporting here.
2. Peace Now reports that tenders are expected to be issued (having already been marketed) for more units in the Adam (Geva Binyamin) settlement. If true, this will be another step towards uniting Adam to the East Jerusalem settlements – the details of which are covered above.
3. Peace Now also notes that a plan for 300 units in Beit El is expected to be advanced. This comes in addition to the 52 tenders issued for Beit El this week.
4. The Times of Israel reports that plans for hundreds of additional settlement units will soon be marketed for construction by the Defense Ministry. These plans received final approval before this week’s High Planning Council meeting. A Civil Administration official hinted that the plans will be marketed for the Alfei Menashe and Ma’ale Efraim settlements. [NOTE: This reporting was before the subsequent publication of tenders for 211 units in Ma’ale Efraim, covered above.]

U.S. Stands By Israeli “Intentions” on Settlements

When asked for comment on the various major settlement announcements, the U.S. State Department said that the Trump Administration believes the Israeli government has clearly demonstrated an intent to “adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes the president’s concerns into consideration” – a statement that suggests unequivocally that the Trump Administration has given a green light for massive settlement expansion across the length and breadth of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Notably, on the same day that the bulk of the settlement announcements were made, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton, was on the ground in Jerusalem. Not only did he offer no comment or criticism of the settlement announcements, he very publicly joined Israeli politicians and settlers leaders for dinner in East Jerusalem, dining in the “City of David National Park,” the archeological/touristic/residential site in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan that is run by the radical Elad settler organization. As FMEP has repeatedly covered, the Elad settler organization is spearheading a government-aided campaign to evict Palestinians from their homes in Silwan, replace them with Jewish Israeli settlers, and transform the neighborhood into a Biblical tourist site emphasizing exclusively the area’s Jewish history.

The head of the Peace Now Settlement Watch program, Shabtay Bendet, told Al-Monitor:

“The situation on the ground is changing rapidly…Restraints on construction in the settlements have been lifted. The Americans don’t care…”

State Tells High Court: We Can Annex the West Bank, International Law Be Damned

On August 7th, the state’s private attorney Harel Arnon submitted a second brief [Hebrew] to the High Court of Justice in defense of the settlement “Regulation Law.” In it he argues that the Knesset is not bound by international law and has the right to apply its own laws outside of its borders and annex land, if it wishes.

Arnon argues:

“The mere application of a certain Israeli norm [law] to an anonymous place outside the state does not necessarily make that anonymous place part of Israel. The Knesset is not restricted from legislating extra-territorially anywhere in the world, including in the region, the Knesset can legislate in Judea and Samaria.”

The brief also argues:

“The Knesset is permitted to impose the powers of the military commander of the West Bank region as it sees fit. The Knesset is permitted to define the authorities of the military commander as it sees fit. The authority of the government of Israel to annex any territory or to enter into international conventions derives from its authority as determined by the Knesset…[and] the Knesset is allowed to ignore the directives of international law in any field it desires.”

Lawyers representing Adalah responded:

“the Israeli government’s extremist response has no parallel anywhere in the world. It stands in gross violation of international law and of the United Nations Charter which obligates member states to refrain from threatening or using force against the territorial integrity of other states – including occupied territories. The Israeli government’s extremist position is, in fact, a declaration of its intention to proceed with its annexation of the West Bank.”

Harel was ordered to submit a second defense of the bill in response to a petition filed by Adalah and Al-Mezan on behalf of seventeen local Palestinian authorities. The petition argues that the Regulation Law violates international law and that the Knesset cannot enact laws over the West Bank where the majority of the population is Palestinians (who are not Israeli citizens and cannot vote).

The High Court of Justice is widely expected to strike down the “Regulation Law,” but has yet to make a ruling. Just last week, Arnon made the case that the recently passed Nation-State Law, which makes “Jewish settlement,” a “constitutional value,” can help him defend the settlement law before the High Court.  

For ongoing tracking of the Regulation Law and other annexation trends in Israel, see FMEP’s Annexation Policy Tables.

This Week in Ariel: Settlers Celebrate 40 Years, A Construction Boom, A Medical School, & An Evangelical “Leadership Camp”

Haaretz published a lengthy report this week on the history of the the Ariel settlement – which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month – and the dramatic spike in construction in the settlement in 2018. Even before tenders were issued for 42 new units this week (see above), plans for 839 units had already been approved during the first eight months of 2018, compared to tenders for fewer than 5 units each of the past three years. One of the original settlers of Ariel said:

“During the Obama years, everything here was frozen. But thanks to Donald Trump, we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.” 

Not only has Ariel seen a massive surge in construction advancements this year, but the settlement broke ground on a new medical school heavily financed by U.S. casino magnate, and Trump backer, Sheldon Adelson (who this week gave $25 million to the GOP to help it keep the Senate, and in May gave the GOP $30 million to help it keep the House). Many settler leaders and Israeli officials, as well as Adelson and his wife Miriam, were in Ariel this weekend to attend a dedication ceremony for the medical school, despite ongoing controversy around its accreditation under domestic Israeli law. Prime Minister Netanyahu was notably absent from (and reportedly was not invited to) the ceremony, fueling rumors regarding the growing disaffection between him and Adelson.

According to another recent report in Haaretz, Ariel university is illegally dumping construction debris on land that Israel acknowledges is not “state land.” The dump site is outside of the so-called “Blue Line” which the Israeli government uses to demarcate the land that it considers “state land.” Since the dump site is not within the Blue Line, it is likely on land that even the government of Israel recognizes as being privately owned by Palestinians. Anti-settlement watchdog and founder of Kerem Navot, Dror Etkes, commented:

“It’s not surprising that Ariel University, which is the only university in the world built and existing by military order, has adopted the standards accepted in the West Bank involving the takeover of private Palestinian land.”

According to a third Haaretz report, the Israeli Education Ministry has signed a contract to sponsor 3,000-4,000 Israeli high school students of Ethiopian descent to take part in a leadership training program located in Ariel.  The program, called “JH Israel,” was founded by American evangelical mega-church pastors Bruce and Heather Johnston, the latter of whom also runs the U.S. Israel Education Association, a pro-Israel, pro-settlement, non-profit group which works with the Family Research Council to lead Congressional delegations to Israel. The JH Israel website says its mission is to help Jewish Israeli students who are “disconnected from the roots of their faith” to establish “a deeper connection to God by embracing their biblical and cultural heritage.” The website also says that Ariel is “at the forefront of biblical prophecy unfolding in modern Israel.”

As FMEP has repeatedly documented, Ariel is located in the heart of the northern West Bank, reaching literally to the midpoint between the Green Line and the Jordan border. The future of Ariel has long been one of the greatest challenges to any possible peace agreement, since any plan to connect Ariel to Israel will cut the northern West Bank into pieces.

Peace Now Settlement Watch Director Shabtay Bendet spoke to Haaretz about the future of the Ariel settlement and the (other) significant repercussions of opening the new medical school. Bendet said:

“Most places in Israel don’t get recognized as cities unless they have 20,000 to 30,000 residents. Ariel became a city when it had just 11,000 residents. Why was this so significant? Because maybe you can uproot a settlement, but you don’t uproot a city. The same holds true for the university. Why was it so important for him to get it accredited? Because when a place has a university, that means it’s established — no pulling it out of the ground….By creating a buffer between the northern and southern parts of the West Bank it makes any future Palestinian state unviable. But besides that, it is also causing damage in the present because its continued expansion impinges on the ability of the surrounding Palestinian villages to develop and grow.”

Amana (the Official Settler Movement) Moves Its HQ to Sheikh Jarrah

The Ynet news outlet reports that the Amana settler organization – the official body of the settlement movement, operating since the 1970s – has moved into its new headquarters in the heart of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, where settlers are continuing to wage a displacement campaign against Palestinian residents. Though Amana has owned the plot of land since 1992, various legal challenges and incredibly sensitive geopolitical considerations have slowed construction of the building, called the “Amana House” (see a detailed history here).

Regarding the strategic implications of the location, Ynet reports:

“Amana says the new headquarters will help bolster the territorial contiguity of Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem.”

Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Uri Ariel (Bayit Yehudi) who previously served as the CEO of Amana, commented that the organization’s relocation:

“constitutes a significant reinforcement to the (Jewish) settlement in east Jerusalem and the bolstering of the Jewish territorial contiguity in the area.”

Several settlement plans are currently proceeding in Sheikh Jarrah, underscoring the strategic location and goals of settler activity in Sheikh Jarrah. As covered previously in this report, Israel is expected to advance a plan for a 6-story office building for settlers, located at the entrance to the neighborhood. Across the street from that building, a highly consequential plan for a new religious school (the Glassman yeshiva) was approved for deposit for public review in July 2017. The goal is clear: to unite the enclaves of settlers living inside of the Palestinian neighborhood by creating a contiguous area of settlement that connects to West Jerusalem, thereby cementing an immovable Jewish Israeli presence in a key Palestinian neighborhood – closing off the possibility of evacuation under a future peace deal.

Settlement Gains in East Jerusalem Result in Palestinians Self-Demolishing Their Homes

OCHA reports that two Palestinian homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina were self-demolished after the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in favor of settlers’ ownership claims.  OCHA writes:

“In recent decades, Israeli settler organizations, with the support of the Israeli authorities, have taken control of properties within Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, and some 180 Palestinian families are currently facing eviction cases, filed mainly by settler organizations.”

Bonus Reads

1. “How Israeli Right-wing Thinkers Envision the Annexation of the West Bank” (Haaretz)
2. “Let’s Admit It: The Settlers Have Won and We Have Lost” (Haaretz)

 

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

To receive this report via email, please click here.

May 18, 2018

1. Israeli Cabinet Approves Projects to ‘Deepen Israeli Sovereignty Over East Jerusalem’
2. IDF Applies New Israeli Law in the Settlements, Before It Is Even Law
3. Another Sheikh Jarrah Eviction is Imminent
4. Abbas: U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem is an “American Settlement Outpost”; Erekat: We’re Going to the Hague
5. Bonus Reads

Comments, questions, or suggestions? Email Kristin McCarthy at kmccarthy@fmep.org.

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Israeli Cabinet Approves Projects to ‘Deepen Israeli Sovereignty Over East Jerusalem’

On Sunday, May 13th – the day that thousands of radical religious Israelis marched provocatively through Palestinian areas the city in celebration of Jerusalem Day, and the day before the celebration of the official opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem – the Israeli Cabinet authorized a series of projects that, as Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) explained, will “deepen Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem,” at a cost of $560 million USD. NOTE: Israel annexed East Jerusalem and surrounding areas in 1967 – an annexation rejected by virtually the entire world through the present day.

One of the projects the Cabinet authorized is a “Land Regulation” scheme which directs the Israeli Justice Ministry to register the status of all East Jerusalem land with the Israeli Land Registry. Under the new project, Palestinians must file a claim with the Justice Ministry to have their ownership of lands in East Jerusalem assessed and recorded (or challenged/denied). In cases where Israel determines that Palestinians have not sufficiently proven their property claims, the land will be taken over by Israel for development. Cases in which more than one party claims ownership (e.g., where Israeli settlers claim to have, through various means, gained title to the property) will be referred to an Israeli court. Given that since 1967, Israeli judges have overwhelming ruled against Palestinian claimants in cases dealing with land ownership, the project appears to be a transparent, large-scale mechanism to transfer Palestinian property into the hands of the Israeli government and settlers. The project also sets up a panel of government officials to begin preparations for developing the land in the future, including assessing the state of water and sewage connection.

Shaked connected the “Land Regulation” project to broader events of the week, saying:

“A day before we strengthen Jerusalem by moving the US embassy here, we are bolstering the city by applying Israeli sovereignty in East Jerusalem through the plan to regulate land claims. This is the first practical application of Israeli sovereignty since Israel took sovereign control of the eastern part of the city.”

The Cabinet also voted to allocate an additional $56 million USD towards the Jerusalem cable-car project, which, according to Emek Shaveh, means the cable car project is now fully funded. FMEP has covered the cable car project, and the settler-run Kedem Center which will be its final stop, many times in the past. The project is properly understood as a touristic settlement project that bolsters the presence and control of Israeli settlers in the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.

The Cabinet approved $16.5 million USD for archaeological excavation projects in the Silwan neighborhood, to be carried out by the radical settler group Elad. FMEP covers Elad’s activities on a near weekly basis; the group’s mission is to establish Jewish hegemony over East Jerusalem, and Elad focuses its activities intensively on Silwan, both in terms of taking over properties and gaining control of the public domain through control over parks, tourist facilities, and archeological sites.

The Israeli NGO Emek Shaveh has a detailed look at what excavation projects will be funded. Emek Shaveh writes:

“These decisions constitute the state’s commitment to financing and promoting the settlers’ plan in Silwan and in the historic basin, constituting an escalation in the use of archaeology and tourism for political purposes: The scope of the projects and the budgets allocated for their implementation are unprecedented. It appears that the Israeli government is no longer maintaining the pretense of distinguishing between its own actions and those of the settlers.”

IDF Applies New Israeli Law in the Settlements, Before It Is Even Law

Haaretz reports that IDF Commander Nadav Padan issued a military order applying to settlements a new set of rules and regulations for the upcoming municipal elections. These rules and regulations are contained in a bill that is under consideration, but has not yet been passed, by the Knesset (regarding candidate eligibility, polling place regulations, and voter registration issues). The issuance of the order in advance of the Knesset plenum’s consideration of the bill was neither a mistake nor a coincidence: Padan reportedly issued the order to appease Interior Committee Chairman Yoav Kisch (Likud), who had delayed progress of the bill specifically out of concerns over how it would be applied to the settlements. Once the military order was issued, Kisch allowed his committee to vote on the bill. The measure is expected to pass a final Knesset vote when it is brought up.

Kisch was a key figure in the recent effort to require all Knesset legislation to state how it can be applied to the settlements (via military order or directly). That effort failed, and Kisch was forced to accept the recommendation of the Knesset legal advisor that instead of changing Knesset rules to require a statement of applicability, Knesset legal advisors are instructed to discuss the issue during the bill’s formulation. However, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) succeeded in a similar effort within the Israeli Cabinet, ensuring that all Knesset legislation seeking government backing is now required to include a written statement of how it will be applied in settlements.

The IDF Commander’s preemptive order is a novel new tactic by which the Israeli government is affecting the de facto annexation of areas in the West Bank by applying Israeli domestic law there. As the Haaretz report notes, it typically takes months if not years for the IDF Commander to issue military orders that apply Israeli laws to the settlements after they are passed by the Knesset. FMEP recently published a compendium of policies that advance that end – but this week’s events are notable in that the military order effectively implemented a law that the Knesset has not yet passed (or even debated).

Another Sheikh Jarrah Eviction is Imminent

In’am Kneibi, a 77-year-old Palestinian woman living in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, received notice last week that the Israeli government intends to execute an eviction order against her family, to take place between May 13th and May 27th.

Peace Now warned that the timing of the eviction alongside the opening of the U.S. Embassy and the celebration of Jerusalem Day might ignite simmering tensions in the city:

“The expected eviction of the Kneibi family represents an organized, systematic campaign by radical settlers, in cooperation with government agencies, to supplant Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem with new settlements.”

Sheikh Jarrah is a particularly combustible area of occupied East Jerusalem, where radical religious Israeli settlers have concentrated their activities. Earlier this year, the eviction of the Shamasneh family from their home in Sheikh Jarrah ended an unofficial moratorium on Israeli evictions in the neighborhood. Peace Now notes that 75 families in Sheikh Jarrah are currently facing eviction. Simultaneously, the Israeli government has advanced several highly provocative settlement plans in Sheikh Jarrah, including a 7-story Jewish religious school (a yeshiva) on the main road leading into Sheikh Jarrah.

Abbas: U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem is an “American Settlement Outpost”; Erekat: We’re Going to the Hague

“What we saw in Jerusalem today was not the opening of an embassy, but the opening of an American settlement outpost.” – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Top Palestinian Authority diplomat Saeb Erekat followed up Abbas’ comments by announcing that Palestinian Authority leadership has decided to pursue war crimes charges against Israel for its settlement construction in the occupied territory.

Bonus Reads

1. “New report on illegal outposts fuels West Bank annexation concerns” (Times of Israel)
2. “Living in the constant shadow of settler violence” (+972 Mag)
3. “A Tale of Two West Bank towns: A Bleak Palestinian Refugee Camp Choked by a Thriving Israeli Settlement” (Haaretz)
4. “Seven decades of struggle: How one Palestinian village’s trouble captures pain of the ‘Nakba’” (The Guardian)
5. “To Demolish Palestinian Villages in the Name of Parity” (Haaretz)
6. “VIDEO: A Muslim Amongst the Settlers” (The Atlantic)
7. “Settlements Are Not the Periphery” (Haaretz)
8. “Defense establishment girds for price tag attacks in midst of combustible week” (Ynet)

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

To receive this report via email, please click here.

May 3, 2018

1. Forging Ahead with Another Settler Project at Entrance of Sheikh Jarrah
2. Israeli NGOs File Challenge Against Settler Footbridge Near Old City
3. Kerem Navot Report: Some of Israel’s West Bank Police Stations are on Private Palestinian Land
4. Update: High Court Override Legislation is in Limbo
5. Bonus Reads

Comments, questions, or suggestions? Email Kristin McCarthy at kmccarthy@fmep.org.

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Forging Ahead with Another Settler Project at Entrance of Sheikh Jarrah

On April 26th, the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee advanced a plan, backed by settlers, to build a 6-story commercial building at the entrance of the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah – taking the key step of depositing the plan for public review. The building will be across the street from one of the most provocative settlement projects that were advanced last year: a new religious school (the Or Sameach Yeshiva/Glassman Complex) described by Terrestrial Jerusalem to be:

“a clear effort to exploit Torah study to expand and normalize occupation in East Jerusalem (including by making the site politically untouchable, as it will now be linked with religious activities).”

The location of the yeshiva and the 6-story building (which, once built, will literally flank both sides of the road leading into Sheikh Jarrah) will strengthen Israeli settlers’ hold on the neighborhood. Together they will  advance the settlers’ goal of cementing the presence of the settlement enclaves inside of Sheikh Jarrah by connecting them more seamlessly to the neighborhood’s outer periphery and the rest of Jerusalem.

Sheikh Jarrah and its Palestinian residents are the target of intense settler activity, which FMEP has covered repeatedly in the past.

Israeli NGOs File Challenge Against Settler Footbridge Near Old City

The petitioners argue:

“The proposed bridge is located in one of the most sensitive and significant areas in Jerusalem and one of the most important in the world. The Old City basin is one of Jerusalem’s most precious cultural, religious and historical assets, as well as politically significant. Construction and development in this area should be done in a careful and considerate way, in a meaningful public debate and in the context of a true planning vision.

It is not without reason that the designs were set in the planned area. . . [an area] whose main purpose is to preserve and protect the Old City basin from rapid development and construction initiatives that might damage the important values in this special area. These plans do not allow the issuance of permits for such a significant construction and do not allow expropriation at all without proper documentation, and they explicitly state the need for detailed planning with the approval of the District Committee.

It is important to note that in addition to the familiar tension between development and tourism needs and the principles of conservation and protection of historical and environmental values, the Old City basin is also an urban area with a population of tens of thousands of people who live alongside and sometimes within historic sites. The bridge and pedestrian traffic will have significant implications for the area and its character for the residents living in the area.

For all these reasons, extreme caution is required in approving development plans in the Old City basin. The permit in question was approved in violation of all the proper planning and public principles, and therefore there is a need to cancel it.”

Peace Now reports that Elad has already started building infrastructure for the footbridge in Abu Tor, despite lacking a building permit (the plan was approved, but permits have not been issued). Peace Now appealed to the Jerusalem Municipality to have the construction stopped; the Municipality responded saying the construction does not relate to the bridge but to a permit that was issued for the “restoration of terraces” on the same land. Peace Now appealed again two weeks ago, arguing that Elad’s current undertakings – which include building walls, pouring of concrete, and excavating – require an additional permit (how it is being argued that those projects relate to the “restoration of terraces” is unclear). The Municipality has not yet responded.

As FMEP has covered many times in the past, Elad’s mission is to establish Jewish hegemony in Jerusalem, and it often uses tourism as a pretext for its activities in Jerusalem’s most contested neighborhoods. Kerem Navot says the Abu Ror footbridge is part of Elad’s efforts to take control of areas surrounding the neighborhood of Silwan.

Kerem Navot Report: Some of Israel’s West Bank Police Stations are on Private Palestinian Land

New research published by the anti-settlement watchdog Kerem Navot documents the legal status of land in the West Bank on which 38 Israeli police stations have been built, and reveal that four stations are built illegally on privately-owned Palestinian land.

The report reveals that of the 38 police stations in the occupied territories:

• 17 stations are on land declared by Israel to be “state land”
• 8 stations are on land Israel seized for “security purposes”
• 2 stations are on land expropriated for “public purposes”
• 1 station (servicing the Givat Ze’ev settlement) is fully on privately-owned Palestinian land
• 1 station (servicing the Ma’ale Adumim settlement) is partially on privately-owned Palestinian land, and partially on land that was seized from the Palestinian owners for “public purposes”
• 1 station (servicing the Elkana settlement) is partially on privately-owned Palestinian land and partially on land seized from Palestinian owners for “security purposes”
• 1 station (servicing the Vered Yeriho settlement) is partially on privately-owned Palestinian land and partially on land that was declared “state land”

Kerem Navot writes:

“As is well known, there are two communities in the West Bank, each of which has completely different rights, and previous reports have been devoted to describing the Israeli Police’s failure to enforce the law in cases of settler violence in a sense reminiscent of values of equality. This modest document will not address this fundamental ethical issue… this report solely seeks to address the geographical-statutory aspect of the deployment of Israel Police stations throughout the West Bank…The initial idea for addressing this aspect arose when, over the course of our research in recent years, we incidentally discovered that several police stations in the West Bank are illegally located on private Palestinian-owned land. There is no need to elaborate on the paradoxical severity of this fact.”

Update: High Court Override Legislation is in Limbo

It appears that the Israeli Knesset, which convened this week for the summer session, will not take immediate action on a bill to empower the Knesset to reinstate laws struck down by the High Court of Justice (reminder: the High Court is expected to strike down the Regulation Law, and MKs have already stated their desire to make sure it remains on the books). Prime Minister Netanyahu (Likud) and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) were not able to reach a compromise on the specifics of the bill during a meeting with Chief Justice Esther Hayut last weekend, and no news of the bill has surfaced since. It is unclear if Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) intends to follow through on the threat he made last week to call for elections if Netanyahu does not advance his version of the bill – which will allow the Knesset to reinstate laws with a bare-bones, 61-vote majority in the Knesset – this week.

While political leaders debate amongst themselves, a new public opinion poll found that 65% of Israelis believe that the version of the bill pushed by Ayelet Shaked and Jewish Home party leaders would “grant the government ‘unlimited’ and unchecked power.” 58% of the public said they believed the law would lead to more corruption.

Bonus Reads

1. “Settler Rail Line to Israel Latest Land Grab, Palestinians Say” (Al Jazeera)
2. “Thirteen Cases of Vandalism, One Arrest: Who is Behind the Wave of West Bank Hate Crimes?” (Haaretz)
3. “‘Price tag’ hate crimes against Palestinian on the rise in Israel and West Bank” (NBC News)
4. “Christians in Jerusalem’s Old City ‘under threat’ from settlers” (The Guardian)

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

To receive this report via email, please click here.

September 13, 2017

1. Don’t be Hoodwinked by Misleading Settlement Numbers
2. Israel Government Sides with Illegal Outpost in Fight Against Demolition
3. Netanyahu’s Promise to Build 300 New Units in Beit El Moves Forward (With Trickery)
4. Updates: Clashes Ensue in Sheikh Jarrah Following Eviction; Amona Site is Now a “Closed Military Zone”; More Demolitions in Silwan
5. Bonus Reads

Comments, questions, or suggestions? Email Kristin McCarthy at kmccarthy@fmep.org.

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Don’t be Hoodwinked by Misleading Settlement Numbers

Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics published data this week on new settlement starts in the second quarter of 2017 (April-June). The data, purportedly showing a dramatic decline (75%) in construction, compared to the same period in 2016.

Hagit Ofran, the Director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch, set the record straight – noting that starts in any given period reflect planning that took place months and years before. Construction happening today, for example, reflects approvals and tenders from two to three years ago. In light of this reality, the relatively low number of starts in the second quarter of 2017 has nothing to do with overall settlement trends, or with current settlement policies. These current settlement policies, reflected in a huge massive wave of settlement approvals seen (so far) in 2017 – a wave the indicates the settlement floodgates have opened – will result in a corresponding spike in settlement starts down the line (at which point the Israeli government will claim “it’s not our fault, this was all approved long ago!”).

Israel Government Sides with Illegal Outpost in Fight Against Demolition

The High Court of Justice has ordered the demolition of 15 structures located in the Netiv Ha’avot outpost, built on land recognized by Israel as privately owned by Palestinians. In response to a last minute petition the outpost’s leaders filed with the High Court of Justice, the Israeli government expressed its support for their proposal to save 6 of the buildings from complete demolition; instead, the proposal offers to demolish only the “problematic parts” of the structures – i.e., where they cross into the pockets of privately-owned Palestinian land that run through the middle of the outpost. The High Court is set to make a final ruling on the petition on September 13th.

It is worth pointing out that every structure in the Netiv Ha’avot outpost was built in violation of Israeli planning laws. The outpost is an unauthorized expansion of the Elazar settlement, located southwest of Bethlehem. Only the 15 buildings that were built on private Palestinian land face demolition; if Israel enforced its own planning laws, the entire outpost would be razed. Last month, the Attorney General ordered the Defense Ministry to create a special unit to enforce Israeli planning laws specifically in settlements and outposts (in conjunction with the passage of the Regulation law permitting legalization of most illegal settlement construction and land seizures).

Netanyahu’s Promise to Build 300 New Units in Beit El Moves Forward (With Trickery)

Kerem Navot (aka, Naboth’s Vineyard – the organization founded by anti-settlement legend Dror Etkes) has a cheeky look at how Netanyahu’s promise to build new homes in the Beit El settlement by the end of this month is coming to fruition. According to the report, the settlement has conspired with the government to build a new Border Police base south of the settlement 0- based on alleged security needs of the settlers. And what about the existing Border Police station for the settlement? That’s where the new units will be built. Two birds with one stone: more settlement units for Beit El, plus more land taken for settlements, to accommodate the entirely unnecessary new police station. 

The Beit El settlement was established in 1977, on land previously seized by Israel for military purposes. A second military seizure in 1979 enabled Beit El to expand. This method of establishing and expanding settlements has been repeatedly challenged in Israeli courts. The Israeli group Yesh Din led one such petition against Beit El, seeking to have the second seizure annulled; that petition was dismissed earlier this year. Yesh Din writes,

The State understood that it was impossible to legally defend the land theft that has been ongoing in Beit El for 40 years on land that was seized for arbitrary reasons, but it refrained, once again, from defending the rights of the weakest population, simply because they are Palestinians. Despite this, we at Yesh Din will continue to fight against the dispossession of Palestinians and the infringement of their rights.

As a reminder, Beit El is the settlement that current U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman personally donated to and fundraised for in his capacity as President of the American Friends of Beit El charity from 2011 until his appointment (he dedicated at least one building in the settlement which bears his name).

Beit El is also slated to have a security wall built between one side of the settlement and the al-Jalazoun Palestinian refugee camp.

Updates: Clashes Ensue in Sheikh Jarrah Following Eviction; Amona Site is Now a “Closed Military Zone”; More Demolitions in Silwan

• Last week, in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinians participated in Friday prayers in front of the former home of the Shamasneh family, which was evicted last week by settlers. On the same day, 200 Israelis – including MK Ayman Odeh (Joint List) – marched from central Jerusalem to join the demonstration. Clashes broke out between settlers and the demonstrators, resulting in injury to 14 protestors.
• The illegal outpost of Amona was dismantled earlier this year, but the Kerem Navot organization has revealed that instead of being returned to the Palestinians who the court ruled were the rightful owners, the Israeli army has declared the area a “closed military zone” — keeping Palestinians off the land but permitting residents of the neighboring Ofra settlement to enter the area at will.  
• Ma’an News has video of a home demolition in the Ras al-Amud, a Palestinian neighborhood just south of the Old City in Jerusalem. Ma’an also reports that Israel delivered several demolition orders to Palestinians in the Issawiya neighborhood of East Jerusalem earlier this week.

Bonus Reads

• “Red Cross Chief Blasts Settlements as ‘Key Humanitarian Challenge’” (Times of Israel)
  • “We witness it daily in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem: [Israeli settlement] has enormous impact on people, on their freedom of movement, the social and economic fabric in the territories. It offers limited access to agricultural and other productive lands, has curtailed educational and employment opportunity; it makes water resource and water supply systems difficult for Palestinian communities. And the list could go on and on,” he [Red Cross Chief Peter Maurer] said.
• “Shin Bet Bypasses Court Again and Stiffens Release Terms of Teen Settler Activist” (Haaretz+)
  • “Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court initially ordered him [a teen who is part of the extremist West Bank movement known as Hilltop Youth, had been detained without trial after violating a administrative order] released on the condition that he remain at home at night. But the Israel Defense Forces order requires him to be under house arrest 24 hours a day.”

• “In a First, Israel Will Penalize Amnesty International for Anti-Settlements Campaign.” (Haartez+)
  • “Israel plans to punish Amnesty International for its recent campaign, which encourages people to lobby companies and governments to boycott settlement products, by denying tax benefits to Israelis who donate to the human rights organization. It is the first time the government will apply the so-called anti-boycott law, which penalizes organizations and individuals calling for a boycott of Israel or the settlements. The controversial law was passed in 2011.”
• “Reports Israeli government plans to retaliate against Amnesty International over settlements campaign” (Amnesty International)
  • “Amnesty International has repeatedly emphasized that the very existence of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories violates international law, a matter on which there is international consensus and is reflected in UN Security Council resolutions. Settlements have contributed to decades of mass suffering and violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

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

To receive this report via email, please click here.

September 7, 2017

1. In Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinians Evicted, Settlers Move In
2. Major Expansion in Settlement Enclave – Approval of Permits Imminent
3. High Court Lets Settlers Stay in Hebron House [That They Took Over Illegally]
4. Amichai Update: Work on New Settlement to Resume with Infusion of Government Funds
5. U.S. Ambassador Questions if the Occupation Exists, Minimizes Impact of Settlement Enterprise
6. Bonus Reads

Comments, questions, or suggestions? Email Kristin McCarthy at kmccarthy@fmep.org.

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In Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinians Evicted, Settlers Move In

On September 5th, the Israeli army evicted members of the Shamasneh family from their home in Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem; they had lived in that home since 1964. Within hours of the eviction, extremist Israeli settlers moved into the home. This is the first eviction to be carried out in Sheikh Jarrah since 2009, when evictions there inspired a sustained domestic and international protest.

The Shamasneh family was sent an eviction notice back in 2013, after a court ruled in favor of Israelis who sought to “redeem” the home. Their case was based on an Israeli law that allows Jews to reclaim property and land they were forced to abandon in 1948, when Jordan captured East Jerusalem (a right Palestinians are not afforded with respect to properties they were forced to abandon in what became Israel in 1948). The eviction of the Shamasneh family was repeatedly delayed out of “humanitarian concerns” over the health of the elderly Shamasneh patriarch. Earlier this year, it became clear the eviction was going to be carried out when a wave of provocative East Jerusalem settlement plans were advanced, including multiple plans to build more settlement units in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

Regarding the Shamasneh’s case, Ir Amim wrote:

Today’s eviction of the Shamasneh family symbolizes the boldness with which these settlement activities in the most sensitive part of East Jerusalem are now being executed – with the full backing of the state – and the pressing need to halt this escalation of events in order to preserve the waning viability of the two state solution.

Regarding that same eviction, East Jerusalem settler impresario (and city councilman) Aryeh King exulted:

I expect more evictions this year of residents who refuse to recognize the Jewish owners of the properties where they are living. With the opening of the new National Insurance Institute nearby, the Nahalat Shimon [Shimon Hatzaddik] neighborhood is going to see a significant expansion of Jewish settlement, which residents of Jerusalem have waited for years to see.

On the evening prior to the eviction, Israeli forces raided several Palestinian homes in Sheikh Jarrah and issued six additional eviction notices.

Major Expansion in Settlement Enclave – Approval of Permits Imminent

The Jerusalem municipality is set to grant building permits for 176 new housing units in the Nof Zion settlement, an Israeli enclave located inside the Palestinian neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber in East Jerusalem. If approved, construction of the units will make Nof Zion the largest Israeli settlement enclave in East Jerusalem.

Peace Now, which was first to report the story, wrote:

It appears that the [Israeli] government has opened all the floodgates when it comes to settlement developments within Palestinian neighborhoods. Building a large settlement in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood would constitute a severe blow to Jerusalem and to the chance to arrive at a two state solution. This is not a matter of real estate but a matter of politics and sovereignty, as the Israelis moving to homes inside Palestinian neighborhoods are motivated solely by ideology, and are trying to prevent a future compromise in Jerusalem.

Plans for 395 new units for the Nof Zion enclave were originally approved in 1994, but the first phase of construction bankrupted the developer. A drama ensued over the fate of the project, after a Palestinian-American made a bid to buy the development rights. His winning bid was ultimately blocked by right-wing Israelis [with a key role played by Jerusalem settler impresario Aryeh King] who objected to the sale of the property – in an Palestinian neighborhood – to an Arab.

As it stands, only the Prime Minister’s personal intervention might stop the construction, which does not seem likely given Netanyahu’s repeated declaration that his is the most settlement-friendly government in the country’s history.

The units are not the only construction happening in Nof Zion. Earlier this year, the government approved a plan to build a new synagogue and mikveh on private Palestinian land that was expropriated from the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood in 2016.

Ir Amim writes:

The primary objective of the settlers’ infiltration into the Palestinian neighborhoods in and around the Old City is to undermine the possibility of dividing Jerusalem, thereby foiling the possibility of a political resolution on the city and an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The building permits will issue a clear statement that the Israeli government sanctions and supports the establishment of new facts on the ground designed for this purpose.

High Court Lets Settlers Stay in Hebron House [That They Took Over Illegally]

On September 3rd, the Israeli High Court of Justice issued an injunction allowing for a one-week delay of the evacuation of 100 Israeli settlers from the “Machpela House” in Hebron. The settlers have been illegally inhabiting the house, under the protection of the Israeli army, since they broke into the property on July 25th.

The delay is the result of a last minute petition filed by the squatters claiming rightful ownership of the house; the petition gives Palestinian claimants and the state of Israel one week to respond, during which time the settlers are allowed to remain in the house. The injunction reverses an order by the Israeli Attorney General last week to evacuate the settlers by September 3rd.

Peace Now said in a statement about the settlers’ latest petition:

The settlers’ petition is absolutely outrageous and its baseless arguments have been rejected again and again in previous legal proceedings. After having been granted an independent administration a few days ago, it is no wonder the Hebron settlers feel empowered to do as they wish, while ignoring the law and on the expense of Palestinians. [Editor’s note: the reference to an “independent administration” relates to a decision last week, explained in the same Peace Now explainer linked above, to promote the status of an administrative body that can represent Hebron’s settlers to the Israeli government].

Amichai Update: Work on New Settlement to Resume with Infusion of Government Funds

On September 3rd, the Israeli Cabinet approved the allocation of 55 million shekels ($15.3 USD) to the Interior Ministry for the construction of the Amichai settlement in the Shilo Valley, the first official new Israeli settlement to be built in 25 years. The construction of Amichai, which was approved as a pay-off for families evicted from the illegally built the Amona outpost, has been stalled for nearly two months for lack of funds.

The Cabinet’s resolution notes that any additional government contribution to the project “depends among other things on court verdicts,” because “legal proceedings are now before the court against the construction of the new settlement, including the infrastructure work.” Last week we reported on a petition to the High Court filed by Bimkom on behalf of Palestinian landowners in the vicinity of Amichai.

The government’s funding will go towards providing public infrastructure to the new settlement: paving access roads, building sewage systems, and connecting it to the Israeli power grid. The 55 million shekels allocated this week fall within the original 60 million shekel budget approved by the Cabinet last year.

U.S. Ambassador Questions if the Occupation Exists, Minimizes Impact of the Settlement Enterprise

In an interview in the Jerusalem Post, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman articulated major points of the Trump Administration’s approach to Israel, the Palestinians, and peace negotiations.

Alarmingly, the Ambassador called into question whether or not Israel is, in fact, occupying the West Bank. Amb. Friedman – who before he was nominated to be Ambassador had a long history of criticizing the American Jewish Left, including calling its members “kapos” – reportedly told the Post, “The [American Jewish] Left…is portrayed as believing that only if the ‘alleged occupation’ ended would Israel become a better society.” Following the publication of Ambassador Friedman’s interview, a senior White House official told the Guardian that his comments do not represent a shift in U.S. policy.

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip is an objective fact, acknowledged by the entire international community including, until now, the United States. As noted by Americans for Peace Now:

The West Bank and Gaza are viewed by virtually all international legal experts as “occupied territory.” Since 1967, legal experts, including in Israel, have been virtually unanimous in recognizing this…Even the Israeli Supreme Court has repeatedly used the term “belligerent occupation” to describe Israel’s rule over the West Bank and Gaza… Even Ariel Sharon, one of the principal architects of Israel’s policy of building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, recognized this reality. On May 26, 2003, when he was Prime Minister of Israel, he bluntly told fellow Likud members, “You may not like the word, but what’s happening is occupation [using the Hebrew word “kibush,” which is only used to mean “occupation”]. Holding 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation is a bad thing for Israel, for the Palestinians and for the Israeli economy.”

Also of concern with respect to settlements, Ambassador Friedman said,

If you listened to the Obama administration, you would think that the [Israeli] settlements had overtaken the West Bank. It’s still under 2% of the territory. I am personally convinced that there’s nothing in the current status quo with regards to settlements that precludes the resolution of the Palestinian [issue].

Ambassador Friedman’s 2% figure is misleading. It refers restrictively to the amount of land settlers have actually built on [2% of the West Bank], but does not count the many ways settlements have created a massive, paralytic footprint in the West Bank. This argument was comprehensively dismantled last November by FMEP’s Lara Friedman, in her testimony before the UN Security Council.

In a report last year, Yesh Din explained further:

The jurisdiction areas of many settlements are much larger than the area they actually use. In 2013, the total area under the jurisdiction of settlements, including regional councils, stood at 1.2 million dunams (roughly 120,000 hectares), or 63% of Area C. In practice, the area covered by the settlement enterprise is larger, as it also includes the unauthorized outposts, many of which are outside local council jurisdiction areas, as well as their farmland. Palestinians are barred from entering all of these areas, by virtue of a “closed military zone” order which prohibits entry without a permit.

The settlements command an area that is larger than their residential, built-up portion. Each community has a system of access roads, and each is assigned vast areas intended to ensure the residents’ safety. Many settlements include farmland, industry and commerce zones, green areas and parks, and in many of them the distance between the houses is so large, that the space they take up has no direct correlation to the number of people living in them.

Yesh Din’s full report, “Land Takeover Practices Employed by Israel in the West Bank” is available online here.

Bonus Reads

• “Illegal outpost residents ask court to save parts of homes set to be razed” (Times of Israel)
• “Bedouin Shepherds Between a Rock, a Hard Army, and West Bank Settlers” (Haartez)

 

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FMEP has long been a trusted resource on settlement-related issues, reflecting both the excellent work of our grantees on the ground and our own in-house expertise. FMEP’s focus on settlements derives from our commitment to achieving lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace, and our recognition of the fact that Israeli settlements – established for the explicit purpose of dispossessing Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem of land and resources, and depriving them of the very possibility of self-determination in their own state with borders based on the 1967 lines – are antithetical to that goal.

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

To receive this report via email, please click here.

August 24, 2017

1. Israel Mounts Legal Defense After High Court Puts 2-Month Hold on Regulation Law
2. Government Data Shows Regulation Law Could Legalize 3,455 Settlement Structures
3. Israeli AG Demands Better Enforcement of Settlement Construction Laws
4. Yitzhar Settlers Attack IDF During Outpost Demolition
5. Settler-Led Petition Seeks to “Test”High Court’s Consistency on Palestinian Land Ownership Rights
6. Updates: Amichai Funds, Sheikh Jarrah Eviction, Jordan Valley Race Track, E-1 Demolitions
7. Bonus Reads

For comments and questions, please email Kristin McCarthy (kmccarthy@fmep.org).

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Israel Mounts Legal Defense After High Court Puts 2-Month Hold on Regulation Law

On August 17th, the Israeli High Court of Justice ordered a two month hold on the use of the controversial Regulation Law, which was set to take effect this week. The Regulation Law (also called the “Expropriation Law,” the “Regularization Law,” the “Legalization Law,” or the “Settlements Law”) was passed earlier this year by the Israeli Knesset to pave the way for the government to retroactively legalize outposts and other construction of Israeli settler homes on privately owned Palestinian land, among other things. The High Court ordered the two-month freeze following a direct request from Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandleblit, who has called the law unconstitutional.

The court is currently weighing two petitions challenging the legality of the law filed this past March; one petition by the Israeli civil society organizations Yesh Din, Peace Now, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI); the second petition was filed by Palestinian civil society groups Adalah, Al-Mezan, and the Jerusalem Legal Aid Center.

In response to the petitions, the Israeli government’s private attorney Harel Arnon provided the court with a 156-page defense arguing that, “the Regulation Law balances the obligation of the government towards thousands of citizens who have relied in good faith on government action and a minor infringement of property rights, with increased compensation to the [Palestinian] landowners.” Prominent Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard explained why this is “legal fantasy.”  Israel was forced to hire a private lawyer to represent them before the High Court after Attorney General Avichai Mandleblit announced his refusal to defend the measure as soon as it was passed into law. 

The trio of Israeli petitioners released a blistering statement following the government’s response. Peace Now, Yesh Din, and ACRI wrote,

“The State of Israel, in its response today, is trying to present the land expropriation law as addressing a national problem, when in practice it involves continued government support for a criminal enterprise that has continued for decades. The government is minimizing the continuing harm to the rights of the Palestinian landowners, and at the same time is trying to present the Israeli citizens who are taking part in the looting of West Bank Palestinians as people who have been harmed and who require ‘compensation’ for their part in the looting,” they added. “We hope the court rejects the state’s arguments out of hand, strikes down this unconstitutional and immoral law, and sends a loud and clear message: No more.”

Peace Now goes further to say, “In its response the government attempts to present Israeli citizens, who are directly involved in land theft of Palestinians, as deserving a reward for their participation in the thievery.”

Adalah also issued a sharp response, saying “The state’s position amounts to a de facto annexation of the West Bank.”

Haaretz put out a searing editorial demolishing the government’s claim that settlers are owed a solution to the “distress” they live in as a result of their land theft. Haaretz editors wrote in “The ‘distress” of the Israeli settlers,”

The government broke a record for cynicism when it made its arguments against the petitions. In a perfect reversal of occupier and occupied, it explained that the expropriation law constitutes “a humane, proportionate and reasonable response to the real distress” of all those “Israeli residents” who live under “a cloud of uncertainty” that is “disrupting their lives.” It’s hard to believe, but this is not a description of the situation of millions of Palestinians living under occupation whose lands are being seized, but of the distress of the settlers, who chose to live outside the state’s official borders and whose very presence there is illegitimate.

The High Court of Justice is months away from issuing its ruling on the Regulation Law’s constitutionality. The Knesset’s legal experts are expected to present their case in support of the law in September, and Attorney General Mandleblit is expected to argue against his own government’s law in October.

Government Data Shows Regulation Law Could Legalize 3,455 Settlement Structures

According to the Israeli government’s own data, there are 3,455 illegally built Israeli structures in the West Bank that can be legalized if the Regulation Law (see above) goes into effect. Haaretz has an explanation of the three categories of land where these structures were illegally built and how the Regulation Law seeks to absolve the government and its settlers of their illegality.

The Haaretz reporting confirms and compounds documentation published by Peace Now earlier this year which estimated that the Regulation Law could legalize 3,850 structures and 53 outposts, adding up to a total land grab of 8,000 dunams of privately owned Palestinian land (1 sq. km = 1,000 dunams | 1 acre = 4 dunams).

Israeli AG Demands Better Enforcement of Settlement Construction Laws

Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandleblit held a series of meetings over the past month in an attempt to force the government to rein in illegal construction happening inside of settlements. Haaretz reports that Mandleblit met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon several times to demand the creation of a special unit in the Defense Ministry tasked with policing planning and construction laws inside of settlements.

Haaretz relays from sources in the meetings, “He [Mandleblit] said, in the presence of officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, the treasury and the Defense Ministry, that the present situation, in which there is no group enforcing the planning laws in the settlements except for the committees acting on behalf the settlements’ regional councils themselves, is ‘clearly illogical,’ and creates a situation in which there are illegal structures over which nobody has authority.”

The recent discussions followed Mandleblit’s request last month for the High Court to issue an order demanding the Defense Ministry to create the unit. The Defense Ministry has refused to establish the unit, citing a lack of funding. Mandleblit’s request to the High Court was meant to force Defense Minister Liberman to create the unit by making it mandatory.

Yitzhar Settlers Attack IDF During Outpost Demolition

For the second time this year, the Israeli army clashed with radical Yitzhar settlers as the army executed orders against homes the settlers built without the proper permissions. This time, in contrast to the incident in June where houses were razed inside the settlement, the IDF removed six caravans that were set up outside of the settlement’s municipal border in an outpost known as Kumi Ori.

Settler-Led Petition Seeks to “Test” High Court’s Consistency on Palestinian Land Ownership

Ynet News reports that the right-wing settler organization Regavim has launched a petition against the construction of a road in the West Bank, which they claim – with undisguised irony – is being built on privately owned Palestinian land. The road is an access road to the new Palestinian city of Rawabi, a $1.4 billion dollar investment project to provide a state-of-the-art planned city for Palestinians in the West Bank (and the first new Palestinian city Israel has permitted since 1967).

For Ragavim, the case is a win-win. If the court rules in Regavim’s favor, it will be a blow to efforts to develop Rawabi. If the court rules against Regavim (i.e., in favor of the construction and against the rights of Palestinian landowners), it will set a legal precedent that Regavim and others can exploit for the benefit of settlers. Regavim is clearly hoping for the latter result: Regavim’s lawyer said, “In the last few years, the High Court of Justice has taken a very strict line and ordered the demolition of buildings and roads built by Jews on private Palestinian land. That is why in this case, it is unacceptable that the High Court of Justice is nonchalant about the rights of private landowners.”

Updates: Amichai Funds, Sheikh Jarrah Eviction, E-1 Demolitions, Jordan Valley Race Track

• Haaretz has spoken to four government officials who report that the office of the Prime Minister has requested to nearly triple the amount of government funds allocated towards the construction of the first new settlement in 25 years, Amichai. The Prime Minister’s office denied the Haaretz report.
• In Sheikh Jarrah, a Jerusalem court rejected a petition to delay (again) the eviction of the Shamasneh family from their longtime home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood. Eviction is rumored to proceed on September 9th.
• In E-1, the Israeli Army’s Civil Administration has threatened to move forward with demolitions against Bedouin structures they say were illegally built in the area of E-1 despite an order from the High Court of Justice delaying the demolitions. Back in February, the High Court ruled that the structures should not be demolished and that the Bedouin and Civil Administration must work together to see if the structures can be legalized.
• In the Jordan Valley, Israeli settlers are continuing to build a recreational race track despite a stop-work order issued against the project in February 2017. The large race track complex is partially on land that the Israeli army has declared a closed firing zone, a designation which resulted in the forcible displacement of Palestinians who lived there
• For background on all of these stories, see past editions [link] of FMEP’s Settlement Report.

Bonus Reads

1. “U.S. Trying to Prevent UN ‘Blacklist’ of Companies Working in Israeli Settlements” (Washington Post)
2. “Netanyahu to attend West Bank event celebrating 50 years of settlements” (August 21, 2017, Jerusalem Post)
3. “In Walajeh, Palestinians residents mobilize against Israeli demolitions” (August 21, 2017, +972 Mag/Active Stills)
4. “From jail cells, settler youth call for defiance of administrative orders” (August 23, 2017, Times of Israel)

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

To receive this report via email, please click here.

August 16, 2017

1. Israel Demolishes Buildings in Key East Jerusalem Areas
2. Bedouin are Powerless in E-1 Area as Settlement Plans Loom
3. Jewish National Fund Resumes Targeting Land in the Occupied West Bank
4. Settlers in Israeli Government Turn Blind Eye to Settlers Breaking Israeli Law
5. Former Israeli AG Says Sheikh Jarrah Property Should be Given to Palestinians
6. Three New Outposts Near Nablus
7. Updates: Al-Walajah, Sheikh Jarrah, Amichai Settlement
8. Bonus Reads

Comments, questions, or suggestions? Email Kristin McCarthy at kmccarthy@fmep.org.

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Israel Demolishes Buildings in Key East Jerusalem Areas

The Israeli government demolished eight Palestinian structures in the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan, Beit Hanina, Jabal Mukaber, and Isawiyyah. According to Ir Amim, the two apartments demolished in the al-Bustan area of Silwan are the first demolitions to be carried out there since 2008. Looking at East Jerusalem as a whole, Ir Amim writes, “[these] demolitions bring the 2017 total to 128, including 84 residential units and 44 non-residential units. These numbers are on well on target to meet or surpass the total number of 203 demolitions executed in East Jerusalem last year.”

Bedouin are Powerless in E-1 Area as Settlement Plans Loom

According to B’Tselem, last week Israeli officials confiscated solar panels that were providing electricity to a Bedouin community’s school in the controversial area adjacent to Jerusalem known as “E-1.” The confiscation happened despite a temporary court-ordered injunction against it. The Israeli government has long refused to connect the Bedouin to a power grid; the solar panels confiscated this week were donated only a month ago by a humanitarian organization.

The E-1 area has long been slated for Israeli settlement construction, but plans have been continuously delayed by the Israeli political echelon – due in large part to pressure from U.S. administrations and others in the international community. If E-1 is developed it will seal Palestinian East Jerusalem off from the West Bank to its east, and create a land bridge from Jerusalem to the Maale Adumim settlement. The settlement will render the two-state solution impossible because it would preclude the ability to draw contiguous borders for a future Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.

East Jerusalem expert Danny Seidemann has issued several warnings this year that E-1 – a “doomsday settlement” – might be slated for advancement under the current settlement policy of the Netanyahu government and with no discernable counter-pressure from the Trump Administration. Seidemann warned in January, “The main obstacle preventing a green light for E-1 has, until now, been wall-to-wall opposition from the international community, led by the United States (dating back to the era of President Clinton).”

The Bedouin community living in the E-1 area has long been threatened with forcible relocation (which would amount to population transfer). The 18 Bedouin tribes that live in the vicinity of Maale Adumim and E-1, totaling approximately 3,000 people, have already endured numerous emolitions this year alone.

Jewish National Fund Resumes Targeting Land in the Occupied West Bank

According to Peace Now, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) is set to resume its practice of purchasing land in the West Bank for use by Israeli settlers, after abandoning the effort many years ago. In the past, many of the JNF’s land purchases reportedly involved fraud, extortion, and/or forgery on the part of middlemen.

Peace Now writes, “Through purchasing lands in the occupied territories, JNF serves the settlers, hurts the possibility to arrive at a two state solution, and jeopardizes the future of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”

The JNF – which collects donations internationally, including in the United States – currently owns land (through its Israeli subsidiary) in numerous settlements, including Itamar, Alfei Menashe, Enav, Kedumim, Givat Ze’ev, Metzadot Yehuda, and Otniel. 

Settlers in Israeli Government Turn Blind Eye to Settlers Breaking Israeli Law

There have been several recent reports about structures inside of settlements that were built (or are being built) without the legally-necessary permissions, as Israeli officials turn a blind eye.

Notably, one report identifies dozens of unauthorized homes being built in the outpost of Hayovel (which is effectively an extension of the settlement of Eli), despite a stop-work order issued by Civil Administration (the arm of the Ministry of Defense that is sovereign in the West Bank). The construction is taking place virtually across the street from the home of Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s own adviser on settlement affairs, who is himself a resident of the illegal outpost (Liberman is also a settler, residing in the settlement of Nokdim). The illegal construction will double the size of the outpost.

Another report reveals that Shlomo Ne’eman, the head of the Gush Etzion Regional Council – which promotes the expansion of settlements in the Etzion bloc – lives in an illegal outpost. The Regional Council insists that the outpost is a “neighborhood” of the Karmei Tzur settlement, but aerial images show it is outside of the settlement’s municipal border. The Israeli Civil Administration has ordered the structures there to be demolished but has not carried out those orders. Settlement watchdog Kerem Naboth says, “Ne’eman has joined the list of elected officials and politicos among the settlers who are not only assisting others in stealing land, but are also doing it themselves.”

Haaretz notes that these two are part of a longer list of elected officials and senior civil servants living in illegal outposts, Also on that list far right-wing Knesset Member Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi), who lives in an illegally-built home in Kedumim (not coincidentally, Smotrich was one of the key backers of a law passed earlier this year to “legalize” such settlement illegalities). Likewise, a January report revealed that the head of the Finance Ministry’s department of building regulations enforcement, Avi Cohen, lives in an illegal outpost of the Eli settlement. At the time of the report in January, Rabbis for Human Rights said, “A situation in which the system responsible for enforcing building laws is headed by someone living in an outpost demonstrates contempt for the system and Israel’s values.”

Another report documents how in the Efrat settlement (in the Etzion settlement bloc) a school was recently expanded, illegally, on private Palestinian land located land outside of the settlement’s border. Funding for the project was raised by an organization, called the Ohr Torah Stone, which operates a branch in the United States and is eligible to receive tax-deductible donations from U.S. donors. According to settlement watchdog Kerem Naboth, the Efrat settlement itself was built on land that the Palestinian village of al-Khadr had long cultivated. Kerem Naboth reports, “aerial photographs from the 1980s indicate that in the past there was a vineyard on site.”

Former Israeli AG Says Sheikh Jarrah Property Should be Given to Palestinians

Speaking in Sheikh Jarrah, former Israeli Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair called on the Israeli government to intervene to stop the eviction of the Shamasneh family from their longtime family home. Ben- Yair served as the AG from 1993-1997, under prime ministers Rabin and Netanyahu.

Ben-Yair, whose family lived in Sheikh Jarrah until 1948, suggested he would be ready to reclaim his family’s property and then transfer it to the Palestinians currently living there – and called on the government to adopt a policy to do exactly that, across the board. He said, ”If the Israeli government would have acted decently toward all its residents, including you [the Arab residents], it would have appropriated the properties in the neighborhood [from their Jewish owners who lived there before the War of Independence] and given these properties to the Palestinians who live there today.”

The former AG also noted that Jews who lost property in the 1948 war were already compensated – at the expense of Palestinians. Ben-Yair said, “My family and the family of my cousin who were forced to leave the neighborhood in January 1948 got properties of Palestinians refugees on Jaffa Road and in the Katamon neighborhood in west Jerusalem. They were worth much more than the properties that we left in Sheikh Jarrah.

Since we covered the Shamasneh family’s story last week, a temporary injunction against the eviction expired on Sunday, August 13th. The family’s lawyer requested a second injunction, but the petition is still pending. As of this writing the family is still living in the home.

Three New Outposts Near Nablus

The Palestinian Authority is reporting that settlers from the radical Yitzhar settlement, south of Nablus, have moved 11 mobile homes to an area outside of the settlement, a move which would expand the settlement’s footprint. In addition, nine mobile homes were reportedly placed near the Palestinian village of Qusin, which is a few miles east of Nablus, and another nine were placed near the border of the Einav settlement, a few miles east of Qusin.

Updates: Al-Walajah, Sheikh Jarrah, Amichai Settlement

Updates from last week’s Settlement Report:

• Residents of the village of Al-Walajah were able to stop the demolition of one home last week by forming a human barrier around it, blocking a bulldozer from tearing it down. Approximately one third of the village is inside of Jerusalem’s municipal boundary. In this area specifically, Ir Amim estimates that 50% of the homes are under threat of demolition. Al-Walajah residents say the Israeli government has recently increased the rate of home demolitions significantly and has also resumed construction of the separation barrier around the village.
• UNRWA has weighed in on the pending eviction of the Shamasneh family from their home in Sheikh Jarrah. UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness states, “The members of the Shamasneh family are long-standing Palestine refugee residents in East Jerusalem, which is occupied territory and affected by continued settlement expansion contrary to international law. It is a matter of deep concern that Palestine refugees who have already endured multiple displacements should be subject to the humiliation of the kind inflicted by forced evictions.” The statement calls on the Israeli government to reconsider the eviction ruling.
• Construction on the first new settlement in 25 years, Amichai, remains stalled due to lack of government funding. After nearly three weeks of inactivity on the construction site, the families who the settlement is being built for are preparing to move to the area with semi-permanent structures and take up residence. On plans to move to the site while construction is stalled, one settler told Ynet News, “It is clear that when we do go there [to the site of Amichai], thousands of youths will join us. When we do, it will be to stay for good.”

Bonus Reads

• “Adalah opposes mandate of Israeli Interior Ministry borders cmte. weighing annexation of West Bank land to settlements” (August 13, 2017)

 

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FMEP has long been a trusted resource on settlement-related issues, reflecting both the excellent work of our grantees on the ground and our own in-house expertise. FMEP’s focus on settlements derives from our commitment to achieving lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace, and our recognition of the fact that Israeli settlements – established for the explicit purpose of dispossessing Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem of land and resources, and depriving them of the very possibility of self-determination in their own state with borders based on the 1967 lines – are antithetical to that goal.

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

To receive this report via email, please click here.

August 9, 2017

1. Israel Moves Forward with Inflammatory Evictions & Home Demolitions in Jerusalem
2. Netanyahu Celebrates Expansion of Beitar Illit Settlement
3. Attorney General Requests Temporary Injunction Against “Regulation Law”
4. Palestinian Leaders Criticize U.S. Peace Efforts & Point to Silence on Settlements
5. New Poll Reveals Settlers Prefer the Status Quo to Annexation or Peace
6. Updates: Machpelah House; New “Amichai” Settlement; Netiv Ha’avot Outpost
7. Bonus Reads

Comments, questions, or suggestions? Email Kristin McCarthy at kmccarthy@fmep.org.

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Israel Moves Forward with Evictions & Home Demolitions in Jerusalem

Last week we covered three devastating bills moving in the Knesset that seeking to remove Palestinians and include far flung settlements in the borders of Jerusalem. Now, several seemingly small but incredibly significant developments in Jerusalem show how Palestinians are already being forced out of the city:

• 

  Map by Peace Now

  In Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian family is fighting against imminent eviction from their family home of 50 years, an eviction ordered by the Israeli Supreme Court. This is the first eviction in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem since 2009 and comes on the heels of several inflammatory settlement announcements which will bring more Israeli settlers into the neighborhood that sits just north of Jerusalem’s Old City. The Court’s decision to evict the Shamasneh family relies on an Israeli law which allows Jews to regain East Jerusalem property owned before Jordan’s 1948 capture of that part of the city. Daily solidarity protests are reportedly being staged in an effort to prevent the family’s eviction.

• 

  Map by Emek Shaveh

  In Silwan, the settler group Elad is bidding to become the majority-owner of an apartment building that Palestinians are in a bidding war to keep. The Siyam family originally owned the entire building but over time lost control of one-half of it to the settlers another one-fourth of it to Israel’s Custodian of Absentee Property. The owners of the remaining one-fourth – Silwan non-violent opposition leader Jawad Siyam and his sister – currently reside. Now the Custodian is auctioning off its one-fourth share and if the settlers have the winning bid, it is a near certainty that Jawad and his sister will be evicted from the house by Israeli courts. This ownership battle could have a decisive impact on the character of this critically-located East Jerusalem neighborhood, which sits in the shadow of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. Elad has long been active in Silwan, taking over properties and, working hand-in-hand with the Israeli government and Jerusalem Municipality, gaining control over the public domain via tourism and park projects at the expense of the Palestinian residents. Elad recently won the rights to build a state of the art visitor center that will also be a stop on the new cable car line running to the Mount of Olives. Elad’s efforts to take over Palestinian property in East Jerusalem rely in large part on Israel’s “Absentee Property Law” (1950), according to which Palestinians who were not present at their property immediately following the 1967 war are considered “absentee,” and consequently forfeit ownership rights to the Israeli government. The government can then dispose of the property as it sees fit. In Jerusalem, Elad’s multi-million dollar annual budget puts Palestinians at a potentially insurmountable disadvantage. When Israel used the “Absentee Property Law” in 2004 to seize Palestinian property in East Jerusalem, then-President George W. Bush called on Israel to reconsider the decision.

• In al-Walajah, a wave of home demolitions combined with the nearly completed construction of the separation barrier threatens to completely sever and displace al-Walajah’s residents from the West Bank (who hold West Bank IDs, rather than Jerusalem residency, despite the fact that in 1967 most of the village’s land was made part of Jerusalem). Just this week the Israeli government issued demolition orders against 14 Palestinian homes built without the proper permits (these permits are nearly impossible for obtain).
  

  Map by Ir Amim

  The 14 homes are in addition to 28 other homes already slated for demolition in the village. On the same day, the Israeli Supreme Court decided to temporarily delay the implementation of 7 of those previous orders in light of a petition brought to the court by the Norwegian Refugee Council. Residents of al-Walajah have fought the growing encroachment the nearby Etzion settlement bloc and the Israeli government’s attempt to de facto annex the bloc as part of “Greater Jerusalem.” Ir Amim explains several prongs of this effort, including a particularly unbelievably section of the separation barrier planned to almost completely encircle the village, to turn its valuable agricultural land into an urban park for Jerusalem, and construction of a highway that will connect the Etzion settlement bloc to Jerusalem with Israeli-only bypass roads.

• In Jabal al-Mukaber, a neighborhood south of the Old City in East Jerusalem, Israel demolished four Palestinian homes without prior notice to the residents. Ma’an News reports, “Israeli authorities have stepped up issuing demolition warrants for Palestinians in East Jerusalem in recent months, particularly after Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barakat threatened that the demolition of the illegal Israeli outpost of Amona in the occupied West Bank would be met with the mass demolition of Palestinian homes lacking the nearly impossible to obtain Israeli-issued building permits.”

Netanyahu Celebrates Expansion of Beitar Illit Settlement

Prime Minister Netanyahu attended a cornerstone-laying ceremony for hundreds of new homes set to be built in the Beitar Illit settlement, a massive, fast-growing, ultra-Orthodox settlement in the Etzion bloc. At the ceremony, Netanyahu proudly repeated his assertion that, “There is no government that does more for the settlement [movement] in Israel than the one under my leadership.” The project will annex a third strategic hilltop to the Beitar Illit, which like much of the Etzion bloc is located on the Israeli side of the separation barrier.

The same day Netanyahu visited Beitar Illit, several right-wing Knesset members traveled to the northern part of the West Bank to call on the Prime Minister to re-establish four Israeli settlements located near the West Bank city of Jenin, that were dismantled in 2005 of part of Ariel Sharon’s disengagement from Gaza. A bill has been introduced in the Knesset that would rescind the 2005 disengagement memo which led to the evacuation of the four settlements.

Attorney General Requests Temporary Injunction Against “Regulation Law”

On August 7th, Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit weighed in on a petition filed with the Israeli Supreme Court challenging the legality of the “Regulation Law,” which was passed this year and provides a legal basis for retroactive legalization of outposts and other settlement activity in the West Bank on land owned by Palestinians. Mandelblit – who argued against passage of the Regulation Law late last year and after the law’s passage and said he would not defend it in court – asked the High Court to put a temporary injunction against the law until the Court issues its ruling. The injunction would prevent the Civil Administration (the arm of the IDF that rules over the West Bank) from using the law, and possibly from even taking the preliminary steps towards using the law, in order to retroactively legalize outposts and unauthorized settlement activity.

The petition against the Regulation Law (also called the “Expropriation Law,” the “Regularization Law,” the “Legalization Law,” or the “Settlements Law”) was filed in March by three leading Israeli settlement watchdogs: Yesh Din, Peace Now, and ACRI.

Palestinian Leaders Criticize U.S. Peace Efforts & Point to Silence on Settlements

The Palestinian outlook on President Trump’s negotiation efforts has grown outright grim this week. Any initial optimism has been replaced with a sense of abandonment on the part of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority and the topic of unfettered settlement growth has been a recurring talking point. On August 7th in Ramallah, Jordan’s King Abdullah and the Palestinian Authority jointly called for the U.S. to unequivocally state its support for a two-state solution and reiterated that a complete settlement freeze remains a precondition for the resumption of negotiations, including in East Jerusalem. That statement should dispel any lingering questions regarding reports in June that the PA was willing to drop a settlement freeze as a precondition to peace talks.

The new statement comes after a week of terse, unscripted criticism by the Palestinians aimed at President Trump. A top Abbas advisor, Dr. Nabil Sha’ath, told Haaretz that that Palestinians no longer look to the U.S. to be helpful on the issue. Sha’ath said, “Palestinian efforts in the near term will be focused on the international arena in an effort to prevent accelerated settlement construction or the passing of laws that have direct consequences for the peace process.”

In an interview with Jewish Insider last week, top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat did not mince words about his disappointment with the Trump administration’s earlier attempts to get the ball moving on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Of note, Erekat laments, “Israel announces thousands of new settlement units that make it almost impossible to achieve the two-state solution, and it’s merely met with silence from U.S. officials.” Erekat is not entirely correct about the U.S.’s silence. The U.S. Department of State has repeatedly issued the same ambiguous statement regarding Israeli settlement policy, that “unrestrained settlement activity is not helpful to the peace process.” The statement echoes President Trump’s remarks in February calling for Israel to “hold back a little” on settlements.

In a third report, an anonymous Palestinian official took aim at Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s senior-most envoys dealing with Israel and the Palestinians. The source said, “It’s not a nice thing to say, but they are both ardent supporters of the settlements.They are completely unfamiliar with the other side, they don’t understand the region and they don’t understand the material. You can’t learn about what is happening here in a seminar lasting just a few weeks.” The remarks came one day before the release of a recording of Jared Kushner revealed his thinking on the topic of Israeli-Palestinian issues during which he expressed a lack of interest in history lessons on the topic.

New Poll Reveals Settler Prefer the Status Quo to Annexation or Peace

A new poll reveals remarkable differences between Israeli Jews living within the borders of sovereign Israel and those living in settlements. It sheds light on who in Israel is benefitting from the current “status quo” (which was undefined in the poll’s questions to respondents):

Of Israeli settlers:

• 35% called for the continuation of the status quo
• 24% want Israel to annex the West Bank
• 15% want to see a peace agreement
• 10% back a decisive war against the Palestinians

Of Israeli Jews living in Israel:

• 18% called for the continuation of the status quo
• 9% want Israel to annex the West Bank
• 45% support a peace agreement
• 12% back a decisive war against the Palestinians

The poll also examined the views of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Updates: Machpelah House; New “Amichai” Settlement; Netiv Ha’avot Outpost

Several important updates to last week’s settlement report:

• In Hebron, settlers continue to illegally occupy the Machpelah House under the protection of the Israeli army, despite a new petition seeking their evacuation filed this week by Palestinians who claim to own the house. Last week, the head of the “Samaria Regional Council” Yossi Dagan, moved into the house along with his wife and three children. Approximately 120 Israeli settlers were already living there, having illegally broken into into the house last week in a bid to circumvent legal proceedings regarding rightful ownership. The IDF quickly declared the house a closed military zone, but the order has not been enforced, which is the only reason why Dagan and his family were able to enter the building. Yossi Dagan was elected head of the Samaria Regional Council in 2015. He opened a campaign office for Donald Trump during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and published an open letter to Steve Bannon expressing his admiration and support for the newly elected U.S. administration.
• Netanyahu’s cabinet gave a major boost to the stalled construction of a new settlement called Amichai by reportedly doubling the size of the government’s financial contribution to the project. Last week, after it was reported that construction has been halted due to lack of funds, Netanyahu quickly issued assurances that the problem will be fixed. The new Amichai settlement – the first to be approved by the government since 1991 – is being built in the Shilo Valley, deep inside of the West Bank, as the payoff for families who built the illegal Amona outpost and were evacuated earlier this year. Immediately next to the Amichai construction site, at the site of the future Shvut Rachel East settlement (which was the original plan to pay-off the Amona evacuees but was rejected because it wasn’t the preferred hilltop — but was nonetheless approved for construction by the Israeli government as a neighborhood of the Shilo settlement) several caravans have been moved onto the recently leveled land in preparation for further construction.
• In two separate meetings last week, settler leaders met with PM Netanyahu and his chief of staff in their bid to cajole the Prime Minister into intervening against a demolition order threatening 15 homes in the Netiv Ha’avot outpost near Bethlehem. Commenting on the issue while at a ceremony in the Beitar Illit settlement, Netanyahu committed to helping the affected families “within the framework of the law that would minimize the damage.” It’s not clear if the Prime Minister was referring to the past damage caused to the Palestinians who own the land upon which settlers built illegally, or the future damage it will cause to relocate the families who live in illegally built homes.

Bonus Reads

1. Who Profits Flash Report: “Tracking Annexation: The Jerusalem Light Rail and the Israeli Occupation” (July 2017)
2. “The Young Palestinian Men of East Jerusalem Have Nothing to Lose” (August 3, 2017 | Haaretz+)
3. Human Rights Watch: “Jerusalem Palestinians Stripped of Status” (August 8, 2017)
4. “Demographic hysteria leaves Jerusalemites by the wayside” (August 7, 2017 | +972 Mag)

 

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FMEP has long been a trusted resource on settlement-related issues, reflecting both the excellent work of our grantees on the ground and our own in-house expertise. FMEP’s focus on settlements derives from our commitment to achieving lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace, and our recognition of the fact that Israeli settlements – established for the explicit purpose of dispossessing Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem of land and resources, and depriving them of the very possibility of self-determination in their own state with borders based on the 1967 lines – are antithetical to that goal.