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.

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.

July 21, 2017

1. In Jerusalem’s North: The “Adam-Neve Ya’akov” Plan Resurfaces
2. In Jerusalem’s South: The “Gilo Southeast” Plan Expected to Advance
3. In the Shadow of Jerusalem’s Old City: Settler-Run Visitor Center is Approved
4. In the Heart of East Jerusalem: Alarming Plans Advance As Expected
5. U.S. Department of State: Settlements & Settlers Provoke Violence
6. Settlement Outpost Near Bethlehem is Angling to Avoid Demolition
7. Court Wants Settlers/Palestinians to “Negotiate” Land Theft Ex-Post Facto
8. Bonus Reads

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

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In Jerusalem’s North: The “Adam-Neve Ya’akov” Plan Resurfaces

The Israeli Construction & Housing Ministry announced impending plans for a 1,100 unit housing project to Jerusalem’s immediate northeast.

The plan aims to connect large settlements in East Jerusalem (Neveh Ya’akov and Pisgat Zeev) with an isolated settlement in the West Bank (Adam, aka Geva Binyamin). The land identified for the project is within the municipal boundaries of Adam, but on the Israeli side of the separation barrier (the route of the separation barrier in this area cuts deep into the West Bank). If implemented, the Adam settlement would have built up areas on both sides of the barrier.

Israeli Housing Minister Yoav Galant’s office issued a statement explaining, “We will be everywhere that it is possible to build and to provide solutions to the housing shortage, particularly, as in the case of Adam, in the vicinity of Jerusalem. In Greater Jerusalem, there is also particular security importance in Israeli [territorial] contiguity from the Gush Etzion Bloc in the south to Atarot in the north, and from Ma’aleh Adumim in the east to Givat Ze’ev in the west.”

Ir Amim writes that the plan would, “further fracture a future Palestinian state by… breaking contiguity from north to south… while isolating the southern perimeter of Ramallah from East Jerusalem, the future capital of the Palestinian state. Advancing a project of this size, given its extreme geo-political ramifications, would have a fatal impact on the two-state solution.”

The same plan was developed in the early 2000s and explored in 2007 and again in 2008, but shelved because of its political sensitivity and international concern for the future of Jerusalem and the prospects for a two-state solution. Jerusalem expert Daniel Seidemann of Terrestrial Jerusalem writes, “What is different now than in the past is talk of the plan comes in the context of an opening of the settlement floodgates in East Jerusalem, including green lights and expediting of plans the implementation of which, for any number of reasons, in the past was far-fetched or even inconceivable. Consequently, it is important to flag this scheme as early as possible, and to monitor in vigilantly.”

 

In Jerusalem’s South: The “Gilo Southeast” Plan Expected to Advance

The Israeli government is set to advance a plan to expand the borders of the Gilo settlement (between Jerusalem and Bethlehem) in order to build 3,000 new units. This plan, called “Gilo Southeast,” is expected to be considered at a meeting on July 26th.

If implemented, Gilo Southeast would further surround the Palestinian city of Beit Safafa, severing the town from the West Bank. An area of intense Israeli settlement infrastructure growth (a settler-only freeway divides the community, and the area has been the focus of demolitions of Palestinian homes), Beit Safafa’s Palestinian residents describe a life under siege.

Gilo Southeast is just one of several alarming plans threatening to sever Palestinian contiguity between East Jerusalem and the southern West Bank:

• Gilo Southeast would abut the border of the Givat Hamatos doomsday plan, which is only waiting for the publication of tenders to begin construction. The Givat Hamatos plan has remained blocked under the previous political calculations, but can be tendered at any moment.
• The plan would also connect Gilo to Har Homa, a fast growing settlement that was built with the Netanyahu’s approval in 1997 – the last official settlement to be built until the recent approval of the Amichai settlement.

Ir Amim writes that Gilo Southeast would create “one more link in a chain of developments designed to seal off the southern perimeter of Jerusalem from the West Bank, nullifying prospects for a two state solution.”

 

In the Shadow of Jerusalem’s Old City: Settler-Run Visitor Center is Approved

Last week the controversial Visitor’s Center in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan (known to Israelis as the “City of David” and located just outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City in the shadow of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif) took another important step forward in the final stages of the planning process. According to the Israeli NGO Emek Shaveh, the plan “awaits final approval by the Israel Antiquities Authority, which will only be granted once the archaeological excavations at the site are completed. In our assessment this should happen soon.”

Known as the “Kedem Center,” the building is being financed and promoted by the settler-run Elad Foundation, whose goal is to establish Jewish hegemony over all of Jerusalem (i.e. erase all Palestinian presence, history, and any visibility in the city). The Center will be the largest, state-of-the-art tourism center in Jerusalem and will also serve as a station for the new cable car line approved this year, a cable car line that is designed to facilitate tourists visits to Jewish sites in East Jerusalem while preventing tourists from encountering Palestinians.

Emek Shaveh issued a statement saying, “this project will change the landscape in the area between the Old City and the village of Silwan, and will have a considerable impact on the identity of the Historic Basin. The purpose of the Kedem Center is first and foremost political – to Judaize Silwan and prevent a political solution for Jerusalem.”

The Jerusalem Post reports the Kedem Center plan was approved by Prime Minister Netanyahu as a defiant gesture following UNESCO’s decision to designate sites in Hebron as World Heritage Sites, which Netanyahu incorrectly says deny Jewish history.

 

In the Heart of East Jerusalem: Plans Advance as Expected

In addition to the north, south, and center settlements plans detailed above, previously reported settlement plans targeting East Jerusalem were all approved for deposit for public review at a government meeting last week. We reported extensively on these in our last edition, here. The plans approved for deposit for public review include the incendiary plans in the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, and more.

Though the plans were all approved for deposit for public review, as of this writing none have been deposited (yet). Like almost every step in the Israeli settlement planning process, actually depositing the plans for public comment is itself a political decision.

 

U.S. Department of State: Settlements & Settlers Provoke Violence

In the recently released 2016 Country Reports on Terrorism, Secretary Tillerson’s State Department writes, “Continued drivers of violence included a lack of hope in achieving Palestinian statehood, Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the perception that the Israeli government was changing the status quo on the Haram Al Sharif/Temple Mount, and IDF tactics that the Palestinians considered overly aggressive.” [emphasis added]

Notably, the 2015 Country Reports on Terrorism (an Obama Administration document) did not focus on the role of settlements or identify settlements/settlers as a “driver of violence.” The 2015 document simply noted a handful of terrorist incidents, including the trend of “price-tag attacks,” committed by settlers and committed by Palestinians near settlements.

 

Settlement Outpost Near Bethlehem is Angling to Avoid Demolition

A settlement outpost near Bethlehem – built illegally even under Israeli law – is fighting a decision by the Israeli Supreme Court to demolish 17 buildings that were found to have been built on land owned by Palestinians. A 2016 decision ruled that buildings in the center of the outpost sit partially on Palestinian land and must be demolished by March 2018. The NGO Yesh Din has an additional, broader petition before the High Court that seeks to prove that the whole outpost is on Palestinian land.

The Netiv Ha’avot outpost was built in 2001 as an additional “neighborhood” of the Elazar settlement southwest of Bethlehem, but was in fact built on a hilltop near the outskirts of the settlement, on land located beyond the settlement’s borders. Forty Israeli settler families currently live there, 15 of which will be affected by the demolition orders.

The outposts’ residents are aggressively pressuring Prime Minister Netanyahu to intervene in their favor (Netanyahu has already caved to vociferous settler protests several times this year). At a demonstration in support of the outpost, signs read “This destruction too is on your watch” (referring to the Amona evacuation) and “Bibi wake up and intervene.”

 

Court Wants Settlers/Palestinians to “Negotiate” Land Theft Ex-Post Facto

The Israeli Supreme Court made an unusual move to try to avoid having to return private land to Palestinians. The ruling pertains to a case in the Jordan Valley, where the Israeli military seized Palestinian private land for military uses, and subsequently (and improperly, according to Israeli law) gave the land to settlers. Rather than compel the settlers to return the stolen land to its owners, the court wants the Palestinians to negotiate with the settlers for compensation. The court’s move – which is in response to a 2013 petition – is an attempt to resolve the issue without having to rule on the validity of the land seizure, and without having to compel Israel to forfeit the land and evict the settlers (even if doing so requires suspending even the pretense of the rule of law).

Haaretz explains how we got here, “After the Israeli occupation of the West Bank began in 1967, the army issued an order prohibiting Palestinians from entering the area between the border fence and the Jordan River. At the beginning of the ‘80s, the government decided to encourage farmers to work the fields to create a buffer zone with Jordan. The World Zionist Organization was given the land and leased it to settlers.”

 

Bonus Reads

1. “In Israel’s ‘eternal capital’ anti-Palestinian discrimination is built-in” (July 16, 2017; +972 Mag)
2. “Black is the New Orange: 30% of Settlers are Haredim” (July 18, 2017; Times of Israel)
3. “Why Adelson is Pouring Millions of Dollars Into an Army-run Israeli University in the West Bank” (July 19, 2017; Haaretz+)
4. “The Biggest Attack in Jerusalem” (July 18, 2017; Haaretz+)
5. REPORT: “Insurance against political risk: Settlements and the Yanai governmental insurance corporation” (Akevot, July 21, 2017)

Overview: “Archival records, now declassified at Akevot’s request, tell the story of the financial safety net Israeli government provided for commercial companies and settlement agencies beyond the Green Line. Referred to as a “political guarantee” or “political insurance”, it protected settlers and investors in the occupied territories against such “political risks” as Israel’s evacuation from the occupied territories, policy changes or boycotts. As use of the government guarantees gradually expanded, a government insurance corporation was created, to sell insurance policies against these political risks. This is the story of the political guarantee in the occupied territories and the Yanai insurance corporation.”

 

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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.

July 7, 2017

1. Israel Announces Thousands of New Settlement Units in East Jerusalem
2. Settlement Watchdogs & Jerusalem Experts Sound the Alarm
3. The U.S. Response
4. Israeli AG says Accidental Land Theft is Legal
5. The Beit El Spitting Match Continues
6. Bonus Reads

For questions and comments please contact FMEP’s Director of Policy & Operations, Kristin McCarthy (kmccarthy@fmep.org).

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Israel Announces Thousands of New Settlement Units in East Jerusalem

This week the Israeli government announced the advancement of thousands of new settlement units across East Jerusalem. This includes plans inside large settlement neighborhoods like Gilo and Ramot, as well as unprecedented projects in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods. The settlement floodgates in East Jerusalem are now officially open, and daringly so. The announcements this week will constitute the largest settlement expansion in East Jerusalem in many years, and it reveals the lengths to which this Israeli government will go to in order to increase Israeli control and claim over East Jerusalem, including changing the longstanding modus operandi governing settlement planning and construction to open new areas for construction and to build at far greater density.

For detailed reporting on the specific plans advancing this month, click to read comprehensive resources produced by:

• Terrestrial Jerusalem
• Peace Now
• Ir Amim

The most provocative projects (detailed extensively in all of the above resources) are in the heart of the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. Once approved, the projects will require the eviction of 5 Palestinian families. Another project, as we reported last week, will build a large yeshiva (Jewish religious school) at the entrance of Sheikh Jarrah.

The plans for Sheikh Jarrah – and many of the other plans being promoted this month – are efforts to irrevocably change facts on the ground in East Jerusalem by expanding settlement enclaves inside of densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods. These announcements are poison pills for any attempt to re-start a political process or negotiate a permanent status agreement on the contested future of Jerusalem.

Settlement Watchdogs & Jerusalem Experts Sound the Alarm

Hagit Ofran, Director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch, writes: “The [Israeli] government is brutally attempting to destroy the possibility of the two-state solution, and this time it is by establishing a new settlement at the heart of a Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem and [by] promoting nearly 1,800 housing units beyond the Green Line.”

Danny Seidemann, founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, writes: “This is not routine, either in scope or impact. Within a period of two weeks Israel will be approving more than 1,800 settlement units – an increase of 3.3% of all of the settlement units built in East Jerusalem since 1967.”

Betty Herschman, Director of International Relations & Advocacy at Ir Amim, writes: “The simultaneous lack of restraint in the Historic Basin through the revival of plans in Sheikh Jarrah is of paramount concern – signaling, as it does, the government’s continued determination to exert its sovereignty over the Historic Basin in advance of prospective negotiations.”

 

The U.S. Response

Following Israel’s announcement on Wednesday approving 800 units in East Jerusalem – the first East Jerusalem construction announcement under the Trump administration and just the first tranche of units expected to advance this month – the White House gave a statement to the press reiterating its policy on Israeli settlement activity. The statement reads, “unrestrained growth does not advance the prospect for peace,” adding, “at the same time, the administration recognizes that past demands for a settlement freeze have not helped advance peace talks.”

The statement suggests that the U.S. will likely not exert meaningful pressure on Israel to hold back on settlement growth, even in the most contentious areas in East Jerusalem.

Also this week, settler leaders were welcomed to Ambassador David Friedman’s party on the 4th of July at his official residence in Herziliyah. Ambassador Friedman’s invitation was celebrated by settlers as a “dramatic shift in policy.” This comes on the heels of Ambassador Friedman quietly attending a wedding in the West Bank settlement of Psagot at the end of May, as documented on Twitter by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach (it was the wedding of Boteach’s son), who tweeted a photo of himself with Ambassador Friedman caption, “With my friend US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman at a wedding in the Holy Land. Gd bless.”

 

Israeli AG says “Accidental” Land Theft is Legal

Hoping to prevent future “Amonas” (i.e., public relations nightmares where the nightly news broadcasts Israeli security forces forcibly removing Israeli settlers from hilltops on the West Bank because of court decisions), Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mendleblit has suggested a new legal basis for Israeli settlement construction on privately owned Palestinian land.

Israeli law currently forbids settlement construction on land recognized by Israel as “privately owned” by Palestinians (all settlement construction is illegal under international law). Despite the prohibition – and despite the fact that it is very difficult for Palestinians to get Israel to recognize their private ownership of land – the Israeli government and settlers have built on lands that even Israeli law recognizes as privately owned by Palestinians.

In an effort to find a fix to this problem that does not involve respecting the rule of law and the legal rights of Palestinians as landowners, last year the Attorney General brought up a 1967 government special order entitled, “Order Concerning Government Property.” That document says, in part, that settlers who bought land from the Israeli government believing that it was land the government claimed was “state land” should not face penalties, even if the land turns out to be privately owned by Palestinians.

Late last year, AG Mendleblit recommended using this special order to retroactively legalize illegal settlement construction, while simultaneously warning the government against passing the Regulation Law, which gives license to the Israeli government to legalize all illegal settlement construction and land seizures (it passed into law anyway). Mendleblit warned that the Regulation Law was unconstitutional, and suggested the 1967 special order as an alternative legal avenue to accomplish the same goal. Peace Now currently has a petition before the High Court of Justice challenging the constitutionality of the Regulation Law.

 

The Beit El Spitting Match Continues

Last week we reported on ongoing controversy over building projects in the Beit El settlement, which in June Netanyahu had blocked from advancing. The subsequent tantrum thrown by settler leaders’ won a promise from Netanyahu that 300 settlement units will be built in Beit El by September 2017.

Not taking the PM at his word – or, as likely, seizing an opportunity to score more pro-settlement political points – far right-wing MK Bezalel Smotrich (Bayit Yehudi) introduced a bill last week that would force Netanyahu to build the units. That bill was scheduled to come up for vote this week, but Netanyahu intervened to prevent the bill from being considered. This does not mean Netanyahu will continue to block the Beit El plan as it moves through the normal settlement planning process governing Israeli construction in the West Bank (the plan is in the final stages of the approval process).

 

Bonus Reads

• “Settler Leader Used State Resources to Fund Illegal Outpost, While Israel Turned Blind Eye” (Haaretz, July 4, 2017)
• “A New Jewish settlement begins to rise in the West Bank” (Washington Post, July 1, 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.