Israel confirms it plans to seize West Bank land

[tera_ha]

Quote

Israel confirmed on Thursday it was planning to appropriate a large tract of fertile land in the occupied West Bank, close to Jordan, a move likely to exacerbate tensions with Western allies and already drawing international condemnation.

In an e-mail sent to Reuters, COGAT, a unit of Israel’s Defense Ministry, said the political decision to seize the territory had already been taken and “the lands are in the final stages of being declared state lands.”

The appropriation, first reported by Israel’s Army Radio, covers 154 hectares (380 acres) in the Jordan Valley close to Jericho, an area where Israel already has many settlement farms built on land Palestinians seek for a state.

 

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday denounced the seizure, which is the largest appropriation in the West Bank since August 2014.

“Settlement activities are a violation of international law and run counter to the public pronouncements of the government of Israel supporting a two-state solution to the conflict,” Ban said in a statement.

The land, already partly farmed by Jewish settlers in an area fully under Israeli civilian and military control, is situated near the northern tip of the Dead Sea. No Palestinians currently live there.

Palestinian officials denounced the seizure on Wednesday, with Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, calling it a violation of international law.

“Israel is stealing land specially in the Jordan Valley under the pretext it wants to annex it,” she told Reuters. “This should be a reason for a real and effective intervention by the international community to end such a flagrant and grave aggression which kills all chances of peace.”

The United States, whose ambassador angered Israel this week with criticism of its West Bank policy, said on Wednesday it was strongly opposed to any move that accelerates settlement expansion.

“We believe they’re fundamentally incompatible with a two-state solution and call into question, frankly, the Israeli government’s commitment to a two-state solution,” Deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to address the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday. It was not immediately clear if he would speak on the issue or if foreign diplomats would raise their concerns with him.

The Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

There are now about 550,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem combined, according to Israeli government and think-tank statistics. About 350,000 Palestinians live in East Jerusalem and 2.7 million in West Bank.

Israel is hoping that in any final agreement with the Palestinians it will be able to keep large settlement blocs close to Jerusalem and the Israeli border, as well as in the Jordan Valley, for security and agricultural purposes. The Palestinians are adamantly opposed.

The last round of peace talks broke down in April 2014 and Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged in recent months.

Since the start of October, Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and shootings have killed 25 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. In the same period, at least 148 Palestinians have been killed, 94 of whom Israel has described as assailants. Most of the others died during violent demonstrations.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/israel-confirms-it-plans-to-seize-west-bank-land/article28306279/

 

And the world continues to watch.

[Warhippy]

but but but

 

The holocaust, and and and palestinians are evil and and and it's their right and and and they aren't using it and Israel is just defending itself and whatever other BS excuse people will use to justify this as allowable.

 

Seriously, how anyone can sit back and say Israel is ok and within their right to do this is a joke.  Israel has NO intention of ever having peace if these are the acts they continue to perpetrate

[Heretic]

2 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

but but but

 

The holocaust, and and and palestinians are evil and and and it's their right and and and they aren't using it and Israel is just defending itself and whatever other BS excuse people will use to justify this as allowable.

 

Seriously, how anyone can sit back and say Israel is ok and within their right to do this is a joke.  Israel has NO intention of ever having peace if these are the acts they continue to perpetrate

Blame the six day war.

 

For those that care to read, here's a great synopsis on what the settlements are about: 

 

This requires a bit of a history lesson. In 1949, after the first Arab-Israeli war, Israel gained its independence. Israel negotiated with its neighbors the 1949 Armistice Agreements. These agreements established the 1949 Armistice Lines (often referred to as the 1967 borders, for reasons that will shortly become apparent) as de facto borders.

However, these lines were never intended to be final borders. Every Arab country bordering Israel except Lebanon (meaning Syria, Egypt, and Jordan) had clauses in the armistice agreements specifying that the armistices lines were temporary, and were not meant to define final borders. The most relevant agreement here is Israel's agreement with Jordan. The Jordanian agreement specified that the borders existed only out of military necessity and could be changed. From the agreement with Jordan:

no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.

In June of 1967, Egypt blockaded the Strait of Tiran, which Israel stated it would consider an act of war. Israel responded by destroying the Egyptian airforce. Faced with an Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian invasion, Israel defeated the three Arab armies in six days.

Israel captured the Sinai and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Israel would give the Sinai back to Egypt in the 1979 Camp David Accords, and unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza strip according to the 2005 Unilateral Disengagement Plan.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria, and annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 via the Golan Heights Law. Though the armistice agreement with Syria stressed the mutability of the armistice lines, and though Syria refused Israel's offer, to return the Golan Heights in exchange for peace, that annexation is not internationally recognized.

Finally, we come to the West Bank. The West Bank was captured from Jordan, though only East Jerusalem has been annexed by Israel. Since the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, Israeli settlements are within the West Bank. At first, settlements were established by Israeli citizens, but with implicit government approval (Source: The Accidental Empire by Gershom Gorenberg).

Many of these settlements were established on land you'd be hard pressed to call Palestinian. The Palestinians never held sovereignty over the West Bank, and rejected all promises of sovereignty over those areas (including in 1936-1937, 1938, and 1947), and some of the areas on which settlements were established, like Gush Etzion and Hevron, had Jewish communities that had existed sometimes for thousands of years before they were depopulated in Arab riots and by Arab armies in Israel's war for independence.

You are correct that the international community considers the settlements illegal, but just to clear up confusion, that's not because the settlements were established on land belonging to another party. Rather, the settlements are considered illegal because they are considered to violate the Geneva Convention's prohibition on population transfer. The Geneva Convention prohibits a state from transferring its population into occupied territory (though it should be noted that settlers moving to occupied territory were not coerced). Though the international consensus is that the settlements are illegal, there is still legal dispute about this issue. As Julius Stone, former Professor of International Law at the University of Sydney points out:

We would have to say that the effect of Article 49(6) is to impose an obligation on the State of Israel to ensure (by force if necessary) that these areas, despite their millennial association with Jewish life, shall be forever judenrein. Irony would thus be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49(6), designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that ... the West Bank .. must be made judenrein

Finally, we can consider why Israel continues to promote settlement growth. Though there may be specific political reasons for specific settlement projects, the overarching reason Israel promotes settlement growth is security. Under the armistices lines, Israel was cut off by the West Bank, and enemy borders were close to population centers. For example, the distance between the West Bank city of Qalqilya and the Mediterranean sea is only about 9 miles.

If you look at Israel's justifications for its settlements, from Ariel to the E1 Plan, they largely involve establishing a foothold on land it can use to protect itself (though one of the largest Israel settlements, Ma'ale Adumim, is also intended to provide cheap housing to people who can't afford to live in Jerusalem). Former International Court of Justice justice and State Department Legal Advisor Stephen Schwebel defended the settlements as justified by military necessity, saying:

(a) a state [Israel] acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defense may seize and occupy foreign territory as long as such seizure and occupation are necessary to its self-defense;

(b) as a condition of its withdrawal from such territory, that State may require the institution of security measures reasonably designed to ensure that that territory shall not again be used to mount a threat or use of force against it of such a nature as to justify exercise of self-defense;

It is commonly claimed that the establishment of Israeli settlements constitutes a land grab, however this claim does not stand up to scrutiny. The settlement blocs Israel wishes to keep in an agreement with Palestine comprise only a few percent of the West Bank, and Israel is willing to transfer an equal amount of land in exchange for those settlements.

In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made an offer to the Palestinians in which Israel would retain some settlement blocs and transfer an equal amount of land from behind the armistice lines to Palestine. Here is an approximate map (I say approximate because no official maps were produced). Given that Israel is willing to transfer to Palestine as much land as it wishes to keep, the settlements cannot sensibly be framed as a land grab: they grant Israel no additional land.

In terms of danger: the settlements experienced a good deal of violence during the Second Intifada: hundreds of Israeli civilians died. However, since Israel installed a wall surrounding most of the settlement population, terrorist incidents have been substantially reduced, meaning that security is less of an issue for settlers now.

I recognize this may be somewhat more of an answer than you were looking for, and it does cover more than you may have expected, but hopefully it gives you a better idea of the context of the settlements and why Israel pursues them. I suppose the TL;DR version of this is that Israel is promoting settlements on land that isn't Palestinian for security reasons.

 

[Warhippy]

4 minutes ago, Heretic said:

Blame the six day war.

 

For those that care to read, here's a great synopsis on what the settlements are about: 

 

This requires a bit of a history lesson. In 1949, after the first Arab-Israeli war, Israel gained its independence. Israel negotiated with its neighbors the 1949 Armistice Agreements. These agreements established the 1949 Armistice Lines (often referred to as the 1967 borders, for reasons that will shortly become apparent) as de facto borders.

However, these lines were never intended to be final borders. Every Arab country bordering Israel except Lebanon (meaning Syria, Egypt, and Jordan) had clauses in the armistice agreements specifying that the armistices lines were temporary, and were not meant to define final borders. The most relevant agreement here is Israel's agreement with Jordan. The Jordanian agreement specified that the borders existed only out of military necessity and could be changed. From the agreement with Jordan:

no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.

In June of 1967, Egypt blockaded the Strait of Tiran, which Israel stated it would consider an act of war. Israel responded by destroying the Egyptian airforce. Faced with an Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian invasion, Israel defeated the three Arab armies in six days.

Israel captured the Sinai and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Israel would give the Sinai back to Egypt in the 1979 Camp David Accords, and unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza strip according to the 2005 Unilateral Disengagement Plan.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria, and annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 via the Golan Heights Law. Though the armistice agreement with Syria stressed the mutability of the armistice lines, and though Syria refused Israel's offer, to return the Golan Heights in exchange for peace, that annexation is not internationally recognized.

Finally, we come to the West Bank. The West Bank was captured from Jordan, though only East Jerusalem has been annexed by Israel. Since the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, Israeli settlements are within the West Bank. At first, settlements were established by Israeli citizens, but with implicit government approval (Source: The Accidental Empire by Gershom Gorenberg).

Many of these settlements were established on land you'd be hard pressed to call Palestinian. The Palestinians never held sovereignty over the West Bank, and rejected all promises of sovereignty over those areas (including in 1936-1937, 1938, and 1947), and some of the areas on which settlements were established, like Gush Etzion and Hevron, had Jewish communities that had existed sometimes for thousands of years before they were depopulated in Arab riots and by Arab armies in Israel's war for independence.

You are correct that the international community considers the settlements illegal, but just to clear up confusion, that's not because the settlements were established on land belonging to another party. Rather, the settlements are considered illegal because they are considered to violate the Geneva Convention's prohibition on population transfer. The Geneva Convention prohibits a state from transferring its population into occupied territory (though it should be noted that settlers moving to occupied territory were not coerced). Though the international consensus is that the settlements are illegal, there is still legal dispute about this issue. As Julius Stone, former Professor of International Law at the University of Sydney points out:

We would have to say that the effect of Article 49(6) is to impose an obligation on the State of Israel to ensure (by force if necessary) that these areas, despite their millennial association with Jewish life, shall be forever judenrein. Irony would thus be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49(6), designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that ... the West Bank .. must be made judenrein

Finally, we can consider why Israel continues to promote settlement growth. Though there may be specific political reasons for specific settlement projects, the overarching reason Israel promotes settlement growth is security. Under the armistices lines, Israel was cut off by the West Bank, and enemy borders were close to population centers. For example, the distance between the West Bank city of Qalqilya and the Mediterranean sea is only about 9 miles.

If you look at Israel's justifications for its settlements, from Ariel to the E1 Plan, they largely involve establishing a foothold on land it can use to protect itself (though one of the largest Israel settlements, Ma'ale Adumim, is also intended to provide cheap housing to people who can't afford to live in Jerusalem). Former International Court of Justice justice and State Department Legal Advisor Stephen Schwebel defended the settlements as justified by military necessity, saying:

(a) a state [Israel] acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defense may seize and occupy foreign territory as long as such seizure and occupation are necessary to its self-defense;

(b) as a condition of its withdrawal from such territory, that State may require the institution of security measures reasonably designed to ensure that that territory shall not again be used to mount a threat or use of force against it of such a nature as to justify exercise of self-defense;

It is commonly claimed that the establishment of Israeli settlements constitutes a land grab, however this claim does not stand up to scrutiny. The settlement blocs Israel wishes to keep in an agreement with Palestine comprise only a few percent of the West Bank, and Israel is willing to transfer an equal amount of land in exchange for those settlements.

In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made an offer to the Palestinians in which Israel would retain some settlement blocs and transfer an equal amount of land from behind the armistice lines to Palestine. Here is an approximate map (I say approximate because no official maps were produced). Given that Israel is willing to transfer to Palestine as much land as it wishes to keep, the settlements cannot sensibly be framed as a land grab: they grant Israel no additional land.

In terms of danger: the settlements experienced a good deal of violence during the Second Intifada: hundreds of Israeli civilians died. However, since Israel installed a wall surrounding most of the settlement population, terrorist incidents have been substantially reduced, meaning that security is less of an issue for settlers now.

I recognize this may be somewhat more of an answer than you were looking for, and it does cover more than you may have expected, but hopefully it gives you a better idea of the context of the settlements and why Israel pursues them. I suppose the TL;DR version of this is that Israel is promoting settlements on land that isn't Palestinian for security reasons.

 

Hmmm...ok

 

So land that is not occupied at all but belongs to the Palestinians, that has been expropriated years ago and is now farmed by Israelis illegally under every possible convention except the one Israel wrote after a war in the 60's is for self defense?

 

OK then.

 

Just so we're clear.  From the article, posted originally.

 

The land, already partly farmed by Jewish settlers in an area fully under Israeli civilian and military control, is situated near the northern tip of the Dead Sea. No Palestinians currently live there.

 

srael is hoping that in any final agreement with the Palestinians it will be able to keep large settlement blocs close to Jerusalem and the Israeli border, as well as in the Jordan Valley, for security and agricultural purposes. The Palestinians are adamantly opposed.

 

Now I am not sure and it might just be me, but it seems as though israel is hoping in the end that any action legally taken to ensure that Palestinians have a country/state of their own would mean Israel would keep lands they already settled.  Seems like a big fat illegal land grab to me and one cannot in any way use the pretext of "security" on land that is all but unpopulated by the indigenous people after they'd already been forcibly moved years ago

[taxi]

1 minute ago, Warhippy said:

Hmmm...ok

 

So land that is not occupied at all but belongs to the Palestinians, that has been expropriated years ago and is now farmed by Israelis illegally under every possible convention except the one Israel wrote after a war in the 60's is for self defense?

 

OK then.

How does this land "belong" to the Palestinians. It belongs to the Palestinians in the sense that Jordan expelled all of the Jews from there in 1948. Prior to that Jericho had a large Jewish population.

During the 1948 day war, Jordan invaded the West Bank and expelled all the Jews from the area. The Arabs then lost that territory during the 1967 war they initiated. Now the Arabs want to arbitrarily go back to the 1967 borders. Please show me how Arabs have established that land "belongs" to them. It's disputed land.

From the article:

 

No Palestinians currently live there.

[Warhippy]

3 minutes ago, taxi said:

How does this land "belong" to the Palestinians. It belongs to the Palestinians in the sense that Jordan expelled all of the Jews from there in 1948. Prior to that Jericho had a large Jewish population.

During the 1948 day war, Jordan invaded the West Bank and expelled all the Jews from the area. The Arabs then lost that territory during the 1967 war they initiated. Now the Arabs want to arbitrarily go back to the 1967 borders. Please show me how Arabs have established that land "belongs" to them. It's disputed land.

From the article:

 

 

 

"All but belongs to the Palestinians"  Please do read everything before responding T.

 

This is land that both sides have sworn off on building until such time as a solution can be found.  except one side keeps building there.  This is on land that in every single 2 state proposal has been ceded to the Palestinians.

 

As well, there is no security reasons to give to excuse this continued settlement.  Again,  Big.  Fat.  Land. Grab.

[Hugor Hill]

20 or so minutes after this thread posted, taxi shows up.

[thejazz97]

46 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

Seriously, how anyone can sit back and say Israel is ok and within their right to do this is a joke.  Israel has NO intention of ever having peace if these are the acts they continue to perpetrate

If you look at all the land they've given up in the name of peace since 1967, it's completely understandable that they should want to have a small portion of that back.

I'd have to read more into the situation, but I'd say this move is morally grey. it's not completely wrong, but at the same time, it's not right.

[Heretic]

40 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

Hmmm...ok

 

So land that is not occupied at all but belongs to the Palestinians, that has been expropriated years ago and is now farmed by Israelis illegally under every possible convention except the one Israel wrote after a war in the 60's is for self defense?

 

 

No, " The Palestinians never held sovereignty over the West Bank, and rejected all promises of sovereignty over those areas (including in 1936-1937, 1938, and 1947), and some of the areas on which settlements were established, like Gush Etzion and Hevron, had Jewish communities that had existed sometimes for thousands of years before they were depopulated in Arab riots and by Arab armies in Israel's war for independence. "

It never belonged to the Palestinians...it belonged to Jordan....

 

[Warhippy]

2 hours ago, Heretic said:

No, " The Palestinians never held sovereignty over the West Bank, and rejected all promises of sovereignty over those areas (including in 1936-1937, 1938, and 1947), and some of the areas on which settlements were established, like Gush Etzion and Hevron, had Jewish communities that had existed sometimes for thousands of years before they were depopulated in Arab riots and by Arab armies in Israel's war for independence. "

It never belonged to the Palestinians...it belonged to Jordan....

 

Allow me to respond in the SAME manner as I did to Taxi

 

"All but belongs too the Palestinians" as per numerous 2 state proposals.

 

Thank you

[Jägermeister]

Both sides of this conflict are idiotic.

[Chalky]

2 hours ago, thejazz97 said:

If you look at all the land they've given up in the name of peace since 1967, it's completely understandable that they should want to have a small portion of that back.

I'd have to read more into the situation, but I'd say this move is morally grey. it's not completely wrong, but at the same time, it's not right.

Spell it out Jazz, what land have they given up in the name of peace.

[Warhippy]

16 minutes ago, Jägermeister said:

Both sides of this conflict are idiotic.

Truth right here

[Kragar]

21 minutes ago, Chalky said:

Spell it out Jazz, what land have they given up in the name of peace.

Some instances are found earlier in the thread, in the article posted by Heretic.  Sinai and Gaza are mentioned.

FYI, to any that care (and I was surprised to learn), The whole Sinai peninsula, which Israel held after the 6-day war, is larger (about 3 times) than Israel itself.

[Heretic]

47 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

Allow me to respond in the SAME manner as I did to Taxi

 

"All but belongs too the Palestinians" as per numerous 2 state proposals.

 

Thank you

All but what? Westbank?  Then yes.  

Remember, Jordan is really Palestine - but the name changed - and now the Palestinians want another country?

 

 

I know, over simplified...

It's just a big mess....

 

 

[inane]

I continue to be baffled as to why anyone cares about these idiots. They are like petulant children.

[Realtor Rod]

Why is this even news? These two bodies have been, and will continue to, fight over whose land it is.  All land was no one's land until someone claimed it.  Sort it out and shut up already. 

[Fateless]

Honestly, you may as well just let them fight it out at this point. Westerns trying to influence politics in the Middle East is like University Professor trying to explain quantum physics to a 4 year old - they won't understand it nor do they care. Its not like the UN is being all that helpful anyways - everyone has skin in the game because different countries want different sides to prospoer, all we do by getting involved is make the situation even more convoluted. 

This should honestly just come down to the very basics of statehood via the Montevideo conception - what areas are held by which powers for a lengthy period of time with an established border, population and the ability to work on the international stage. Separate it either side disagrees - move in with the UN. 

Someone has to man up here and its not going to be Israel or Palestine. Israel has been giving land up for decades in the name of peace and Palestine is all "give give give" but never reciprocates in any way. This has lead to Israel no longer trusting or desiring to work with Palestine. Palestine just comes off greedy no matter which way you look at it - this isn't to say they don't deserve their own area, but I'm just pointing out that they'll never be content until Israel doesn't exist. 

[Lancaster]

Considering the oppositions to Israel still won't even respect Israel's right to exist... might as well load up on leverages prior to negotiations. 

Also, Oxford Union had a good debate on the Hamas vs Israel conflict.  It's on youtube. 

[slickjim23]

So they're taking back what was once their land... Don't see any problem here... Carry on.