World Deplores Israel’s W. Bank Land Grab
“Israel’s strategy of illegally confiscating land for settlements in the West Bank must stop once and for all. Not only it is illegal under international law but it is leading to a wide range of violations of Palestinians’ human rights on a mass scale,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement published on the group’s site.
“Reports said that the Israeli cabinet justified this land grab as a reaction to the deplorable murder in June of three Israeli teenagers suggests this is an act of collective punishment and that Israel is moving further and further away from its obligations under international law.”
Around 400 hectares of West Bank land near Bethlehem and the illegal Etzion settlement were declared “state land, on the instructions of the political echelon” by the Civil Administration on Sunday.
Signs have already been posted on the land by military administrators saying “state land – no trespassing”.
Dror Etkes, head of the Kerem Navot NGO which specializes in West Bank land issues, said: “There is enough territory for a very big settlement with thousands of units.”
Though the notice published by the military gave no reason for the land seizure, Israel Radio said that announcement was made in response to the killing of three Jewish teens in June in the same area.
The Israeli decision sparked immediate condemnations from world powers as well.
“We have long made clear our opposition to continued settlement activity,” a State Department official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters on Sunday, August 31.
“This announcement, like every other settlement announcement Israel makes, planning step they approve and construction tender they issue is counterproductive to Israel’s stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians.
“We urge the government of Israel to reverse this decision,” the official said in Washington.
Counterproductive
Coming in the wake of a destructive Gaza war, the decision was widely condemned as threatening more friction in the volatile area.
“This decision will lead to more instability. This will only inflame the situation after the war in Gaza," Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said.
Similar condemnations were expressed by the British government as "doing serious damage to Israel’s standing in the international community."
"The UK deplores the Israeli government's move," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said, adding that "the priority must be to build on the cease-fire in Gaza."
Peace Now, an anti-settlement group that opposes Israel’s activities in the West Bank, said the land seizure was the largest announced by Israel since the 1980s.
“Peace Now views this declaration as proof that Prime Minister Netanyahu does not aspire for a new ‘Diplomatic Horizon’, but rather he continues to put obstacles to the two-state vision and promote a one-state solution,” the group said.
"By declaring another 4,000 dunams as state land, the Israeli government is stabbing [Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas] and the moderate Palestinian forces in the back, proving again that violence delivers Israeli concessions while non-violence results in settlement expansion," the group added.
Unsurprisingly, the Etzion settlements council welcomed the announcement saying it “paves the way for the new city of Gevaot. The goal of the murders of those three youths was to sow fear among us, to disrupt our daily lives and to call into doubt our right to the land. Our response is to strengthen settlement.”
Israel occupied the holy city of Al-Quds and the West Bank in the 1967 war and later annexed it in a move not recognized by the international community or UN resolutions.
There are more than 164 Jewish settlements in the West Bank, eating up more than 40 percent of the occupied West Bank.
The international community considers all settlements on the occupied land illegal.
Source: On Islam
