Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumWhy it pays to be a settler in Israel
Summary :The 2015-2016 state budget reflects well the priorities of the Netanyahu government, with generous funding and allocations to the settlers and religious parties, while neglecting the periphery, the Arabs and Israel's secular heritage.
Author Mazal Mualem
Posted November 20, 2015
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/11/israel-state-budget-2016-settlers-religious-parties-kahlon.html#ixzz3sOCo10q2
Israeli
(4,151 posts)By Adam Aloni
A month ago, with nearly no public debate, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retroactively approved an urban building plan (UBP) for the West Bank settlement of Itamar. A week later, on October 29, Netanyahu retroactively approved UBPs for another three settlements: Shvut Rachel, Sansana and Yaqir. Once again Israeli authorities laundered construction in the West Bank that even they deemed illegal for years. Contrary to attempts in the media to represent this move as a Netanyahu capitulation to settler leaders, this was nothing more than the implementation of a long-standing Israeli policy of extensive unauthorized construction followed by retroactive approval. This allows the state to maintain a semblance of the rule of law while violating it on a daily basis.
In many settlements, the government itself has been responsible for illegal construction, primarily through the Housing and Construction Ministry. An analysis of Defense Ministry data shows that in the overwhelming majority (approximately 75 percent) of West Bank settlements, construction sometimes extensive construction was carried out without the necessary permits or in breach of the permits that were granted.
In 2005, the director general of the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization, which serves as the Israeli governments branch for establishing and reinforcing rural settlements, testified that the Settlement Division expressly advocates violating planning and building laws in the West Bank. He said that the modus operandi is first to establish Israeli communities, then reinforce them, and only several years later to approve plans for the construction This is the mode of operation.
The establishment of settlements with or without building permits violates international humanitarian law and the human rights of the Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Over the years, Israeli governments have all disregarded this prohibition and fabricated a sophisticated legal system designed to lend a guise of legality to the seizure of land in the West Bank.
While Israel employs the same planning and legal language to describe Israeli and Palestinian construction in the West Bank, in practice these procedures and regulations are implemented completely differently in Jewish-Israeli settlements and in Palestinian communities. In the case of settlements, Israeli authorities provide assistance, turn a blind eye to violations, and retroactively approve unauthorized construction, all as part of a long-standing policy to facilitate the de facto annexation of West Bank land to the sovereign territory of the State of Israel. Palestinian communities on the other hand, face an exacting, by-the-book, bureaucratic approach, a freeze on planning, and extensively implemented demolition orders, all as part of an ongoing policy to prevent Palestinian development and dispossess Palestinians of their land.
Israeli government policy regarding planning and construction for Palestinians in the West Bank is the very reverse of the modus operandi described above. With regard to Palestinian construction in Area C, the Israeli government cynically explained to the UN that in order to facilitate proper planning procedures, illegal construction is not tolerated. Such illegal construction harms the local population, given the fact that it does not take into consideration planning policies that will ensure a reasonable quality of life, and public needs.
However, in practice the government has no such planning policy, nor will it have any such policy. In approximately 70 percent of Area C, Palestinian construction is completely prohibited, while stringent restrictions are imposed on another 29 percent of the area. In the remaining one percent of Area C some 1,824.3 hectares there are approved outline plans that enable Palestinian development. However, most of this area is already built up.
In recent years, the Palestinian Authority has prepared outline plans for 116 communities, and 67 plans have already been submitted to the planning bodies in the Israeli armys Civil Administration for approval. However, these efforts have been to no avail. Only three plans have been approved, and they cover a total area of a mere 57 hectares (equal to 0.02 percent of Area C). This outcome is hardly surprising, given that Palestinians are completely excluded from the decision-making process with regard to planning in Area C.
Israel has surrounded the Palestinian residents of the West Bank in a planning stranglehold, while at the same time approving outline plans for settlements that already cover a total area of 28,217.4 hectares, equal to 8.5 percent of Area C. In addition, Israel has allocated extensive areas to the municipal authorities of the settlements, thereby blocking any Palestinian use of the land and ensuring that it remains available as a reserve for settlement expansion. Given the relative size of the two populations, the planned area for each settler is at least 13 times greater than that for each Palestinian. And that is how Israel expropriates West Bank land for itself at the expense of local Palestinian residents.
Adam Aloni works as a researcher at BTselem The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. A version of this article first appeared in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.
Source: http://972mag.com/illegal-settlements-arent-rogue-theyre-government-policy/114182/
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Israeli
(4,151 posts)Have you ever heard of Lior Schleien ?
He is our version of your Jon Stewart...........
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Americans are poorly informed here about the meaning of the settlements
and where they are, what that means in creating a viable state.
They're the pro-bantustan crowd...the neocons that is.
Israeli
(4,151 posts)Shame so few episodes are translated to English .
If you could all only understand them all ..............
6chars
(3,967 posts)Here are all the goodies mentioned in the article.
33 million shekels (about $8.5 million) to provide security for Jewish institutions in East Jerusalem, and another 45 million shekels ($11 million) for [providing similar security] the Division of Jewish Settlement. Meanwhile, Knesset member Bezalel Smotrich of the same party was able to obtain 2 million shekels (about $516,000) for a fund to protect the open lands in Judea and Samaria.
73 million shekels (about $18 million) for various budget items, including maintenance of the Western Wall tunnels and support for the Centers to Strengthen Jewish Education. 10 million shekels ($2.5 million) were allocated to a fertility clinic that operates according to Jewish religious law, as per the demands of the ultra-Orthodox parties.
So, this is a total of a little under $30M. For security, education, fertility clinic and maintenance. For the usual type of projects that politicians will get for their constituencies. About 1/10,000 of Israel's GDP. While that's enough to cover a penthouse apartment in Tel Aviv, not sure this is going to make all the settlers rich.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)6chars
(3,967 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)6chars
(3,967 posts)The amount of land that would have to be swapped in the deals Arafat and Abbas rejected. A ten mile x ten mile chunk (admittedly spread over 3-4 separate places). There is a ranch in Texas 10x bigger. It's not about the land.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)6chars
(3,967 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)6chars
(3,967 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)It belongs to the Palestinians.
6chars
(3,967 posts)UN is always full of shit - Jew hating shit - when it comes to Israel and has no moral credibility whatsoever. As to legal, as opposed to moral, power of an advisory opinion - nil.
If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions, and there would be an advisory opinion that Israel that Israel owes the world a new planet.
More specifically, it does not legally belong to the Palestinians, period.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)ICJ is not the the UN, btw. 15 world jurists, not shabby. The US Justice was a Holocaust survivor.
You're poorly informed.
6chars
(3,967 posts)The justice who was a Holocaust survivor disagreed with the anti-Israel opinion. The opinion doesn't say what you said it does anyway. Sorry to be the better informed one.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)You're doing a terrible disservice to the entire legal process but at least
you have defined yourself as respectful of the law as Israel.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)You can't be serious, can you?
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)You mean the nonbinding advisory ruling? The one that never actually said anywhere that the WB or EJ belongs to Palestine? That's how you know the WB and EJ is legally Palestinian land, huh?
Regardless of whether the ICJ chooses to classify those areas as occupied territory, in no way does it follow that they legally belong to Palestine. The ICJ doesn't have the jurisdiction to give it to Palestine either. Or to invalidate the terms of the agreement between Israel and the PA stating that borders will be determined by negotiation.
This is all, of course, besides the point. Because the ruling you're referencing was just an advisory opinion. And never even said what you're saying it did.
But even if it did, it's nonbinding.
But it didn't anyway.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)with the Israeli government. You're deeply confused with the politics of this conflict
vs the law.
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)They haven't yet so far. But as of yet none of the land legally belongs to them... Except for gaza.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)6chars
(3,967 posts)azurnoir
(45,850 posts)British Empire promised it to first in 1915
King_David
(14,851 posts)It's not fact at all .. Absolutely everything is up for negotiations- land peace security.
There will be nothing without all 3 and I think they should throw in lgbt right to life into that too.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)helps to understand
King_David
(14,851 posts)Everything is up for negotiations, land , peace and security .
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)King_David
(14,851 posts)Even if you repeat it 25 times.
All is up for negotiations.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)King_David
(14,851 posts)Since Palestine never existed as a country before everything's going to be new acquisitions, negotiations... With peace and security and hopefully after a hefty dose of pink washing with a bit of luck secure LGBT rights too.
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)But meaningless. It doesn't belong to anybody at the moment.
Israeli
(4,151 posts)Try here Jefferson23 ......
The Price of Settlements
August 2013
Peace Now presents a thorough report analyizing the Israeli Government's extra funds to the Settlements.
Download the full report @
http://peacenow.org.il/eng/PriceOfSettlements
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)roughly what percentage of Israeli's know about those figures?
Israeli
(4,151 posts)Everyone knows about Peace Now and their 'Settlement Watch' team how many actually bother to read their reports ?.......who knows .
But its the best place for anyone interested on anything to do with the settlements .
See here : http://peacenow.org.il/eng/content/reports
They even have an Americans for Peace Now : http://peacenow.org/