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Jews and Palestinians Together

THE

INCREDIBLE

STORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

EDITORS NOTE:  In 1948 East Jerusalem and the West Bank became part of Jordan.  After the 1967 war Jordan left and both were occupied by Israel.  
The Arabs  living there decided they required a new nationality
and called themselves  Palestinians.

 In 1994 a Peace Treaty was signed by Israel and Jordan.  
No demand was made by Jordan for the return of the territories.     
(See  Palestine: A Country and a People’s Name) )

Since then they have refused to negotiate with Israel about this territory
(see The Growth of Israeli Settlements, Explained in 5 charts below)

Arriving at where borders are located can be subject to frequent change.  As an example think of Sykes Picot, Syria or a European country and how their borders were created, how often they changed and why they changed.  

ARAFAT DIDN'T NEGOTIATE - HE JUST KEPT SAYING NO
The Guardian, 23 May 2002
ARAB REFUSAL FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF A DEMILITARISED PALESTINIAN STATE
ON SOME 92% OF THE WEST BANK AND 100% OF THE GAZA STRIP

Clinton was speaking of the two-week-long Camp David conference in July 2000 which he had organised and mediated and its failure, and the eruption at the end of September of the Palestinian intifada which has continued since. Halfway through the conference, apparently on July 18, Clinton had "slowly" - to avoid misunderstanding - read out to Arafat a document, endorsed in advance by Barak, outlining the main points of a future settlement. The proposals included the establishment of a demilitarised Palestinian state on some 92% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip, with some territorial compensation for the Palestinians from pre-1967 Israeli territory; the dismantling of most of the settlements and the concentration of the bulk of the settlers inside the 8% of the West Bank to be annexed by Israel; the establishment of the Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, in which some Arab neighborhoods would become sovereign Palestinian territory and others would enjoy "functional autonomy"; Palestinian sovereignty over half the Old City of Jerusalem (the Muslim and Christian quarters) and "custodianship," though not sovereignty, over the Temple Mount; a return of refugees to the prospective Palestinian state though with no "right of return" to Israel proper; and the organisation by the international community of a massive aid programme
to facilitate the refugees' rehabilitation.

Arafat said no. Enraged, Clinton banged on the table and said: "You are leading your people and the region to a catastrophe." A formal Palestinian rejection of the proposals reached the Americans the next day. The summit sputtered on for a few days more
but to all intents and purposes it was over.

West Bank Jewish Population Stats, updated to January 1 2020
Ketzaleh Report

MEET THE SETTLERS
a Journey Through the West Bank
The Telegraph, Jake Wallis Simons

AT THE U.N., ONLY ISRAEL IS AN ‘OCCUPYING POWER’
What about Russia in Crimea, Armenia in parts of Azerbaijan, or what Vietnam did in Cambodia?
KPF 19 September 2016, Prof Eugene Kontorovich
(This article was also published by the ‘Wall Street Journal’)

The United Nations began its annual session this week, and Israel will be prominent on the agenda. Many fear the Security Council may consider a resolution setting definite territorial parameters, and a deadline, for the creation of a Palestinian state.

President Obama has hinted that in the final months of his term, he may reverse the traditional U.S. policy of vetoing such resolutions. The General Assembly, meanwhile, is likely to act as the chorus in this drama, reciting its yearly litany of resolutions criticizing Israel.

If Mr. Obama is seeking to leave his mark on the Israeli-Arab conflict—and outside the negotiated peace process that began in Oslo—there is no worse place to do it than the U.N. New research we have conducted shows that the U.N.’s focus on Israel not only undermines the organization’s legitimacy regarding the Jewish state. It also has apparently made the U.N. blind to the world’s many situations of occupation and settlements.

Our research shows that the U.N. uses an entirely different rhetoric and set of legal concepts when dealing with Israel compared with situations of occupation or settlements world-wide. For example, Israel is referred to as the “Occupying Power” 530 times in General Assembly resolutions. Yet in seven major instances of past or present prolonged military occupation—Indonesia in East Timor, Turkey in northern Cyprus, Russia in areas of Georgia, Morocco in Western Sahara, Vietnam in Cambodia, Armenia in areas of Azerbaijan, and Russia in Ukraine’s Crimea—the number is zero. The U.N. has not called any of these countries an “Occupying Power.” Not even once.

It gets worse. Since 1967, General Assembly resolutions have referred to Israeli-held territories as “occupied” 2,342 times, while the territories mentioned above are referred to as “occupied” a mere 16 times combined. The term appears in 90% of resolutions dealing with Israel, and only in 14% of the much smaller number of resolutions dealing with the all the other situations, a difference that vastly surpasses the threshold of statistical significance. Similarly, Security Council resolutions refer to the disputed territories in the Israeli-Arab conflict as “occupied” 31 times, but only a total of five times in reference to all seven other conflicts combined.

General Assembly resolutions employ the term “grave” to describe Israel’s actions 513 times, as opposed to 14 total for all the other conflicts, which involve the full gamut of human-rights abuses, including allegations of ethnic cleansing and torture. Verbs such as “condemn” and “deplore” are sprinkled into Israel-related resolutions tens more times than they are in resolutions about other conflicts, setting a unique tone of disdain.

Israel has been reminded by resolutions against it of the country’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions about 500 times since 1967—as opposed to two times for the other situations.

In particular, the resolutions refer to Article 49(6), which states that the “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” This is the provision that the entire legal case against Israel settlements is based upon. Yet no U.N. body has ever invoked Article 49(6) in relation to any of the occupations mentioned above.

This even though, as Mr. Kontorovich shows in a new research article, “Unsettled: A Global Study of Settlements in Occupied Territories,” all these situations have seen settlement activity, typically on a scale that eclipses Israel’s. However, the U.N. has only used the legally loaded word “settlements” to describe Israeli civilian communities (256 times by the GA and 17 by the Security Council). Neither body has ever used that word in relation to any other country with settlers in occupied territory.

Our findings don’t merely quantify the U.N.’s double standard. The evidence shows that the organization’s claim to represent the interest of international justice is hollow, because the U.N. has no interest in battling injustice unless Israel is the country accused.

At a time of serious global crises—from a disintegrating Middle East to a land war and belligerent occupation in Europe—the leaders of the free world cannot afford to tempt the U.N. into indulging its obsessions. Especially when the apparent consequence of such scapegoating is that the organization ignores other situations and people in desperate need of attention.

_________________________________________________

POPULATION STATISTICS FOR ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS IN THE WEST BANK
Wikipedia
(Go to site to see population by settlement)

The population statistics for Israeli settlements in the West Bank are collected by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. As such, the data contains only population of settlements recognized by the Israeli authorities. Israeli outposts are not tracked, and their population is hard to establish. In addition to these, Nahal settlements are formally considered military outposts, and their population is counted, but not reported. Once a Nahal settlement becomes a civilian locality, it starts to be reported.

While all settlements in the West Bank were advised by the International Court of Justice to be unlawful in 2004, the construction of the West Bank Barrier keeps a significant number of settlements behind it. The largest settlements left beyond the barrier includes Kiryat Arba (population 7,593 in 2012), Kokhav Ya'akov (6,476), Beit El (5,897), Geva Binyamin (4,674), Eli, Mateh Binyamin (3,521), Ofra (3,489), Talmon (3,202), Shilo, Mateh Binyamin (2,706), Tekoa, Gush Etzion (2,518), and Mitzpe Yeriho (2,115). The total number of settlers east of the barrier lines in 2012 was at least 67,702, plus 11,528 in the Jordan Valley. By comparison, the number of Gaza Strip settlers in 2005 who refused to move voluntarily and be compensated, and that were forcibly evicted during the Israeli disengagement from Gaza was around 9,000. The total population of all settlements in the West Bank was nearly 400,000 in 2014, excluding East Jerusalem. As of December 2015, altogether over 800,000 Israeli Jews resided over the 1949 Armistice Lines (including east-Jerusalem neighborhoods), constituting approximately 13% of Israel's Jewish population.

THE GROWTH OF ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS, EXPLAINED IN 5 CHARTS
(the charts are shown on the Vox site)
Vox, Jennifer Williams and Javier Zarracina  Dec 30, 2016

It’s important to stress here that Israeli settlements are far from the only impediment to peace. As Kerry himself noted in his speech, even if all the settlements were removed, a number of equally thorny issues would still need to be worked out before any peace agreement could be reached.

These include determining the final status of Jerusalem and access to its holy sites, getting the Palestinians to formally recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” deciding whether Palestinian refugees (and their descendants) who were displaced when Israel was created will be compensated and/or allowed to return to Israel, and ensuring that Israel is able to defend its people and its borders, especially from terrorism and rocket fire emanating from Palestinian territory.

There’s reason to be pessimistic about whether Palestinian leaders want to, or would agree to, those terms. They have refused to sit down and negotiate with the Israelis even when settlement construction was halted, as it was for 10 months in 2009-10.

They rejected a formal Israeli peace proposal in 2008 in which Israel offered to withdraw from 93 percent of the West Bank plus all of the Gaza Strip and to compensate Palestinians with land in the Negev, adjacent to the Gaza Strip, in return for the remaining 7 percent of territory in the West Bank Israel would retain.

They’ve glorified violence and terrorism against innocent Israelis, including providing financial assistance to the families of Palestinians who died carrying out such attacks.

And the Palestinian leadership itself is horribly divided and completely ineffectual, with the militant Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas ruling with an iron fist in Gaza and the corrupt and dysfunctional Palestinian Authority in charge of the West Bank.

It’s Israel, though, that is a sovereign state the US supports with enormous amounts of money, military aid, and political backing. That means Washington, rightly or wrongly, feels entitled to pressure Israel in a way that it wouldn’t pressure the divided Palestinian leadership.

The settlements continue to grow. The controversy over their future will continue to grow as well.

QUICKTAKE ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
Bloomberg, Jonathan Ferziger 22 March 2018

Almost a tenth of Israel’s Jews live in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, outside their country’s recognized borders. The population of Jewish settlers in the West Bank has grown four times faster than Israel’s itself since 1995. Settlers regard themselves as inhabiting land that is rightfully theirs. A different view is held by the International Court of Justice, a branch of the United Nations, which Israel regards as biased against it. The court has ruled that Jewish settlements in what it calls occupied Palestinian territory are illegal. The Arab world considers them occupation of land that belongs in an independent Palestinian state. Israel’s government keeps expanding them.

THE SITUATION

As the U.S., its most important ally, has softened its policy toward settlements under President Donald Trump, Israel has taken bold steps to strengthen its claims to the West Bank. When Israel announced plans early this year to erect the first new settlement in a quarter-century, the Trump administration affirmed that it does not view existing settlements as an obstacle to peace, a reversal of decades-old U.S. policy. It added that fresh construction “may not be helpful,” but that was a mild rebuke compared with those of previous administrations. Israel’s parliament subsequently approved a law that would extend government authorization to unofficial settlements built on land privately owned by Palestinians. Israel’s Supreme Court forbid such expropriations in 1979. About 130 government-approved settlements and 100 unofficial ones are home to 386,000 Israelis in the West Bank, where 2.4 million Palestinians live. An additional 200,000 Israelis reside in 12 neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital. Israel annexed east Jerusalem decades ago, in a move no other nation recognizes. About 20,000 settlers live on the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israel continues to face censure for its settlements from the European Union, its biggest trading partner. The EU in 2015 instructed members to ensure imports produced in settlements are labeled as such, giving a boost to advocates of a boycott.

THE PROBLEM WITH ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS

The Background

Israeli civilians first moved into the West Bank after Israel took control of it in the 1967 war. Every Israeli government since then, whether hawkish, dovish or mixed, has supported Jewish settlements there. The reasons lie in history, politics and security concerns. Some Israelis consider settlements bulwarks against potential attacks of the kind that occurred in 1948, when Arab countries assaulted Israel after rejecting a UN plan partitioning the British-ruled Holy Land. That plan would have made the West Bank part of a new Arab state, alongside a Jewish one. Some settlers think modern-day Jews have a right to the West Bank because it was the heart of biblical Israel. Others simply like the relatively inexpensive housing. Government subsidies, including favorable mortgages and discounts on purchases of property declared state land, amount to about $700 per settler per year. The presence of settlements makes everyday life difficult for Palestinians. Barriers, fences and buffer zones meant to secure settlers restrict the freedom, movement and commerce of Palestinians. Both populations are frequently attacked by militants from the other side. When Palestinians are accused, 95 percent of cases are prosecuted and Israeli military law applies. When Israelis are suspected, that figure drops to 8.5 percent, and Israeli civil law applies.

The Argument

Palestinians and some Israelis argue that settlement expansion will prevent peace by blocking the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Israeli construction in and around east Jerusalem threatens to impede Palestinians’ free access between the northern and southern parts of the West Bank. And any future peace agreement almost certainly would require Israel to take the painful step of removing tens of thousands of settlers. Other Israelis say the access issue can be solved with tunnels and bridges. They note that however loudly Palestinian officials denounce settlements, in peace talks their representatives have agreed that in a final deal the border would be redrawn so that Israel would keep many of them, in exchange for territory mainly in the Negev desert. Most new construction has been in these agreed-upon settlements. As for the others, when it has withdrawn from occupied territory in the past, Israel has proven willing and able to extract settlers: 4,300 from Sinai in 1982 and 8,500 from Gaza in 2005.

SOURCES: FOUNDATION FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE, ISRAEL CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

The Reference Shelf

A report by the UN’s Human Rights Council on the impact of settlements on Palestinians.

An article in Foreign Policy argues that settlements don’t obstruct creation of a Palestinian state.

Filmmaker Shimon Dotan’s documentary “The Settlers.”

Author Gershom Gorenberg’s book “The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977.”

Historian Rashid Khalidi’s book “Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness.”

LINKS

West Bank Jewish Population Stats 2020

SETTLEMENT
VIDEOS

ISRAEL - SETTLEMENTS

Go to
Trump’s
Peace Prroposal
2020
which has proposals for the division of the West Bank
between
the Settlements
and the Palestinians