Settlements 'violate Israeli law'
More than a third of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank are
built on privately owned Palestinian land, an Israeli campaign group has
reported.
Peace Now says nearly 40% of the land the settlements sit on is,
according to official data, "effectively stolen" from Palestinian
landowners. This, the group says, is a violation of Israel's own laws.
Settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international
law, although Israel rejects this. About 430,000 Jews live in these
residential areas in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Peace Now called
on the Israeli government to return the private land to its Palestinian
owners. In recent years the Israeli government has said repeatedly that
it respects Palestinian property rights in the West Bank.
An Israeli official has said the government is reviewing the report.
The data on which the findings are based comes from a 2004 survey by the
Civil Administration, which manages the civilian aspects of Israel's
occupation of the West Bank.
The data was leaked to Peace Now via an official in the Civil
Administration. The group says the government had refused to give this
information to it.
The group says that the data it has received has been "hidden by the
State for many years, for fear that the revelation of these facts could
damage its international relations".
Jewish settlements
According to the report, 86.4% of the Maale Adumim settlement block,
the largest in the West Bank, is built on private Palestinian land, and
not on what the Israeli government refers to as "state land". The
settlement is home to 32,372 people and lies due east of Jerusalem. "The
claim by the State and settlers that the settlements have been
constructed on state land is misleading and false," Peace Now says.
Illegal under international law according to Fourth Geneva Convention
(article 49), which prohibits an occupying power transferring citizens
from its own territory to occupied territory Israel argues international
conventions relating to occupied land do not apply to West Bank because
it was not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state before 1967.
"The vast majority of settlement construction was done against the
law of the land and the Supreme Court ruling and therefore unauthorised.
"The data indicates the direct violation of Israeli law carried out by
the State itself, driven by the architects and leaders of the settlement
movement."
In 1979 the Israeli High Court forbade the establishment of
settlements on privately-owned Palestinian that has been seized by
Israel for military purposes.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at its core a conflict over land
and in the West Bank property rights, BBC Jerusalem correspondent
Crispin Thorold says.
This is the area which Palestinians want to be the basis of a future
independent state. If confirmed the findings could have major
implications for any future peace deal.
Some of the settlements that the Israeli government wants to be
included within its final borders are built on land overwhelmingly owned
by Palestinian individuals. Peace Now is an Israeli group that monitors
Israel settlements in the West Bank.
The oldest peace movement in Israel, it advocates the setting up of a
Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel in 1967.
BBC
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