Exposed: The Truth About Israel’s Land Grab In The West Bank

“Jewish settlers, who claim a divine right to the whole of Israel” … like Hitler’s ‘divine right’ to claim land for his supreme Aryan race.

Israel calls this self-defense:

(Click on image to enlarge.)

israel_stealing_palestine
I guess Hitler would have called this self-defense too!

See also:

Now truth is bad for you: ‘Obama warns Erdogan international Gaza flotilla probe bad for Turkey’


Report reveals more than 42 percent of territory is controlled by settlers

exposed-the-truth-about-israels-land-grab-in-the-west-bank
A Jewish settler hangs the Israeli flag over a vacated building in the West Bank town of Beit Sahur (AFP)

Jewish settlers, who claim a divine right to the whole of Israel, now control more than 42 per cent of the occupied West Bank, representing a powerful obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state, a new report has revealed.

The jurisdiction of some 200 settlements, illegal under international law, cover much more of the occupied Palestinian territory than previously thought. And a large section of the land has been seized from private Palestinian landowners in defiance even of an Israeli supreme court ruling, the report said, a finding which sits uncomfortably with Israeli claims that it builds only on state land.

Drawing on official Israeli military maps and population statistics, the leading Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, compiled the new findings, which were released just as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, arrived in Washington to try to heal a gaping rift with US President Barack Obama over the issue of settlements.

“The settlement enterprise has been characterised, since its inception, by an instrumental, cynical, and even criminal approach to international law, local legislation, Israeli military orders, and Israeli law, which has enabled the continuous pilfering of land from Palestinians in the West Bank,” the report concluded.

Mr Obama’s demand for a freeze on illegal building has caused months of friction between his administration and the Israeli government. But the US president, facing mid-term elections in November, appeared eager to end the dispute with Israel yesterday.

He said the country was making “real progress” on improving conditions in the Gaza Strip and was serious about achieving peace.

The two men made a joint public appearance, carefully choreographed to convey mutual ease and friendship.

When Mr Netanyahu last visited the White House, in March, US anger at his refusal to end construction meant the Israeli premier was denied a joint appearance with Mr Obama before the cameras. This time the photo-op was granted and the two men afterwards shared a meal – although not a state dinner but a working lunch.

“Reports about the demise of the special US-Israel relationship aren’t premature, there are just flat wrong,” Mr Netanyahu said, in response to a reporter’s question about the perceived tensions. Playing to the same script, Mr Obama said that the “bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable”.

But the revelations in the B’Tselem report suggest that despite Mr Netanyahu’s stated desire for peace, his policy on settlements remains a dangerous obstacle to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and therefore to a durable peace.

They cast an uncompromising spotlight on Israeli practices in the Palestinian territories that have long drawn international criticism for establishing “facts on the ground” hampering the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

While most of the Jewish settlement activity is concentrated in 1 per cent of the West Bank, settler councils have in fact fenced off or earmarked massive tracts of land, comprising some 42 per cent of the West Bank, B’Tselem said.

And despite the outlawing by Israel of settlement expansion on private Palestinian land, settlers have seized 21 per cent of land that Israel recognises is privately-owned.

B’Tselem alleged that Israel had devised an extensive system of loopholes to requisition Palestinian land.

At the same time, Israel has built bypass roads, erected new checkpoints, and taken control of scarce water resources to the benefit of the settlers. The measures have effectively created Palestinian enclaves within the West Bank, the report said.

Under international law, any Jewish settlements built on occupied territory are illegal. These include all the settlements in the West Bank, and thousands of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, the Arab-dominated sector of the city annexed by Israel after the 1967 Six Day War. The international community still regards East Jerusalem as occupied territory. Despite firm commitments from successive Israeli governments to dismantle illegal outposts built after 2001 and to cease expansion of the settlements, Israel has provided millions of dollars worth of incentives to encourage poorer families to move into the West Bank. Some 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank.

Settlers immediately attacked the report, claiming it was timed as a spoiler to the Washington meeting.

In Washington, no concrete breakthroughs were announced but Mr Obama said that he believed the Israeli leader was ready to move towards direct talks with the Palestinians. Indirect talks began earlier this year, mediated by special US envoy George Mitchell.

Mr Netanyahu showed signs of responding to the pressure. “Peace is the best option for all of us and I think we have a unique opportunity to do it,” he said. “If we work together with [Palestinian] President [Mahmoud] Abbas then we can bring a great message of hope to our peoples, to the region and to the world.”

The Palestinians continue to refuse direct talks with Israel while new settlement construction is allowed. Settlement activity continues in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians aim to include in a new state.

With US-Israel ties already frayed, Mr Netanyahu postponed a visit to the White House last month in the aftermath of Israel’s deadly raid on a Turkish-led flotilla trying to deliver humanitarian goods to Gaza.

For Mr Obama, the danger is clear that any long-lasting record of animosity towards Israel could translate into lost votes at the mid-term elections.

By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem and David Usborne
Wednesday, 7 July 2010

Source: The Independent

More:

Israel rejects international probe, says it would be biased against the Jewish state; Egypt calls Gaza blockade a failure, border stays open (AP)

Iran Offers Military Protection To Gaza Aid Ships (RT)

Former US Marine Disarms Israeli Commandos, Describes Mass Murder By Israeli Soldiers (YouTube)

Autopsy Results Reveal That Gaza Flotilla Activists Were Shot In Head At Close Range (Guardian)

Robert Fisk: The Truth Behind The Israeli Propaganda (Independent)

Gilad Atzmon on Israeli collective madness: ‘The world sees now what Israel is all about’

American teenager among those killed in Israeli raid of aid flotilla; Israeli soldiers accused of refusing to treat the injured, letting them die (Washington Post/Al Jazeera)

President Abdullah Gul: Turkey will ‘never forgive’ Israel (Al Jazeera)

Ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky: Gaza flotilla raid ’so stupid it’s stupefying’ (The Raw Story)

Israeli soldiers murder at least 10 civilians on boat carrying aid to Gaza (Los Angeles Times)

Israel stations nuclear missile submarines off Iran (Times)

Gaza Aid Flotilla Delayed After Mystery Faults Hit Two Boats (Independent)

Israeli Commandos Ordered To Stop Gaza Aid Ships (Times)

Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons (Guardian)

Report: Israel threatens to ‘return Syria back to the Stone Age’ (Ynet)

Discharged IDF Soldiers Sue For Millions Over Anthrax Vaccine Experiment (YNet News)

The US Military now KNOWS Mossad carried out 9/11 Attacks:

Dr. Alan Sabrosky, former director of studies at the US Army War College says that the military brass now know that Israel “and those traitors within our nation” committed the 911 attack.

……”I have had long conversations over the last two weeks with contacts at the Army War College and the headquarters, Marine Corps and I’ve made it absolutely clear in both cases that it is 100% certain that 9/11 was a Mossad operation.” Period.

New FBI Files Alleging AIPAC Theft of Government Property and Israeli Espionage Released (PRNewswire)

Israel Threatening To Use Nuclear Weapons On Iran! (FOX NEWS)

Ex-Mossad Agent Ostrovsky: The ‘Anti-Semite’ Label

Former Israeli Minister: ‘It’s a Trick, We Always Use It.’ (calling people ‘anti-Semitic’)

UK Jewish MP: Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza

Palestinian children are stoned while walking to school (Christian Peacemaker Teams)

Israel admits organ harvesting from Palestinians, and others, without consent (Guardian)

UN assembly votes for probes of Gaza war crimes charges (Reuters)

U.N. rights envoy: Israeli war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law in Gaza (Reuters)

U.S. shipped 989 munitions containers to Israel week before Gaza invasion (Australien Herald)

Paul Craig Roberts: Israel and the Goldstone Report – War Criminals Are Becoming Arbiters of the Law (CounterPunch)

Israel’s war crimes in Gaza (Independent)

Amnesty International: Gaza white phosphorus shells were US made (Times)

Did Israeli soldiers kill unarmed civilians? (Toronto Star):
‘The most moral army in the world’ killed civilians without cause

Israeli soldiers report abuses in Gaza (Los Angeles Times)

Tony Benn to BBC: If you won’t broadcast the Gaza appeal then I will myself (BBC)

Israel admits troops may have used phosphorus shells in Gaza (Guardian)

Outcry over Israel’s reported use of phosphorus in Gaza (IHT)

Israel accused of executing parents in front of children in Gaza (Telegraph)

Gaza: ‘I watched an Israeli soldier shoot dead my two little girls’ (Independent)

Israel ‘admits’ using white phosphorus munitions (Times)

Gaza building apparently hit by phosphorus: UN (Vancouver Sun)

Israeli use of white phosphorus ‘undeniable’: Amnesty International (The Age)

Israel used phosphorus in heavily populated areas, doctors charge (Kansas City Star)

Israeli army investigates use of white phosphorous in Gaza (Guardian)

Israel shelled UK war graves in Gaza (Telegraph)

Israel ‘will resume bombing’ of Gaza if Hamas reopens tunnels (Telegraph)

Gideon Levy / Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel (Ha’aretz)

False Flag: The Attack on the USS Liberty

Dead In The Water – The Sinking of the USS Liberty (BBC)

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