المكتب الوطني للدفاع عن الارض ومقاومة الاستيطان منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية
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By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
The National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements stated in its latest weekly report that , at a time when all the Israeli Zionist parties and people are busy with the judicial amendments in the current ruling system, Minister of Settlement at the Ministry of Army, Smotrich colludes with PM Netanyahu to form a plan that allows their State to destroy the Palestinian construction in areas A and B of the West Bank under the pretext that these buildings contradicts the ‘Israeli National Security.’ Smotrich’s new plan is a turning point in the Israeli policy regarding construction in the West Bank. In a session held by the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee at the Knesset last week, Smotrichs confirmed that Netanyahu is involved in this issue, and that he will work to form a committee of director generals to begin implementing the plan, hoping that the committee will finish this work within a month then to be submited to the Cabinet.
It is well known that the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee at the Knesset is a permanent committee that supervises major foreign and military security issues, including the drafting of legislation, supervise the relevant government ministries, and approve their budgets. Along with the Finance Committee, the committee is considered the most important at the Knesset. When this committee allocates a special session to discuss this matter and puts on its agenda the Palestinian side’s control over the open areas in Areas A and B and the Israeli response to that, a large part of the discussion centers on Palestinian construction in these 2 areas, which Israel doesn’t have control over them according to the signed agreements, which means a very dangerous shift in the occupation policy.
Smotrich didn’t stop at that special session of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee in the Knesset presenting what he has in store for Palestinian construction in what he called the open areas, but went on to discuss implementation mechanisms that he considered as the basic value that should guide the occupation policy. For Palestinian construction in these areas in the West Bank, it is not the rule of law, but rather the preservation of Israel’s national, political and security interests in the region, and accordingly he plans to establish a unit of border guards to enforce building laws in the West Bank after defining activities of the Palestinian Authority as hostile with all its consequences. According to him, the work in this regard is taking place according to two joint plans of the Israel Land Fund and the Settlements Administration of the Ministry of the Army, to plant 10,000 dunams in the West Bank. It is expected that the Israel Land Fund and the Settlements Administration will approve the plans soon, where Smotrich claims that there is coordination on that with representatives of the ‘There is a Future Party’ led by Yair Lapid and the ‘State or National Camp’ headed by Benny Gantz in the Israel Land Fund and the Settlements Administration and work is under way. In addition they legalize 50 illegal outposts in parallel with the construction of roads, water and electricity infrastructure, and the establishment of more agricultural outposts.
His new position as Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of the Occupation Army, Smotrich and Netanyahu push to build thousands of settlement units, and plans to demolish Palestinian homes and facilities, not only in Area C of the West Bank, but also in open areas A and B, and they reduce the demolition notifications and the legal control over illegal construction in the settlements and outposts, in return for a significant increase in the demolitions and oversight of Palestinian construction. For this purpose, he uses what he called the Settlement Department headed by the terrorist Yehuda, who is waging an all-out war against Palestinian construction, begins with monitoring and documenting the so-called violations, and ends with demolishing them in cooperation with the occupation army.
Within this context, the Occupation Authorities classify the demolitions of Palestinian homes and facilities as follows: military demolitions, that is, the demolition of homes and facilities for military and security considerations, such as the protection of soldiers and settlers, and punitive demolitions under the pretext of responding to operations carried out by Palestinians against the army or settlers, although the Fourth Geneva Convention does not permit Punishing a protected person for an act that he did not personally commit, and administrative demolitions under the pretext of building without a permit, in addition to judicial demolitions that are issued by Israeli courts, such as the Local Affairs Court, the Central Court, and the Israeli Supreme Court, all of which act as tools in the service of the occupation.
The Zionist opposition parties keep mum on the Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of Army, Smotrits that matched by the generals’ reservations about this policy. Three prominent generals in the reserves announced that Smotrich, who also imposed himself as Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of the Army, is seeking to advance his political project called the ‘Decision Plan’ by erasing the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank, with the imaginary motive of the possibility of liquidating the Palestinian cause, but it will eventually liquidate the Zionist dream.
Those generals are the former Chief of Staff of the Army, Gadi Eisenkot, the former head of the General Intelligence Service ‘Shin Bet’, Yoram Cohen, and the former head of the security-political department in the Ministry of the Army, Amos Gilad, as they confirmed that the Smotrich plan that he put in place Sept. 2017, when he was a member of Knesset, and it seemed fake and a form of obsession and imagination, has now turned into a program of action that he oversees its implementation through his high position in the government and that Smotrich has moved from a marginal member of Knesset to an important party leader and minister, he is in charge today, and he appointed Yehuda Eliyahu, the former director-general of the settlement bloc, “Settlement Directorate,” in the Ministry of Army for the “Settlement Directorate,” as head of this department, which allows him to effectively control the two units of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the West Bank and the Civil Administration. Planning and Construction .
Smotrich, Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of Arrmy on one hand, and Itamar Ben Gvir in the Ministry of National Security on the other, do not waste time in implementing what was agreed upon with the Likud in the agreements to form the government. Ben Gvir is also pressing to expand the settlement activities in Jerusalem, which is under massive settlement attack with the aim of changing its identity. It is expected that the District Planning Committee in the Israeli Ministry of Interior will soon discuss under Ben Gvir’s pressure, the so-called ‘New Talpiot’ plan, in parallel with the approval of the Moshe Yeion’s Municipality on many building permits in the ‘Givat Hamatos’ settlement, including the construction of 3,500 settlement units and 1,300 hotel rooms on the eastern slopes of that settlement to the south of the city of East Jerusalem.
This comes in conjunction with the progress in discussing a number of other settlement plans to establish new settlements or expand existing settlements within and around East Jerusalem, such as, Kidmat Zion, Nof Zahav, Pisgat Ze’ev and Ramot Alon and most recently, Umm Leeson. Discussions about the plan were scheduled in the ‘Local Planning Committee’ and were postponed several times due to the wide international opposition, but it is scheduled to be discussed on August 24. The “New Talpiot” plan comes within the five-year plan approved by the occupation government to strengthen settlements in East Jerusalem, and to change its demographic composition in favor of the settlers.
The plan extends over more than 140 dunums in the southern region of Jerusalem to the southeast near the Beit Safafa, Um Tuba and Sur Baher towns, that is, in the area separating Jerusalem from Bethlehem along the Hebron road. The plan was presented by an Israeli company known as the “New Talpiot Company” with a foreign corporation called “Diani Holding”. The plan would cut off all geographical contiguity between the city of East Jerusalem and the city of Bethlehem, and accordingly it became clear that the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government had set on its agenda the launch of a high wave of settlement construction in the vicinity of the city of Jerusalem, indifferent to the international opposition to its plans in East Jerusalem, including the opposition of the United States of America and the EU’s countries, which requires shedding light again on the dangers facing East Jerusalem through reports under preparation by the National Bureau.
On the other hand, the Israeli occupation government approved last week a deal between the ‘Likud Party’ led by Benjamin Netanyahu and the ‘Jewish Power Party’ led by Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir aimed at Judaizing archaeological sites in the occupied West Bank under the pretext of restoring and preserving them and preventing their looting and destruction with a budget of up to to NIS 150 million. This deal includes the establishment of 6 additional tourist settlements in the West Bank, where the Israeli government, in the first stage, will establish two tourist settlements deep in the West Bank, in Sebastia to the north of the city of Nablus, and another near the city of Jericho. It also decided that a steering committee would examine the establishment of 4 – 7 additional tourist settlement sites, which means the establishment of 6 to 9 new tourist settlements, where an amount of NIS 45 million will be allocated from the aforementioned budget for the benefit of inaugurating infrastructure in many archaeological sites in an effort to encourage settlers to visit them.
According to Israeli official authorities’ statistics, a record number of 4.3 million tourists visited Israel in 2020, adding $5.8 billion to the Israeli public treasury, and that 45% of them visited the occupied West Bank and tourist facilities in the settlements that are run by settlement associations supported by the Israeli government, which provides facilities and exemptions to international tourism companies that encourage tourism in the settlements, knowing that most of the religious and historical archaeological sites, which represent the first tourist attraction, are concentrated in the West Bank.
This policy of Judaizing Palestinian antiquities is not new, because the vast majority of the archaeological areas that our country is famous for are under the control of the Occupation Authorities, which have granted themselves the right to change their features and names in line with their settlement and Judaization plans and projects, as is the case in Deir Abu Semaan, northwest of the Kafr-Dik town, near the settlement of ‘Ali Zahav’, where the occupation is conducting large-scale excavations there under the pretext of expanding the settlement, as the bulldozing operation prolonged the theft of most of the Roman Antiquities there.
Worth noting here that the Israeli Occupation Authorities introduced extensive amendments to the Jordanian Antiquities Law in 1986, pursuant to Military Orders n. 1166 and 1167. The amendments affected issues of licensing and trading in Palestinian antiquities. The Israeli military orders also gave the Israeli Antiquities officer almost absolute legal powers in the occupied Palestinian territories, and tightened its grip on Palestinian archaeological resources, controlling them and employing them within its settlement and Judaization project.
With regard to the daily violations of the settler gangs, which according to the data of the National Bureau expanded to include all parts of the West Bank, we in this report the highlight most prominent of them is for example bt not limited to ‘the phenomenon of organized assault by settlers and their terrorist organizations on villages and towns in the Palestinian countryside has increased, as was the case in Hawara, Turmusaya and Um Safa. Regardless of the number of participants in their terrorist attacks and practices, there is a clear position that unites them and confirms that they all work in an organized manner after these groups moved from working secretly to now working openly, and have their political references among members of the government and the Knesset and their spiritual references from priests and rabbis living in and outside the settlements.
Last week witnessed a wide orgy by groups of terrorist settlers in various governorates of the West Bank. In Jerusalem Governorate, settlers seized the house of the Sub Laban’s family in the Old City, emptied the furniture and contents of the house and threw them in the street, while the alleged ‘Temple Organizations’ held a conference in the central ‘Neria synagogue’ in the ‘Talmon settlement’ located between the Al-Mazra’a Al-Qibliyya and Deir Ammar, towns of west of Ramallah, to muster the largest number of settlers in the central West Bank as they reside in a geographical area close to the occupied city of Jerusalem, and to organize a night flags march under the title ‘around the walls of our eternal and unified sovereign capital’. About1,800 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque last Thursday, led by the extremist Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, with heavy security from the occupation police, and performed racist Talmudic rituals in its courtyards, in memory of what they call the ‘destruction of the Temple’, ignoring international, Arab and Palestinian condemnation.
In Hebron Governorate, ‘Tina’ settlers that were forcibly established on the lands of the town of Al-Dhahiriya uprooted 150 olive and fruitful trees in the Khallet Al-Jarba area, and others from ‘Nagahot’ settlement bulldozed more than 15 dunums of Khalet Taha and erected tentss there protected by Israeli army. Moreover, a group of settlers uprooted residential tents and other sheep pens between the villages of Deir Samet and Beit Awa, while a Israeli soldiers stormed the ‘Fateh Sadra’” area, east of Yatta. With summer crops, its area reaches 5 dunums, and several springs and private water springs for the Dudin family were filled with concrete. A group of settlers, under the protection of the occupation forces, stormed the citizens’ caves and homes in Khirbet Um Tuba, Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.
Bethlehem Governorate also witnessed acts of orgy and vandalism carried out by settlers of’ Efrat settlement’, built on the citizens’ lands by force, they uprooted 50 olive trees in the ‘Batin Al-Maasi’ area, at a time when the occupation forces destroyed a ‘caravan’ in the ‘Al-Khamar’ area in the Batteir town, and closed all agricultural and mountainous areas adjacent to the ‘Beitar Illit settlement’, which is built on the lands of the citizens in the Wadi Fukin village.
In the Ramallah Governorate, settlers torched a vehicle, damaged the tires of 8 other vehicles, and wrote racist slogans calling for the killing of Arabs after they infiltrated the Mughayyir town, northeast of Ramallah, where many martyrs have bveen killed by settlers. The case was the same in the Mazra’a Al-Gharbiya village, where a group of settlers attacked a house in the Harasheh area in the village.
Nablus Governorate also witnessed several attacks by settlers against Palestinian citizens and their property, as settlers from the ‘Yitzhar’ settlement attacked the Orif village school and a number of neighboring houses with stones and burned dozens of olive trees in the neighboring town of Burin and Einabus. Others started settlement bulldozing lands of the citizens located between the towns of Aqraba and Majdal Bani Fadel to the southeast of the city of Nablus, while another group attacked the northern area of the town of Salem and wreaked havoc in the town protected by the occupying forces. They also set up a tent in a land located between the villages of Qaryiot and Talfeit to the south of the city of Nablus, where a number of citizens were injured in an attack by settlers on the village of Asira-Qibliya, south of Nablus, including 16 citizens suffocated, while a young man suffered a fracture in his hand .
In the Salfeet Governorate, settlers set up tents on the lands of the Haris town in the ‘Khilat Abu Dabous’ area, and others stole 17 sheep from belonging to a citizen from the Sarata town.
