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 Israeli Human Rights Organization ‘KeremNavot’recently published a report in which it again shed light on some American organizationsthat work under the name of ‘charity’ to provide financial support for activities of Jewish terrorist organizations that shelter in the outposts and the so-called pastoral farms protected by the occupation army. The ‘KeremNavot’ has accused the American evangelical organization ‘Hayovel – Jubilee’ of funding settlers to seize private Palestinian land in the ‘EshKodesh’ outpost in the plain of the village of Jalud, southeast of Nablus, bulldozing it, and stealing the soil for the benefit of the ‘Hill Youth’ settlers.
The ‘Hayovel Christian evangelical organization operating as a charitable organization in the USA has launched a campaign to raise funds to plant 3,000 trees until the end of 2022 on Palestinian lands confiscated by the occupation in the West Bank after it recruited thousands of volunteers in the last 15 years to plant trees. In the settlements, this American Christian evangelical organization is registered in the United States of America as a non-profit organization that provides, as it claims, ‘service and assistance to agricultural communities in Israel’, which means that all donations to this project are exempted from any tax obligations.
Scores of dunums south of the village are confiscated to establish a main headquarters there, which is in fact, as the villagers confirm a new settlement outpost. This Hayovel-Jubilee is a deceptionmaster, its logo‘six-pointed star’ mediates the flag of the occupying State surrounded its sides by various tools of work in agriculture.
Not onlythe organization is constantly working to recruit evangelical tourists, most of them from the United States of America, but also help the most terrorist settlers in the West Bank in seizing agricultural lands owned by the Palestinians on behalf of the settlers, as happened in the village of Burin in cooperation with the settlers from the “HarBracha” settlement, taking advantage of the extreme right-wing government in Israel to encroach on the lands of the Palestinians in Area C.
The role of this organization did not stop at carrying out attacks and seizing the lands of the Palestinians, as it works to implement tourism programs for American tourists, who in turn go to the settlement outposts and the so-called pastoral farms, which were established by settlers on the lands of Palestinian villages such as Jalud, Qasra, and Burin. They have settlement outposts, as is the case with the ‘EshKodesh’ settlement outpost, which provides a safe haven under the protection of the occupation forces for the ‘Hill Youth’ and ‘Pay the Price’ terrorists in clear and explicit violation of the law under the eyes of the ‘Civil Administration’ and the occupation army, which guards them while looting the property of Palestinians living about one kilometer from the place.
The ‘HayovelOrganization’ is not the only one that supports settlement and settlers. There are many American organization that support settlement by such means, as well as other Australian and European ones that have tax exemption on the basis that they are charitable organizations and send hundreds of millions of dollars continuously for various activities in the settlements, and part of their unds are used to seize the lands of Palestinian citizens. However, the donations provided by the organizations operating in the United States are not new. The Ha’aretz Newspaper published in Dec. 2015 that private American donors pumped more than $ 220 million into Jewish settlements in the West Bank in recent years through tax-exempt donations, in a way that actually supports a policy that American administrations claim to oppose for decades.
The report revealed that 50 American organizations made tax-exempt donations from individuals to the settlements. The money went to buy real estate and home amenities and to support the families of Jewish extremists convicted of crimes against Palestinians. Among the organizations is the ‘Central Fund for Israel’ which supports settlement institutions, ‘Honino’, which provides support to the families of Jewish extremists accused of serious violations against the lives and property of Palestinians, and the ‘Hebron Fund’, which finances settlement projects in Hebron.
Moreover, the ‘Honino’ organization claims to be a non-profit organization, bt it also provide legal advice to settlers and right-wing activists. It provided a grant to the family of Ami Popper, who killed 7 Palestinian workers in 1990. It also allocated money to members of the ‘Bat Ayin’ cell, which tried to blow up bomb in a girls’ school in East Jerusalem in 2002. It provides a regular stipend for terrorist MenachemLivni, who was imprisoned in connection with activities in a Jewish terror group that carried out attacks against Palestinians.
In addition to these organizations, there is an organization called ‘We are all prisoners of Zion’. It claims charitable activities, but in reality it is an extension of fascist leaders who currently occupy influential positions in the government of the occupying State. It was found that HanmaelDorfman, the lawyer and the right hand of the extremist Itamar Ben Gvir, is the one who registered this organization with the competent authorities to become legal.
Following up activities of this organization shows that a group of settlers in the West Bank are supervising its activities, and some of them have been investigated for committing attacks against Palestinians. It provides support for the killer of the child, Mohammad Abu Khdair, who was martyred on July 2, 2014, and for the killer of the Dawabsha family, whose house was burned by settlers on July 31, 2015.
The Palestinian citizen suffers from settlements and tries to dry up its resources through means of pressure on the funders from foreign organizations which operate in the United States, which claim to be charitable ones, while in reality they are primarily an extreme right-wing Zionist industry, but rather extends to include tourism companies that contribute through their illegal activities to encourage settlers and expand settlements, and to reap profits from actions that fall within the framework of war crimes.
For example, there are giant companies like Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, provide online accommodation and tour booking company fueling human rights abuses against Palestinians, by listing hundreds of rooms and activities within existing Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem. The Israeli government is using the settlements’ growing tourism sector as a way to legalize their presence and expansion, and online accommodation and tour booking companies keeping pace with this scheme. A report issued by Amnesty International on January 31, 2019 under the title “Destination: Occupation”, it stated that the “Airbnb” company based in the United States of America, has more than 300 places available for booking in settlements based on the ‘ccupiedPalestinian territories. A ‘Trip Advisor’ company also based in the United States of America has more than 70 different tourist attractions, tours, restaurants, cafes, hotels, and apartments for rent in existing settlements on the occupied Palestinian land.
‘Booking.com’ company has aHeadquart in the Netherlands, it lists 45 hotels and rental properties in settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Expedia, based in the USA, lists 9 accommodation providers, including 4 major hotels in settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory. These and other companies, which reap huge profits from encouraging tourism in Israel and its settlements in the West Bank, were blacklisted by the United Nations Human Rights Council at the end of last year. There are 112 companies, 94 of which are Israeli companies, while 18 other companies belong to foreign countries. Most of them work in the United States, and they circumvent boycott laws by claiming, for example, that they will provide the profits of their revenues from tourism in the settlements to charities, as does Airbnb, under pressure from the Zionist lobby to circumvent the blacklist.
On the other hand, and in the context of accelerating the Judaization process in the city of Jerusalem, the Minister of Economy and Industry, NirBarakat, announced the transfer of the ministry and all its branches to the city of Jerusalem, in implementation of the government’s decision to transfer all ministries to the occupied city of Jerusalem, as the occupation government is pushing for the transfer of 184 government offices to the city of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, which began to take on a graphic religious character, as the right-wing and extreme right-wing parties control the facilities of institutions and companies in the city. This comes in implementation of a previous government decision whose implementation is being accelerated under the right-wing, settler and fascist government. At the same time, the municipality of Moshe Lion in Jerusalem decided to publish a tender for the construction of a project for the halls of justice in the commercial area of the entrance to the city by the end of the year, and by the end of 2029 it is expected that all courts in Jerusalem will be operating except for the Supreme Court of the huge complex, which will cover an area of 45 thousand square meters.
The occupation municipality said that the city will witness a huge change in the coming years in a complex of courts of all levels, in the commercial district at the city’s eastern entrance. This huge project is being led by the Accountant General of the Ministry of Finance in consultation and planning with the racist Finance Minister,Smotrich. The Office of the Accountant General is currently finalizing the writing of the tender, which is expected to be published by the end of the year. The construction of this court complex is expected to take 5 years and to be completed according to the Ministry of Finance by the end of 2029.
The fascist and extremist right-wing government is also proceding with its settlement plans with great acceleration. The far-right Minister of Transportation, MiriRegev approved in coordination with the West Bank Settlements Council ‘Yesha’, a settlement plan based on the construction of a group of strategic settlement security streets that divide the northern West Bank into several sections at a cost of NIS 1 and a half billion the most important of which is St. 505 ‘crossing Samaria’ from Tel Aviv via KafrQasem to the Jordan Valley transversely, with the aim of facilitating the extreme right-wing government’s plan to increase the number of settlers and intensify and expand settlements, reaching one million settlers in the West Bank until the end of the year 2028, knowing that this road is the highway from KafrQasem to the Zaatara Junction.
It appears that Regev, in agreement with the settlers, is planning to complete the extension of this highway eastward from the Zaatara Junction in the direction of the Magdoloim settlement, passing through Ma’ale Ephraim, arriving at the Bezael‘Fasayel’ settlement and the Jordan Valley settlements. This settlement plan is reminiscent of the map of strategic interests, which was put on the agenda of the Israeli government at the end of the 1990s by the Minister of Infrastructure, Ariel Sharon, and Yitzhak Mordechai, the Minister of Arm in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, after the Hebron Agreement that was signed between the Palestinian and Israeli sides at the beginning of the year 1997. According to this map of interests, the West Bank is divided by longitudinal and transverse streets, enabling the occupying state to retain its control over about 63% of the area of Palestinian land in the West Bank.
Within the context of legalizing the outposts and turning them into settlements with all the ensuing obligations, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of Army, BezalelSmotrich, issued instructions to strengthensettlement activity in 3 settlements that were originally outposts that were recently legalized by decisions of the current government as the Commander of the Central District signed an order defining the scope of powers for the settlements of ‘Ashel’ south of Hebron, ‘Abigil’ in the Hebron Hills, and ‘BeitHogla’ in the Jordan Valley, which will enable them to be settled legally. The government headed by Netanyahu and Minister BezalelSmotrich agreed on the construction of the three settlements after signing the decree, Smotrich said, ‘Great things are happening in the settlements, and the government is working to promote a right-wing, Zionist, and nationalist policy that sees the development of settlements in the West Bank as a gain for the state.”
Moreover, the Civil Administration is pushing forward with 22 plans to establish solar energy production plants in Area C in the West Bank. It plans to build a facility to produce electricity using solar energy, the production capacity of which is the largest of all solar energy facilities in the occupying State. With the plans, the occupation authorities aspire to transform solar energy into an important economic branch in the settlements. The fruits of this step will be reaped by, among other parties, the settlements located in the Jordan Valley, where it is planned to establish the largest facility.
According to the plan that was approved two weeks ago, the largest solar station will be built on agricultural lands in the “Nama” settlement, north of the city of Jericho ‘2.5 km away’, which is an agricultural settlement, built on lands with an area of 425 dunums. It is expected that the new solar facility will provide the settlements with a great economic benefit by providing alternative energy. The head of the Regional Council for the Jordan Valley Settlements, David El-Hayani, and the new head of the Civil Administration, Fares Atilla, blessed the approval of the establishment of the facility as it is one of the very important projects that the Civil Administration recently promoted.
And at a time, the occupation authorities are expanding the settlement project, Judaization, with great strides forward with bids to build thousands of housing units for settlers, and with structural plans to build new settlements, expand existing settlements, and build more roads and bypass streets to serve the settlers and facilitate their movement, they are expanding in demolished Palestinian homes and facilities in the West Bank, including the Jerusalem Governorate, according to the policy advocated by BezalelSmotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. A large-scale demolition process was launched in Anata in order to widen the main road leading to the town of Al-Za’im and the city of Jericho, which settlers use to facilitate their movement through this street to the “Antoot” settlements, and “KfarAdumim” and “PisgatZe’ev.”
The demolition included 9 shops located at the northern entrance to the town of Anata, and the “Al-Baqaan” area inside the town, where a new house about to be inhabited costing more than one million shekels was demolished, in addition to the demolition of a sheep farm and barracks, under the pretext that these facilities, farms, and homes are adjacent to the apartheid wall, as the occupation authorities prevent construction at a distance of 150 meters from the wall. The demolition process also affected a hall and a diwan belonging to the Ghaith family in Anata, without receiving notices or prior notification before the demolition began, given that there are orders to demolish everything close to the wall.
The occupation forces distributed scores of notices to demolish agricultural and residential facilities in the village of Duma in the Nablus Governorate Last week, a village that was subjected in July 2015 to a brutal terrorist act by settlers, in which a number of members of the Dawabsha family were burned to death. The number of notifications reached 50 demolition and removal orders, the majority of which were in the eastern area of the village, under the pretext that they area in ‘C’ according to the Oslo Accords and is located in an area that the occupation forces claim is “state property.”
The demolition notices included stone chains, water and electricity lines, and the uprooting of olive trees, mobile agricultural rooms, barracks built of tin, and 3 residential houses. The occupation forces demand that the people of Duma return everything to its previous state in those lands whose owners were handed demolition and removal orders, and gave them 45 days to remove and demolish them.
The occupation authorities also notified the cessation of work and construction on a large number of homes, facilities and agricultural roads in the town of QarawatBani Hassan in Salfeet Governorate in the western and north-south area of the town. The notifications were distributed among houses under construction, a garbage dump, agricultural rooms, and two streets, as follows: 18 notifications in the western region, Al-Uqda, and Khallet Abu Zaid, 3 notifications in the northern head, and 2 notifications in the eastern region, called ‘Al-Midan’ under the pretext of bring located in areas C.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Forcing citizenRajai Hussein to demolish part of his house in the town of Jabal Al-Mukaber under the pretext of building without a permit in order to avoid paying financial fines.
- Handing over demolition orders in the Al-Sawana Neighborhood, and issued a decision to Al-MaqdisiMuhannadYounis Abu Al-Homs, ordering the demolition of his house in Al-Dahra neighborhood in the village of Al-Isawiya after 7 days under the pretext of building without a permit.
Hebron:
- Seizing an agricultural tractor in the “Quwaiwis” area in MasaferYatta, south of Hebron, belonged to the citizen SaeedAwad in the Quwaiwis community, near Sha’ab al-Buttam in MasaferYatta, south of Hebron.
- Beating citizen, Ismail Ahmed Ismail Abu Aram, while returning to his home in Khirbet Al-Halawa in MusaferYatta, and stole his donkey, his medicines, and his purchases.
- Burning old olive trees in the Tel Rumeida area in the center of the city of Hebron, located near the “Ramat Yishai” settlement. The fire destroyed 3 perennial trees belonging to the Qanbi and Zahida families.
Ramallah:
- Cutting down a number of olive trees in the town of Ni’lin, where they destroyed 74 trees, between two and three years old, in the Al-Khalal area of the town, belonging to citizens MusabSorour and Muhammad Badr. 2 citizens sustained bruises in the village of Al-Mughayer after settlers attacked them in the ‘Qaboun’ area, east of the village, severely beating them with sticks, stole 4 heads of sheep before they withdrew from the place
Nablus:
- Storming Islamic tombs in the village of Awarta under the protection of the occupation forces, and performed Talmudic rituals in the village.
- Injuring 8 citizens during a settler attack on the town of Qusra, south of Nablus, where a group of settlers attacked farmers while they were working on their land in the ‘Ras Al-Nakhl’ area, south of the town.
Tulkarm:
- Closing the gate built on the section of the separation and racial expansion wall, west of the village of Akaba, north of Tulkarm, for the 8 day in a row, without giving reasons, and prevented workers and farmers from reaching their agricultural lands behind the wall, which increase their suffering, especially since they depend for their income on farming their lands.
