Impact of Israeil Settlements

Posted on: July 2007

 This report examines the humanitarian impact on Palestinians from the ongoing construction of settlements in the West Bank and other Israeli infrastructure, such as the Barrier and the roads that accompany them.

The analysis shows that almost 40% of the West Bank is now taken up by Israeli infrastructure. It also demonstrates how roads linking settlements to Israel, in conjunction with an extensive system of checkpoints and roadblocks, have fragmented Palestinian communities from each other.

The deterioration of socio-economic conditions in the West Bank has been detailed in regular OCHA and World Bank reports over the last several years. These have underlined the fact that freedom of movement for Palestinians is crucial to improving humanitarian conditions and reviving socio-economic life.

The findings are based on extensive fieldwork combined with spatial analysis derived from satellite imagery.1 As the maps illustrate, the consequences of settlements and related infrastructure on Palestinian life are severe, and if current trends continue, socioeconomic conditions in the West Bank are likely to worsen.

Despite the transfer of Israeli civilians into occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) being illegal under international law, the Israeli settler population in the West Bank settlements has continued to grow steadily by around 5.5% each year. In 2007, approximately 450,000 settlers2 live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, alongside 2.4 million Palestinians.

More than 38% of the West Bank now consists of settlements, outposts, military bases and closed military areas, Israeli declared nature reserves or other related infrastructure that are off-limits or tightly controlled to Palestinians. The settlements and other infrastructure are detailed in Chapter One.

The settlements are linked to each other and to Israel by an extensive road network. Palestinians for the most part are either prevented from using these roads or have only restricted access onto them. The roads and their restrictions on Palestinian movement are outlined in Chapter Two.

The West Bank has been dissected into dozens of enclaves by the settlements and related infrastructure. This fragmentation has negatively affected social and economic life for the vast proportion of Palestinians. Chapters Three and Four examine the impact of these restrictions in both urban and rural settings.

Palestinians compete with Israeli settlers for West Bank resources, notably limited land and water, while their freedom of access and movement is denied. These issues, which are directly related to Israeli settlements and infrastructure, are detailed in the concluding chapter.

To read the full report click here

Posted on: JULY 2012

The Jordan Valley, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, has the potential to be the breadbasket of any future Palestinian state.However, the persistent expansion of Israeli settlements and other restrictions on Palestinian development have made life extremely difficult for Palestinian communities. New plans to increase the land, water, and infrastructure available to Israeli settlements will further aggravate this already serious situation. Unless the international community takes action to reverse Israeli government policies and practices, the prospects for the future establishment of a viable Palestinian state, living side by side with Israel in peace and security, look dangerously remote. 

Summary

The Jordan Valley, located in the eastern part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), makes up 30 per cent of the West Bank (see Map 1 on page 7). Requisitions and expropriations of Palestinian land by the Israeli authorities continue to destroy the livelihoods of Palestinians living in the area and, unless action is taken, there are strong indications that the situation will only get worse. The Israeli government recently announced proposals and policies for the expansion of settlements, which, if implemented, will further threaten the living conditions and human rights of Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley, undermining efforts to bring peace and prosperity to the OPT and Israel. 

Unequal Access

Only 6 per cent of the land in the Jordan Valley is currently available for Palestinian use and development. While the Israeli settlements there have developed modernised agribusinesses that produce crops for high-value export to the European Union (EU) and international markets, Palestinian farmers – most of whom are smallholders – face restrictions that severely hamper their ability to sell their produce locally, regionally, or internationally.

Development is further constrained because Palestinian families and businesses, and even EU donors and aid agencies, find it nearly impossible to gain permits to build homes, toilets, wells, animal pens, or other vital infrastructure for local communities. Less than 1 per cent of “Area C” (the 60 percent of the West Bank under exclusive Israeli control where nearly all of the Jordan Valley is located) has been planned for Palestinian development by the Israeli Civil Administration, and 94 per cent of permits have been rejected in recent years. Essential structures built without development plans and hard-to-obtain permits are frequently demolished in contravention of international law.

It is estimated that if Israeli restrictions on Palestinian development were removed, an additional 50 sq/km of the Jordan Valley could be cultivated, potentially adding $1bn a year to the Palestinian economy, or 9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Unfair Advantages

Successive Israeli governments have stated that the Jordan Valley is essential to Israel‟s security, and continue to encourage the development of civilian (mostly agricultural) settlements that are illegal under international law. Today, 37 settlements in the region are home to 9,500 Israelis, with the settlement authorities (or „Regional Councils‟) currently controlling 86 per cent of the land.

Settlements are supported by substantial Israeli government subsidies and incentives (e.g. for housing, education, water, and transport). Israeli settlers also receive favourable access to transport linkages and to national and international markets. One Israeli economist has estimated that the Government of Israel spends $24,650 per settler each year on various subsidies and grants to Israeli settlements across the OPT. Between 2000 and 2006, the average grant per capita to Israeli settlers in the West Bank was approximately 57 per cent higher than the average expenditure per capita for Israeli citizens inside Israel.

In contrast, Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley receive no subsidies from either the Palestinian Authority (PA) or the Israeli Government. Instead, they and their small-scale farming and herding businesses face additional costs due to Israeli-imposed restrictions on travel and the transportation of goods in and out of the Jordan Valley. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) has estimated that additional transportation costs incurred by transporting Palestinian farm produce via routes that avoid the most problematic Israeli checkpoints amount to $1.9m annually. As well as increased transport costs, Palestinian farmers have to pay for water that is brought in by tankers, making their produce much more expensive and therefore less competitive than that of Israeli settler farmers.

Palestinians across the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) also face systematic and discriminatory policies that restrict their freedom of movement, their access to land, water, and markets, and their ability to build infrastructure to support their livelihoods. In addition, many Palestinians, left with few alternative ways to earn a living, work on settlement farms and are denied their labour rights.

The development challenges and the denial of human rights faced by Palestinian farmers have been compounded, until recently, by a lack of donor investment in the Jordan Valley and other parts of West Bank „Area C‟. As the EU Heads of Diplomatic Mission report states: „The Palestinian state-building project is in effect partly limited to the fragmented and isolated “islands” of Areas A and B [where the PA is able to operate], in the “ocean” of contiguous Area C.‟

The cumulative effects of Israeli government restrictions and a lack of donor and Palestinian investment mean that the poverty levels of Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley are almost double those in the rest of the West Bank. Combined with persistent human rights abuses, this is forcing many Palestinians to leave their homes in search of jobs, security, and essential services.

Deteriorating Prospects

Unless action is taken now, there are strong indications that the situation will deteriorate further. Recent years have seen a significant rise in construction of Israeli settlements, violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians, and demolition of Palestinian buildings and other structures such as cisterns, solar panels and animal pens. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said in a speech in January 2012 that the Government of Israel would sign „a permanent agreement [with the Palestinians] only if it includes Israel‟s remaining in the Jordan Valley…‟. Eight months earlier, the government announced that the amount of agricultural land allocated to Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley was to be more than doubled. In March 2012, the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, approved a budget allocating $2m for additional settlements in the Jordan Valley and Binyamin District. These decisions represent part of an alarming negative trend whereby land, resources, and livelihoods in the Jordan Valley are being systematically denied to Palestinian communities in order to expand settlements.

To keep reading the full report click here

Source:

https://www.oxfam.org

Posted on: December 2012

Key Facts

• Since 1967, Israel has established about 150 settlements (residential and others) in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; in addition to some 100 “outposts” erected by settlers without official authorization. Three new settlements were approved in 2012 by retroactively ‘authorizing’ such outposts.
• In 2011, the settler population was estimated at over 520,000; the annual average rate of growth during the past decade was 5.3% (excluding East Jerusalem), compared to 1.8% for the Israeli population as a whole (ICBS).
• Up to 28 November, there had been a threefold increase in the number of new settler housing units which were issued for tender in 2012, compared to 2011 (Peace Now); on 30 November, the Israeli authorities announced plans to build 3,000 new settlement units in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.
• The fenced or patrolled areas of settlements cover three percent of the West Bank; in total 43% of the West Bank is allocated to settlement local and regional councils.
• Virtually all of the land declared by Israel as public or “state land” (27% of the West Bank) has been allocated to settlements, rather than for the benefit of the local Palestinian population (B’Tselem).
• About one third of land within the outer limits of settlements is privately owned by Palestinians, according to official Israeli land records (Peace Now).
• In 2012, one Palestinian was killed and approximately 1,300 injured by Israeli settlers or security forces in incidents directly or indirectly related to settlements, including demonstrations.
• Only ten percent of 781 investigations conducted by Israeli police into incidents of settler violence between 2005 and 2011 resulted in indictments (Yesh Din).
• Approximately 540 internal checkpoints, roadblocks and other physical obstacles impede Palestinian movement within the West Bank; these obstacles exist primarily to protect settlers and facilitate their movement, including to and from Israel.
• The location of settlements was the major consideration behind the deviation of the Barrier’s route into the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; once complete, about 80% of the settler population will live in settlements located on the western (“Israeli”) side of the Barrier.
• Israeli settlers in the West Bank consume approximately six times the water used by Palestinians in the West Bank.

1. Settlements are illegal under international law as they violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of the occupying power’s civilian population into occupied territory. This has been confirmed by the International Court of Justice, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention and the United Nations Security Council.
2. Seizure of land for settlement building and future expansion has resulted in the shrinking of space available for Palestinians to develop adequate housing, basic infrastructure and services and to sustain their livelihoods. These and related measures have contributed to the forced displacement of families and communities.
3. The failure to respect international law, along with the lack of adequate law enforcement vis-à-vis settler violence and takeover of land has led to a state of impunity, which encourages further violence and undermines the physical security and livelihoods of Palestinians. Those demonstrating against settlement expansion or access restrictions imposed for the benefit of settlements (including the Barrier) are regularly subject to arrest or injury by Israeli forces.
4. Israeli civil law is de facto applied to all settlers and settlements across the occupied West Bank, while Israeli military law is applied to Palestinians, except in East Jerusalem, which was illegally annexed to Israel. As a result, two separate legal systems and sets of rights are applied by the same authority in the same area, depending on the national origin of the persons, thereby discriminating against Palestinians. 
5. Continuing settlement construction, expansion and encroachment on Palestinian land and water resources is an integral part of the ongoing fragmentation of the West Bank, including the isolation of East Jerusalem. This fragmentation undermines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, which is to be realized with the creation of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state alongside Israel.

 Source:

http://www.ochaopt.org/

Israel, since its occupation of Jerusalem, has pursued various policies to integrate East Jerusalem into Israel proper by augmenting the legal status of the city, annexing land and expanding Jewish settlements within and around the city. Since East Jerusalem is an occupied territory, such Israeli practices formidably violate international law, in particular the Geneva Convention, which clearly emphasizes the illegality of transferring the citizens of the occupier to the territory it occupies.

However, Israel has managed to confiscate land around and within Jerusalem by issuing military orders that modify past Ottoman, British and Jordanian laws, i.e. by putting their settlement activities in a legal framework. A primary Military Order used to “legitimate” the confiscation of Palestinian land is Military Order 58 of 1967, known as the Absentee Property Law. According to this military order, land and properties of absentee Palestinians is transferred to the Israeli Civil Administration.

Any Palestinian who left the West Bank before or after June 7, 1967, is defined as an absentee. Military Order 321, issued in 1969, gives the Israeli military the authority to confiscate land for public purposes. However, Jewish settlers are the only beneficiaries of these public services. The construction of by-pass roads falls under this order.

Security is an often-used alibi to confiscate Palestinian land. In the 1970’s the Israeli High Court of Justice granted approval to the construction of settlements that are temporary and serve security purposes. Such areas are first designated as ‘closed military areas’, which often develop into a whole settlement. Settlement activity in Jerusalem is part of a broader settlement policy exercised in other parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. By the employment of military orders described above and the application of de facto politics, Israel has succeeded in imposing its hegemony over Jerusalem; thus, undermining Palestinian presence in the city. Besides building settlements, Israel’s discriminatory policies against Palestinian Jerusalemites have exacerbated Palestinian subjugation and ability to develop. Such is evidenced by the extreme difficulties faced by Palestinian residents to obtain building permits, whose many homes have been systematically demolished for that reason.

Israeli existing and planned settlement activities in and around Metropolitan Jerusalem will have debilitating impacts on the development of Palestinian neighborhoods in the city disconnecting them from each other and from other Palestinian urban centers in the West Bank. Such Israeli geopolitical arrangements, as described in the report, create a superimposed grid of roads and settlement blocks with total disregard to the impact of such infrastructure on Palestinian spatial delineations and viability. In other words, Israeli settlements and complementary roads will turn Palestinian Jerusalem neighborhoods into fractured slums without open space for future population growth.

The construction of settlement blocks around the city and the building of by-pass roads together cause a forced reconversion of the features of the city in a way that limits Palestinian access to land and hampers Palestinian building activity. In fact, as mentioned in the report, Palestinians are granted only 8% of the municipal area for construction. The resulted cantonization of Palestinian neighborhoods in the city will further complicate Palestinian urban development and exacerbate population congestion, which is already ubiquitous in various Palestinian areas in East Jerusalem.

One could imagine the socioeconomic implications of such Israeli settlement policies in the city. A growing population will be competing for a decreasing amount of land, physical infrastructure and services stifling any prospects for development.

Overcrowded areas will become breeding grounds for epidemics and poverty. Now, due to Israel’s closure policies, Palestinian Jerusalemites are totally separated from trading centers in other centers of the West Bank further deteriorating the economic standing of the city.

Besides the economic strangulation imposed by the settlement blocks around East Jerusalem, the Israeli Cabinet in its early sessions approved a plan, which envisions the building of electric fences, stonewalls, trenches, and roadblocks in areas outside city limits- at the end of March 2002. The plan also includes the installation of video cameras and observations posts, which will be manned by 500 border policemen stationed on the city’s outskirts. This plan is currently being implemented.

Israel has also been following a policy of closing down and transferring many Palestinian institutions out of East Jerusalem since the early nineties. The biggest jolt was the closure of the Orient House, the heart and soul of the PLO in East Jerusalem. The number of people who are able to come to Jerusalem for visiting, services, schools or work has steeply declined since the inception of the second Intifada. Therefore, closure and separation policies exercised by Israel have direct impact on the Palestinian social fabric, religion and education per se.

Unfortunately, the economic impact of settlement belts and closures are difficult to accurately assess, as data is still not available for East Jerusalem. One could speculate that tourism, which is a key economic sector in Jerusalem comprising 58% of Jerusalem’s economic activity, has been severely hit since the beginning of the Intifada, depriving many Jerusalemites of their main source of income.

On the political front, existing and envisioned Israeli spatial arrangements in the city will result in the total annexation of 15% of the West Bank into Israel proper. Thus, it becomes geographically and politically impossible for Palestinians to have sovereignty over East Jerusalem. Palestinian neighborhoods in the city will be totally separated from the West Bank by three settlement blocks surrounding Metropolitan Jerusalem in the North, East and South. Moreover, by-pass roads and the light rail will further carve up Palestinian physical existence in the city.

Ultimately, such Israeli spatial arrangements cause detrimental political mplications for they counteract the option of having Jerusalem as an “open city” for the following reasons:

1. There will not be free movement of people and goods into and within the borders of the Open City because the roads linking settlements are built exclusively for Jewish use. Moreover, borders will be controlled by Israel only as evidenced by the construction of a “security wall” to envelope Jerusalem.
2. The internal demarcation between the Israeli and Palestinian parts of the city will not be invisible, as defined for an open city option, since by-pass roads will make such demarcations and divisions concrete and almost irreversible. In fact, such spatial arrangements create physical barriers between Palestinian neighborhoods and Israeli ones.

It is also worth mentioning that this spatial plan for Jerusalem hinders a model for a divided city that will be ruled by separate sovereignties. Such is evidenced by Israeli plans made in connecting settlements in Eastern Jerusalem, which will cause the division of East Jerusalem into cantons as well as its separation and discontinuity with the West Bank.

The only possible vision is that Palestinians will be totally assimilated within an Israeli-dominated city in underdeveloped areas without any capacity for expanding or urban planning. The same systematic policy is also implemented elsewhere in the West Bank, where some Israeli plans in progress aim at creating two blocks of settlements, one in the east of the West Bank, and the other in the west, so as Israel can delineate the borders that it can annex in the future into the Israeli state. Such an arrangement will shrink the territory left for a potential Palestinian state that is also discontinuous because of the settlements and by-pass roads that divide up its districts.

The Palestinians will thus be left without a geographically contiguous piece of land.

The Palestinians will not have the option of forming a real viable state. The only other option is for Palestinians to accept a one-state, two-nation solution. However, such an option will not be accepted by Israel because of Palestinian demographic superiority that threatens the foundations of a Jewish state.

As a final note, by implementing such spatial and infrastructural arrangements in the city, Sharon’s government is not only consolidating an Israeli political control over the city, but is also making it highly costly for future Israeli negotiators to reverse such geopolitical realities to accommodate a Palestinian sovereign existence in the city. Hence, as a political strategy, the Palestinian negotiating team should publicly advocate, by garnering support from the international community, the return to the Camp David II and Taba peace talks. The only viable option is to reconsider the Open City concept with land swap, as a mechanism to circumvent the “creeping annexation” of Palestinian land in and around the city boundaries of East Jerusalem. The other option is to gear Palestinian objective towards one-state solution with all its ramifications on the national identity and ethos of the Palestinians. Definitely, as mentioned before, the Israelis will totally object to this idea of incorporating demographic in corporation of the Palestinians and this strategy might “push” the Israelis to reconsider their settlement policies and may be under pressure accept division of the city. These options are open and it depends on the Palestinians in how to deal with the issue at state.

Source:

http://palestinianmissionuk.com

Posted on: March 2012

By Sawsan Ramahi

Human beings are endowed with essential basic rights. These include the right to freedom, equality and prosperous natural living conditions. As such, every individual has a public duty to safeguard and improve the environment for the benefit of present and future generations.

The Draft International Treaty on Third-Generation Rights, which deals with environmental, cultural and developmental rights, devotes two of its articles to the environment:

1. Article 14 confirms that all persons have the right to a clean environment suitable for their economic, social, cultural and legal growth.
2. Article 15 demands that Member States commit themselves not to negatively alter normal living conditions in a way which may damage the health of individuals and future generations.  Since its inception, the International Labour Organisation has been concerned with working environments, and in 1976 it adopted the international programme to improve working condition in order to make labour more humane.

Israel‘s abuse of the Palestinian environment

Due to the continuous and permanent depletion of its natural resources alongside incessant pollution by the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian environment and Palestinian environmental rights are under pressure and in rapid decline. Moreover, the scarcity of resources, closures and restrictions on mobility, and high unemployment rates pose an additional impediment to meeting the needs of a rapidly expanding population, and the growing requirements of economic conditions.

Following Israel’s occupation of the territory that remained to Palestinians in the wake of the 1967 war, it has continued to pursue a systematic policy for the destruction of the Palestinian environment. The methods adopted, which include the destruction of the cultural heritage of the Palestinian people, are the same as those adopted in gaining control of Palestine following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

The impact of illegal Israeli settlements

Illegal Israeli settlements confer control over Palestinian land and its resources and are, as a result, the heart of the expansionist philosophy upon which the state of Israel has been built.

According to Palestine’s Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2010 there were 144 officially recognised (by Israel) settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, alongside 221 outposts and 85 other sites bringing the total number of illegal Israeli settlements to 450. The numerous settlements established strategically across the Occupied Palestinian Territories and concentrated in particular areas, aim at facilitating the fragmentation and eventually annexation of Palestinian areas. They have also become one of the most prominent and serious manifestations of Israel’s degradation and destruction of the Palestinian environment.

Settlements have proliferated around Palestinian towns and cities in such a way as to form settlement axes which, while fragmenting the occupied territories, have also isolated Palestinian areas from their environmental surroundings. The settlement axis in the Jordan Valley separates the Valley from the rest of the West Bank in one direction, and separates the West Bank from its natural environment east of the Jordan River in the other. The settlement axis that stretches along the 1948 armistice line again separates the West Bank from the rest of Palestine, and similarly the Ariel axis of ‘Trans-Samaria’ divides the West Bank into two halves – the northern part incorporates the governorates of Jenin, Qalqilya, Tulkarem, Nablus and Tubas, while the southern part incorporates the provinces of Jericho, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron.

Settlement blocs around Palestinian cities have had a significant impact on local biodiversity, which in many cases has been altered as wild flora and fauna are unable to reproduce naturally. This is in part the result of building practices adopted during construction of these settlements which include land levelling and excavation, the uprooting of trees, the establishment of military checkpoints and the construction of bypass roads. These practices deprive the Palestinian population of their rights to the use of their land, which has led to the depletion of groundwater reserves and loss of control over its resources.

The impact of Israeli settlements on the environment of the Occupied Territories falls under the following headings:

• The impact of settlements on Palestinian groundwater supplies
• Contamination by settlement waste water
• The impact of settlements on Palestinian flora and fauna
• Settlement air pollution
• Alteration of the natural Palestinian environment caused by settlements
• The destruction of Palestinian cultural heritage by settlement bypass roads
• Hazardous solid waste pollution by settlements

Source:

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/

Posted on: December 1998

Foundation for Middle East Peace

In its 1998 report the Foundation for Middle East Peace pointed out that 2,300 sq. km of the West Bank and Gaza were cultivated by Palestinians in 1967. Since then, the figure has dropped to 1945 sq. km, or 31.5% of the territories. The confiscation of arable land has led to a fall in Palestinian agricultural incomes and employment. (Agriculture employed 43% of the Palestinian active population in 1966, compared with only 22% in 1993.) In addition, the report condemns the confiscation of water and pollution by the settlements. The Foundation also publishes a bimonthly report on Israeli settlement in the occupied territories.

The impact of Israeli settlement and settlers on Palestinian land and water resources is one element in a broad relationship of inequality and dependency established and promoted by the occupation during the last quarter century. While there have been anecdotal enquiries into specific examples of this phenomena—for example, Palestinian construction labor at an Israeli settlement or the effects on an adjacent Palestinian community of sewage produced by a settlement—there have been no studies that focus on the overall economic effects of settlements themselves, singly or collectively, on Palestinians. Nevertheless, some data is available that offers a broad insight into the nature and scale of the impact of settlements on Palestinian land and water resources.

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is essentially a contest for control of the region’s resources, principally land and water. To the extent that these assets are used by one antagonist, occupation has been structured so that the other loses.

Settlements have long represented an Israeli intention to remain permanently on the land and to control its destiny, necessarily at the expense of Palestinians. Without settlements, as Israelis have long acknowledged, they would be merely an « occupying » army. The implantation of civilian Israeli colonies is, therefore, the primary obstacle to Palestinian self-determination.

All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are currently located in Area C, which is under exclusive Israeli control and which comprises 72 percent of the West Bank. Israel similarly controls approximately 15 percent of the Gaza Strip. In the Golan Heights, the Syrian population of 17,000 is clustered into five small villages abutting the Syrian-Lebanese border. The 32 Israeli settlements control 80 percent of the plateau. One-quarter of the entire Golan—315,000 dunams—is grazing land controlled by‚ ‚settlers.

Assessing the precise effect of the loss and reallocation of Palestinian lands to Israeli settlements is difficult. The World Bank, in a draft of its September 1993 study, « Developing the Occupied Territories—An Investment in Peace, » notes:

Confiscation of Palestinian land has enabled Israel to proceed with the construction of settlements and related structures in various areas of the West Bank that were traditionally considered to be wilderness zones. Most important among these are the eastern slopes and the central part of the West Bank which once housed a variety of wildlife and provided a winter grazing ground for livestock and recreation for the local population. . . .

Similarly, building agricultural settlements in the Jordan Valley has gradually deprived the Palestinian inhabitants of these areas of their richest soils and water wells. A similar situation has developed in the Gaza Strip where settlements have encroached upon fertile inland and coastal areas. The Israeli settlement program was not accompanied by adequate and proper environmental considerations. None of the settlements have developed sewage treatment plants. Sewage is often allowed to run into valleys even if a neighboring[Palestinian] village is threatened. The sewage system of the settlements on the eastern hills and slopes north of Jerusalem has contaminated fresh water supplies for drinking and irrigation of Palestinian areas up to Jericho.

Agricultural Land

In 1967, 2,300 sq km of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were under Palestinian cultivation. In 1989, that figure had been reduced to 1,945 sq km, or 31.5 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Agriculture comprised 24 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 1966, the same percentage as in the 1980-85 (pre-intifada) period. By 1994, the percentage had decreased to less than 15 percent. In 1966, the agricultural sector provided employment for 55,000 Palestinians, or 43 percent of total employment, whereas in the 1980-85 period, there were 40,000 people employed in the agricultural sector, comprising 24 percent of employed Palestinians. In 1993, the percentage of employed persons working in agriculture was 22 percent.

These gross indicators do not lead to specific conclusions regarding the effect of settlements on agricultural employment or production or land under cultivation, because settlements are only one of a number of variables that must be considered when assessing these trends.

However, there are specific regions, such as the Jordan Valley, where a direct link can be established between the loss of Palestinians’ agricultural opportunities and Israeli settlements.The confiscation of agricultural lands and their transfer to settlements result in the loss of agricultural income and employment, although this has never been quantified beyond anecdotal reporting. Contamination by sewage also directly affects Palestinian agriculture in the region around Kiryat Arba and elsewhere. There are also unquantified economic and environmental costs associated with Israeli-owned industries in the occupied territories, such as a recycling plant for used motor oil, stone quarries, and other plants where harmful and toxic by-products are produced.

Water

Access to water, rather than a scarcity of land, remains the greatest obstacle to Palestinian agricultural development. For Israel, water has been a vital precondition for achieving its fundamental challenges—the creation of a vibrant economy to sustain an increasing Jewish community. Without an adequate supply of water, the concept of massive Jewish immigration and settlement would be imperiled, and without immigration and settlement Israel’s leadership fears for its future. Water, settlement, and security have thus become complementary pieces of Israel’s security outlook.

According to a 1992 report for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences by Miriam Lowi, « almost the entire increase in Israeli water use since 1967 derives from the waters of the West Bank and the Upper Jordan River. »

Israel, however, is in the midst of a water emergency. Even with the resources conquered in 1967, it is pumping more water from its aquifers than nature can replace. And in the West Bank, not only is Israel exploiting water for its own population in Israel and the occupied territories, amounting to 15 percent of total consumption, it has also prevented the Palestinian community from increasing its water use to barely 20 percent beyond the amount used in 1967—and only for personal use, not for agriculture and economic development.

Since the beginning of bilateral and multilateral negotiations earlier this decade at Madrid, Israel has sought to protect its continuing control over this resource in the West Bank, which was described by Israel’s state comptroller in February 1993 as the « principle reservoir of drinking water for the Dan region, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Beersheba, » and the « most important long-term source in the [national] water system. »

The water requirements of Israel’s settlements are a small segment of this larger mosaic of Israeli exploitation of the water resources in the occupied territories.

At a time when settlers were barely 10 percent of the population in the West Bank (1987), Palestinian consumption totaled 115 million cubic meters (mcm), while settler consumption equaled 97 mcm. A 1993 report by Peace Now noted that « the Jewish settlers’ per capita irrigated areas are seven and thirteen times larger than the areas accorded to Palestinians for irrigation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank respectively. »

A November 1992 report by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center (JMCC), « Israeli Obstacles to Economic Development in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, » notes that lack of water has forced Palestinian farmers to remove tracts from cultivation and that the digging of new, deep wells for settlements, particularly in the Jordan Valley, has caused subsequent shortages for Palestinian farmers.

Industrial Pollution

Approximately 160 Israeli-owned industrial concerns are located in the West Bank. For Israeli industrialists, the West Bank has, at least in one sphere, enjoyed a comparative advantage over Israel. Environmental regulations on soil, air, and water quality, and restrictions on industrial development generally, have been far less comprehensive and much less assiduously enforced compared with Israel. Combined with state-subsidized incentives for Israeli businesses to locate to industrial parks in and near settlements, the relative laxity of environmental enforcement and monitoring has led to the location of a number of « dirty » concerns to the occupied territories. Factories posing an environmental risk generally use wet processes in packaged food manufacturing, metal coating, and textiles.

The Shomron Municipal Environmental Association (SMEA), a governmental body established by settlements in the northern part of the West Bank to monitor and improve environmental quality, acknowledges that « waste water effluents from these plants and from nearly 100 residential communities in our region, if not properly treated, pose a threat to the groundwater quality in the region. In addition, industrial air emissions and noise generation can be problematic at some factories. »

Forty-five businesses operate in the industrial park of Burkan, adjacent to the settlement of Ariel. Most are engaged in the production of fabrics and plastics for export. Palestinians complain that industrial waste generated in the industrial park is dumped on Palestinian land.

« The owners of these factories escape the tighter rules on health and the environment inside Israeli itself, to work on the West Bank, where they get tax breaks, » explained Khalil Suleiman, an environmental expert from al-Najah University in Nablus. In addition to Burkan, Palestinians have complained about the operation of industrial facilities at Ariel, Karnei Shomron, Kiryat Arba, and Kadumim. Of particular concern is the effect of industrial development on the quality of groundwater, which Palestinian investigators have found to be « significantly more polluted » near settlements than elsewhere.

The settlement of Kiryat Arba has been identified by Palestinian investigators as « the main source of pollution in the Hebron area. » A tile factory located in the settlement industrial area at one time flushed its waste water through the sewage system, which resulted in numerous problems. The city of Hebron successfully petitioned the court to stop this practice. Now the waste water is trucked off in tanks and dumped on a Palestinian field. The water contains high levels of calcium carbonate, increasing the already high pH level of the land.

The Case of Geshurei Industries

Geshurei Industries, a manufacturer of pesticides and fertilizers, was originally located in the Israeli town of Kfar Saba. Concern about the environmental effects of the factory—on land, public health, and agriculture—resulted in an Israeli court order in 1982 closing the plant.

Since 1987, the factory has been operating across the Green Line, in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, where there are effectively no controls on waste disposal or air pollution. Other Israeli industrial polluters, including those working in asbestos, fiberglass, pesticides, and flammable gases, also relocated to the Tulkarem area. According to a recent report by a Palestinian non-governmental organization, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAWE), factory pollution directly affects 144 dunams of prime agricultural land and « causes substantial damage to the public health. » The Israeli court has ordered some remedial action, including compensation to affected farmers, but the plant remains in operation.

The Society’s report notes the following effects of the Geshurei factory operation : the decay of a majority of trees and other vegetation around the plant; the settling of chemical dust and residue and a liquid substance that leaves a calcium-like deposi on the land and vegetation, causing a decrease in field and hothouse agricultural production; the prominence of sodium and salt factory by-products in soil samples of land found to be non-arable, both of which are prominent consequences of waste-water contamination of agricultural land; the discovery of sulfamic acid, a starting material for a herbicide used as a non-selective weed killer, in groundwater samples from the area surrounding the factory.

The report also notes that « this is clear evidence of polluting groundwater through leakage of chemicals, and proof of the improper disposal of wastes and by-products. »

LAWE documented « a very high ratio of health-related problems among farmers and people living around the factory, including severe headaches, itchy eyes, spastic and chronic coughs, and bronchial asthma. » The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture has recently noted that « the public health of the community has not been well-documented due to decades of military occupation and direct conflict, suggesting that environmentally related health problems may be more pervasive than currently estimated. The long-term impact on soil and groundwater has similarly received inadequate attention. »

Tulkarem’s agricultural land has historically been a significant factor in the local economy. As a consequence of the harmful effects of Israeli-operated industry around Tulkarem, agricultural profits were reduced by 21.5 percent between 1992 and 1997, according to LAWE. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture estimates that 17 percent of Tulkarem’s agricultural land has been affected by pollution originating at the six Israeli concerns located in the Tulkarem area. Three of the factories sit on what Palestinians claim to be waqf land. Other sites are claimed by private Palestinian owners. Several factories are located less than 100 meters from residential housing.

Settlers have been implicated by Palestinians in what Palestinians term « pesticide attacks, » in which settlers destroy cultivated fields by spraying chemical pesticides during the agricultural season. LAWE notes that in one incident in the village of Ptarmus Ayya, settlers sprayed crops of vegetables, cereals, and olive trees in this fashion.

Dumps

Hundreds of sites for the disposal of trash are located in the occupied territories, including dozens that are unauthorized. There are 246 sites in the West Bank north of Jerusalem alone. Most of the sites are simple and primitive with few if any environmental safeguards, and none is used exclusively by settlements or Palestinian communities. SMEA acknowledges that « sites are improperly maintained, generating odors and smoke which are a nuisance to neighboring residents, as well as posing a threat to groundwater quality. »

A site in Jiyous, near the northern West Bank town of Kalkilya, is typical. Sited on 12 dunams, 200 meters from the river bed that serves as a source of drinking water for the village of Azoun, the site opened in 1990 and is administered by Palestinians under the direction of SMEA. It is used principally by the settlements of Karnei Shomron, Kadumim, Tzofim, and Ma’ale Shomron. SMEA is now being pressured by Israeli trash contractors to permit them to use the dump for trash generated in Israel, after the Israeli dump they had been using was closed by the government. Residents of Azoun complain of an epidemic of flies in summer and of smoke wafting into the village when trash is burned. They claim that 200 olive trees have been damaged by smoke.

Sites such as the one at Jiyous are attractive trash disposal options for Israeli communities. With disposal costs three to six times greater in Israel, sites in the West Bank offer many Israeli towns a closer, cheaper alternative to dumps within Israel proper.

Israel conducted a Geographic Information System (GIS) study in 1996 as part of an effort to develop a master plan to establish priorities to improve and to consolidate the system of trash disposal in the West Bank. Israel’s plan for trash disposal in the West Bank is being devised with no official or informal Palestinian participation.

Quarries

There are literally thousands of stone quarries on the West Bank, supplying 80 percent of the material needs of Israel’s construction sector. Many of these stones are used in settlement construction. Israeli concerns operate six West Bank quarries. Most of these quarries have operated for years, but the Palestinian Authority (PA) has also considered the siting of new quarries in Palestinian-controlled areas, run in partnership with Israeli companies.

One of these, at a controversial site in Wadi al-Teen—an important natural grazing area that supports livestock farmers in neighboring Palestinian villages—was to be the new site of a quarry whose operators are relocating from sites in Israel.

The Applied Research Institute—Jerusalem, a Palestinian environmental group, notes in their report, « Wadi al-Teen Quarry and the Systematic Expropriation of Palestinian National Resources, » that « the construction of a quarry at Wadi al-Teen will undoubtedly bring environmental degradation, threaten the bio-diversity and wildlife in the area, close off major natural grazing and agricultural areas, and deprive Palestinian farmers of run-off water used for irrigation. Furthermore, the plan will adversely affect the living environment in neighboring Palestinian villages due to dust and other types of air pollution. Most important, this project allows Israel to exploit Palestinian stone, the main natural raw material in the West Bank. »

The public outcry over plans to establish a quarry at Wadi al-Teen has recently forced the PA to reconsider the project.

« What is the PA planning to tell those who demonstrated against settlement activity in Wadi al-Teen, » asked Palestinian Legislative Council member Hassan Kreisheh before reconsideration was announced.

« How can we tell Israel to stop building settlements when we are granting them even more land to establish quarries? »

Many quarries are located in close proximity to Palestinian residential areas. The clouds of dust produced in the quarries pose certain health risks. Palestinians charge that those residing near such enterprises suffer from increased levels of asthma and acute bronchial infections.

Settlers have organized to prevent the operation of quarries near their residential areas. Together with Palestinians, they have filed a unique, joint appeal to oppose the creation of a new stone-crushing site in the village of Dura, near Hebron.

Obstacles to Settler-Palestinian Cooperation

The mitigation of environmental problems in the occupied territories, including those caused by the existence and expansion of settlements, is viewed by some Israelis as a forum for joint Israeli-Palestinian action. Yet Israeli environmental planners in the territories continue to view Palestinians as junior partners at best. Palestinians, for their part, are willing to cooperate with Israeli communities within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, but they refuse as a matter of principle to participate in joint efforts with settlers. « Our feeling—in fact, it’s more than a feeling, » explained the director of the settlers’ Judea Towns Association for the Environment, « is that the Palestinian Authority is not interested in cooperating with us. » In Hebron, to cite one example, the Palestinian municipality refuses to participate in a waste water treatment scheme in which some of the treated water will be used by Israeli settlers.

Rafael Eitan, Israel’s minister of environment, recently warned that « if the Palestinian Authority doesn’t answer our request for cooperation we will carry out the projects essential to protect the environment in Israel and the residents of the territories ourselves, and I will act to deduct the costs from the money forwarded by the government to the Authority. »

Palestinians recognize that, even without taking the settlements into consideration, the West Bank and Gaza Strip have myriad environmental problems. « Environmentally speaking, » explained Imad Attrash, director of the Children for the Protection of Nature in Palestine, « I am very depressed. We have problems with pollution, sewage, industrial zones situated in residential areas, as well as disposable diapers. »

The prevailing sentiment among Palestinians is to treat the environmental implications of settlement expansion as a political issue, one related to the continuing Palestinian refusal, particularly on a popular level, to concede the principle of joint action with settler and settler-oriented institutions.

Source:

http://mondediplo.com/

Posted on: 06/25/2014

By Ali Abunimah

France today advised its citizens and companies against doing business with Israeli settlements in occupied territories.

The government warned that firms could face legal action tied to “land, water, mineral and other natural resources” as well as “reputational risks.”

The step could have implications for the Israeli economy far beyond activities limited to Israeli settlements themselves.

The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) welcomed the move.

Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Luxembourg are expected to publish similar guidance in coming days in what appears to be a coordinated move by European states.

The French warning follows similar steps by the UK and Netherlands, prompted by an advocacy effort by civil society groups and members of the European Parliament.

“Risks”

The new guidance published by the French foreign ministry states that “The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights are territories occupied by Israeli since 1967. The settlements are illegal under international law.”

As a consequence, “there exist risks tied to economic and financial activities in the settlements. Financial transactions, investments, purchases, procurements as well as other economic activities in the settlements or benefitting the settlements, entail legal and economic risks tied to the fact that the Israeli settlements, according to international law, are built on occupied territories and are not recognized as being part of the territory of Israel.”

The French warning is worded in language almost identical to that issued by the UK last December, suggesting a high degree of intergovernmental coordination.

Broad implications

While some may spin the warning as affecting only the settlements and not the Israeli economy more broadly, the phrase “benefitting the settlements” – which appears in both the UK and French statements – could be significant.

It signals that firms may also be wise to steer clear of business transactions or activities that may not necessarily be located within settlements themselves.

An example of this in practice was the decision of Dutch pension giant PGGM earlier this year todivest from all five of Israel’s main commercial banks.

While the move was prompted specifically by the banks’ “unethical” involvement in settlement activities, PGGM concluded that it was impossible to separate out the banks’ settlement-related and non-settlement-related business activities.

At the time, Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti called the PGGM decision “unprecedented” in its scope since the pensions giant divested from all Israeli banks, not just their operations within the occupied West Bank.

Given that the economy of the settlements is deeply intertwined in the rest of the Israeli economy, the “benefitting the settlements” clause may encourage cautious firms to follow the precedent set by PGGM and avoid involvement with any Israeli firms with substantial business interests in the colonization of Palestinian land.

This has been a point made by the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP) coalition, which has called on the EU to urge firms to “cease all trade with Israeli export companies that operate inside illegal Israeli settlements, since trade with such companies provides capital to businesses involved in the maintenance and expansion of Israeli settlements.”

Palestinian welcome

Zaid Shuabi, a spokesperson for the BNC, the Palestinian civil society coalition that leads theboycott, divestment and sanctions movement, welcomed the news in an emailed statement.

“European governments are continuing to react to Israel’s intransigence and the groundswell of public support for Palestinian rights by taking action against Israel’s settlement regime,” Shuabi said.

“European businesses such as G4S, Veolia, JCB and Alstom play a key role in Israel’s settlement enterprise. We urge other European countries to follow the example set by France, the UK and the Netherlands and take similar action.”

While he hoped that today’s announcement would “encourage French businesses to abandon their complicity in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise,” Shuabi added that “France, the EU and all European states must do much more to end the involvement of European businesses in Israeli human rights abuses, including by explicitly prohibiting business relations with Israeli public and private entities in the occupied Palestinian territory, and by ensuring that companies involved in war crimes are brought to justice.”

Source:

http://electronicintifada.net/