Is there any justification offered for the Land Grabs?

[burythehatchet]

A Palestinian child in the village of Masha watering flowers in the remaining yard in his home after the Israeli government surrounded the family by the illegal Land-Grab Wall (PMC, 7/10/04).


A Palestinian boy sitting in the yard of his home in the village Mas'ha, in the West Bank, just near the Wall that the Israeli government has erected to annex more Palestinian lands, in this case this boy's land. The Sharon government announced that it would annex the Palestinian Jordan valley (PMC, 10/25/03).

Israelis hasten land grab in shadow of wall

Bulldozers go in as expansion of settlements continues

Chris McGreal in Jayyous
Tuesday December 14, 2004
The Guardian

Sharif Omar has been waiting two years for the bulldozers, ever since Israel's steel and barbed wire "security fence" carved its way between his village and its land. Last week the excavators and diggers finally arrived on the outskirts of Jayyous to lay the foundations for an expansion of the nearby Jewish settlement of Zufim, fulfilling the fears and warnings of its Palestinian neighbours.

The bulldozers were preparing the ground for hundreds of new homes, despite the Israeli government's claim that it is not expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Like other building work along the route of the barrier, it seems to be an attempt to ensure that the land between the fence and the 1967 border remains in Israeli hands in any final agreement with the Palestinians.

"When they built the fence, we said they would use it to build a much bigger settlement, and they would take our land to do it," said Mr Omar, whose olive and citrus groves are now encircled. "It is very clear to us, they are planning to confiscate all of our land and drive us from here. They came and told us to finish harvesting because they were going to begin building 80 houses. They are beginning with my neighbour's land but if they do it there they will do it on mine."

At least five other sites along the barrier have settlement work in progress. Israeli human rights groups say the government appears to be racing to fill in the gap between the barrier and the Israeli border before a US team arrives next year to mark out the final limits of settlement expansion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1372963,00.html

Israel's new plan: A land grab
Posted 5/15/2006 8:48 PM ET

By Jimmy Carter
New Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced that Israel will take unilateral steps to establish its own geographical boundaries during the next four years of his administration. His plan, as described during the recent Israeli election and the formation of a new governing coalition, would take about half of the Palestinian West Bank and encapsulate the urban areas within a huge concrete wall and the more rural parts of Palestine within a high fence. The barrier is not located on the internationally recognized boundary between Israel and Palestine, but entirely within and deeply penetrating the occupied territories.

The only division of territory between Israel and the Palestinians that is recognized by the United States or the international community awarded 77% of the land to the nation of Israel and the other small portion divided between the West Bank and Gaza. Only about twice the size of Washington, D.C., Gaza is now a politically and economically non-viable region, almost completely isolated from the West Bank, Israel and the outside world.

West Bank dissected

The Olmert plan would leave the remnant of the Palestinian West Bank with the same unacceptable characteristics. Deep intrusions would effectively divide it into three portions. The prime minister has also announced that Israeli soldiers will likely remain in the Palestinian territory, which will be completely encapsulated by Israel's control of its eastern border in the Jordan River valley.

It is inconceivable that any Palestinian, Arab leader, or any objective member of the international community could accept this illegal action as a permanent solution to the continuing altercation in the Middle East. This confiscation of land is to be carried out without resorting to peace talks with the Palestinians, and in direct contravention of the "road map for peace," which President Bush helped to initiate and has strongly supported.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-05-15-carter-israel-edit_x.htm

Israel calls land grabs temporary, defensive despite fears


SALFIT, West Bank - The Israeli army is quietly taking over West Bank land privately owned by Palestinians in what it says is a temporary move to protect its citizens from militants. But Palestinians - mindful that similar tactics were once used to establish Jewish settlements - fear they will never get their land back.

According to Israeli military documents, some of the land seized is in areas where officials want to build a fortified fence to keep Palestinian militants from entering Israel. Other documents indicate Israel is trying to create buffers between Jewish enclaves and Palestinian towns deep within the West Bank - including the town of Salfit, which is surrounded by 17 large and small settlements.

Critics say the scattered and sometimes sizable seizures could carve up the West Bank in a way that would make it difficult for the Palestinians to create a viable state on the land Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2002/06/03/WorldNation/Israel.Calls.Land.Grabs.Temporary.Defensive.Despite.Fears-501235.shtml?norewrite200608011637&sourcedomain=www.dailytexanonline.com

Slamming the Truce, Israeli Troops Continue Land Grab, Incursions and Arrest

WEST BANK, Palestine, April 14, 2005 (IPC+WAFA) ---The Israeli troops continued to impose a restrict curfew on Hewara town of Nablus for the fourth day in row. Hamed Abu Owda, director of the Hewara municipality said that during the curfew all life resemblances ere mobilized and all stores were closed and anybody broke the curfew would be punished.

He added that the Israeli troops were patrolling the streets of the town and blockaded the pedestrians as well as they commandeered the house of the citizen khairi Saleem Owda.

In a separate incident, the Israeli troops arrested today morning two citizens from Nablus after storming Al Seka Street, Balata refugee camp and Khalet Al Amoud, witnesses said.

Three citizens were injured in Beit Sureef , northwest of Hebron city of the west bank yesterday as they were defending a mosque stormed by the Israeli occupation forces , heart of the town.

Local sources said that the Israeli troops stationed inside the mosque and on its rooftop and opened a hail of live bullets and tear Gas canisters, wounding the three citizens and scores were suffocated by tear gas.
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2005%20News%20Archives/April%202005%20News/15n/Slamming%20the%20Truce,%20Israeli%20Troops%20Continue%20Land%20Grab,%20Incursions%20and%20Arrest.htm

The land grab is not just taking place in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza: it is continuing in Israel too. Close on fifty years since its creation, one might have thought that the State of Israel and its main parties would at last treat its Arab citizens on an equal footing. Meretz member of parliament, Haim Oron, admits that it is doing nothing of the sort: “The fight for every inch of land isn’t just continuing, it’s growing, even within Israel itself. “

The Bedouins of Al-Waqili village in the Negev desert have just had the bitter experience. The authority in charge, the Israel Land Administration, made them leave the land they had lived on for generations. With a writ issued against them, the residents are under threat of being forcibly evicted and seeing their homes destroyed (1). Just recently, at the instigation of the Administration, a few hundred Bedouins of the Al-Azazmeh tribe living in the Ramat Hovav region were given six months to leave. They were settled here in 1953 by the military government of the day, which had previously expelled them from other areas. One of the Al-Azazmeh notables, Lebad Abu Afash, calls this latest expulsion order a “transfer”.

Israeli Arabs have undergone many such injustices since the creation of the State of Israel. From 1948 to the present day, Israel has confiscated the major part of their land in the Galilee, and in the Arab-populated northern and southern “triangles” in the centre of the country, as well as in the Negev. To this end, it has armed itself with an arsenal of documents “legalising” the confiscation of the lands of its Arab citizens. As a result, we have seen the proletarianisation of this population, the majority of whom were originally rural. If the Arab villages have preserved their rural appearance, nonetheless most of their inhabitants travel to the cities to work.
http://mondediplo.com/1997/09/israel

[UndertheOcean]

1. K&R

n/t

[MercutioATC]

2. K&R

This subject doesn't get enough discussion, IMO.

[burythehatchet]

3. Thanks.

We forget all these things and let the media create a convenient reality.

[MercutioATC]

5. You have seen this video, haven't you?:

http://brasscheck.com/videos/middleeast/me1.html

[burythehatchet]

7. This video needs to get national exposure.

They are getting away with murder, literally and daily.

[MercutioATC]

9. I knew about this before, but I really didn't have any context...

...this video definitely needs to be seen.

[daydreamer]

11. Someone needs to send this video to Goerge and Condi.

[MercutioATC]

12. They know...they just don't care.

Actually, they might even care , but they're pursuing a different goal. They actually believe that injustices like this are acceptable to give the U.S. a foothold in the Middle East.

[Buns_of_Fire]

4. K&R. ...as if chopping off a few hundred yards from an artificial

boundary is going to protect a governmental entity from the ravaging hordes just waiting on the other side.

[burythehatchet]

6. When I was a child there were racists

who would "joke" that all black people should be rounded up and put in one state, and the state should be fenced off.

When I see this wall, that is what I am reminded of.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[w4rma]

10. Still looks like racism. (nt)