[News] Palestinian Villagers facing massive Israeli land grab urge action from Europe
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Wed Oct 1 11:44:44 EDT 2014
Villagers facing massive Israeli land grab urge action from Europe
Submitted by Patrick Strickland on Wed, 10/01/2014
*http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/villagers-facing-massive-israeli-land-grab-urge-action-europe*
Palestinian residents of Wadi Fukin in the occupied West Bank are
appealing for international action to prevent Israel from stealing a
large part of their village in one of the largest single Israeli land
grabs in decades.
On 30 August, Israeli occupation authorities announced that they will
confiscate an estimated 4,000 dunams (988 acres) of Palestinian land
belonging to five villages situated south of Bethlehem
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/west-bank>. Along with Jabaa,
Nahalin and Surif, much of Wadi Fukin's land will be stolen and given to
three nearby Jewish-only settlements
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-settlements>.
The following day locals from the five villages "watched as the Israeli
army placed placards across our lands, declaring them 'State Land,'"
writes Ahmad Sokkar, head of the Wadi Fukin village council, in an open
letter dated 8 September.
"The Israeli cabinet stated that the decision was in response to the
kidnapping and killing of three settler youths, thereby openly revealing
its intent to use collective punishment against the thousands of
inhabitants of these four Palestinian communities for a crime they did
not commit," the letter explains.
"Until this decision [to confiscate the land] is completely reversed,"
Sokkar is calling on the European Union
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/european-union> to ban all trade
with Israeli settlements, cut off all European ties to Israeli projects
in the occupied West Bank, and freeze the EU-Israel association
agreement and Israel's participation in the EU's scientific research
activities.
"Coated in legal terms, the Israeli statement attempts to camouflage the
blatant illegality of Israel's decision under international law," Sokkar
writes. "The European Union, however, holds a very clear position in
regard to Israel's settlement policy. It is with this in mind that we
appeal to you and ask for your assistance."
Residents have also responded by holding weekly demonstrations each
Friday, which Israeli occupation soldiers have attacked.
Razed
From the time it occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) in
1967, Israel recognized 125 settlements that today harbor a population
of an estimated 550,000 Jewish-Israelis, according
<http://www.btselem.org/settlements> to the human rights group B'Tselem
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/btselem>.
More than 100 smaller colonies known as "outposts
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/settlement-outposts>" also dot the
map of the territory. Though outposts are considered illegal even under
Israeli law, they are often provided with state resources, including
funding, and protected by the Israeli military.
While Palestinians in the West Bank live under a brutal stripe of
military rule, Israeli settlers are often treated with impunity when
they steal land or attack Palestinian civilians, including children.
Like most Palestinians suffering continuous land loss in communities
across the West Bank, the story of Wadi Fukin doesn't begin with
Israel's latest land grab.
After suffering repeated attacks from Zionist militias, most notably the
Haganah <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/haganah>, during the early
and mid-1940s, Wadi Fukin lost some 9,000 dunams (around 2,225 acres)
during the 1948 Nakba <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/nakba>, the
ethnic cleansing of Palestine that led to Israel's establishment.
Wadi Fukin was razed completely in 1956. In 1970, just three years after
Israel occupied the West Bank, the Israeli settlement of Alon Shevut was
established partially on the Palestinian village's lands.
Dumping sewage
The indigenous residents of Wadi Fukin --- many of whom were displaced
in 1956 to nearby Palestinian communities, particularly the Dheisheh
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/dheisheh-refugee-camp> refugee camp
--- were permitted by Israeli occupation authorities to return to part
of the village in 1972.
Two more settlements were subsequently built in the area: Betar Illit
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/beitar-ilit> in 1984 and Bet Ayin in
1989. Until today, Wadi Fukin's inhabitants have faced continuous
military harassment, settler violence and land confiscation.
In 2005, Israeli occupation authorities seized 218 acres of Wadi Fukin's
land.
Israel's suffocating restrictions have created continuously worsening
conditions for the indigenous Palestinian population in Wadi Fukin.
"Some of the confiscated lands are cultivated, while others are not,
due to the fact that we have been impeded from using these lands in any
way," Sokkar explains. "We are not allowed to build roads to be able to
reach these fields by tractor, nor are we allowed to build houses,
playgrounds, industrial, touristic or sports facilities."
"The fact that Wadi Fukin's only playground is being threatened with
demolition offers a striking example of Israel's policies that
essentially constitute a suffocating grip on our village," Sokkar writes.
As well as robbing local Palestinian farmers of their ability to produce
an income off their agricultural output, for several years settlers have
forcibly taken over the village's freshwater springs.
"Although the villages have not been attacked by settlers they are
regularly harassed by armed settlers temporarily taking over playground
and irrigation pools," according to a factsheet provided to The
Electronic Intifada by the Wadi Fukin Campaign, a group trying to raise
awareness about the village. "Sewage also regularly flows down from the
settlement of Betar Illit."
No justice
In his open letter, Sokkar explains that history has proven Palestinians
cannot rely on Israel's courts to deliver justice. "Faced with the all
too vivid realization that they stand little chance in fighting Israel's
decision in Israeli courts, the people of Wadi Fukin appeal to the
international community to support their efforts to retain ownership
over their lands and livelihoods," he writes.
"The villagers are aware that they have very little chance to win in a
confrontation in court since the Israeli laws and rules have proven,
time and time again, that they were designed to legalize the
expropriation of land for the sole benefit of a settler population which
is illegal under international law," the letter adds.
Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups have roundly
condemned Israel and called for the cancellation of the plans.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of Human
Rights Watch <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/human-rights-watch>,
said
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/09/03/israel-reverse-illegal-plans-west-bank>
the June kidnapping of three teenaged Israeli settlers in the West Bank
(who were later found dead) did not permit Israel to "grab a vast tract
of other people's land in an occupied territory."
War crime
Alluding to another Israeli plan to forcibly relocate more than 12,500
Palestinian Bedouins near Jerusalem, Human Rights Watch notes that
"transferring [Israeli] civilian settlers into an occupied territory
would amount to a war crime."
"It is worth noting that large scale, unlawful appropriation or
destruction of property, is also a war crime," Bill Van Esveld, a Human
Rights Watch researcher, told The Electronic Intifada by email.
In a press release
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/09/03/israel-reverse-illegal-plans-west-bank>
published on 3 September, Human Rights Watch also calls on the United
States "to reduce its $3.1 billion in annual aid to Israel by an amount
equivalent to the costs of Israel's spending in support of settlements,
until Israel reverses its blatantly illegal plans to build new
settlements and destroy Palestinian communities."
The human rights group Amnesty International
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/amnesty-international> also said
<http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/israel-must-scrap-illegal-land-grab-west-bank-2014-09-01>
the plan to confiscate land in Wadi Fukin must be "rescinded immediately."
"Israel's strategy of illegally confiscating land for settlements in the
West Bank must stop once and for all. Not only is it illegal under
international law but it is leading to a wide range of violations of
Palestinians' human rights on a mass scale," Philip Luther, the
organization's director for the Middle East and North Africa, says in a
press release
<http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/israel-must-scrap-illegal-land-grab-west-bank-2014-09-01>
issued on 1 September.
Sokkar concludes by emphasizing that the European Union should "take
concrete and effective legal measures to meet its legal obligations and
use all measures it has at its disposal, including sanctions, to change
Israel's policy of regularly violating international law."
The European Union announced guidelines
<http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4407135,00.html> for avoiding
aid to Israeli settlements in 2013, though the rules have yet to be
meaningfully implemented and do not address the root causes
<http://electronicintifada.net/content/eu-sanctions-israeli-settlements-not-state-created-them/13012>
of Israeli colonialism.
Given the European Union's long history of complicity in Israeli
violations of international law and war crimes against Palestinians, it
seems unlikely it will heed Wadi Fukin's calls for justice.
Full letter
The full text of the open letter is reproduced below:
8 September 2014
Dear Madam, Sir,
I am writing to you out of concern for the future well-being of the
people of Wadi Fukin and and its surrounding villages. On 30 August,
the Israeli government announced the expropriation of 988 acres of
Palestinian land. The following day, the inhabitants of Wadi Fukin
and four of its neighbouring villages --- Hussan, Jabaa, Nahalin,
Surif --- watched as the Israeli army placed placards across our
lands, declaring them "State Land." The Israeli cabinet stated that
the decision was in response to the kidnapping and killing of three
settler youths, thereby openly revealing its intent to use
collective punishment against the thousands of inhabitants of these
four Palestinian communities for a crime they did not commit. This
constitutes a flagrant violation of international law.
The vulnerability of these communities is highlighted by their
delicate location --- all four are situated near the internationally
recognized 1948 armistice line, otherwise known as the Green Line,
between the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel. As a result,
they have suffered tremendously from the war in 1948 and its
aftermath, which displaced many and even destroyed our village, Wadi
Fukin, in its entirety in the early 1950s, effectively wiping it off
the map for three decades. Its residents were consequently forced
to relocate to Dheisheh refugee camp, yet continued to tend to their
lands in the village. In the 1980s, we became one of the very few
examples of Palestinians allowed to leave the refugee camp [who]
rebuilt our village, albeit excluding a total of 9,000 dunams of
land (2,220 acres) that were usurped by Israel in 1948. The
remarkable story of Wadi Fukin remains visible as the ruins of old
houses can still be seen between the newly built houses and continue
to mark the hillsides. Today, the people of Wadi Fukin once again
risk being dispossessed.
Coated in legal terms, the Israeli statement attempts to camouflage
the blatant illegality of Israel's decision under international law.
The European Union, however, holds a very clear position with regard
to its opposition to Israel's settlement policy. It is with this in
mind that we appeal to you and ask for your assistance. Israeli
politicians and officials do not miss an opportunity to unilaterally
declare that the area which they refer to as Gush Etzion, yet which
in reality constitutes part of the Bethlehem governorate, will
inevitably become part of Israel proper in any future peace deal.
These statements must not under any circumstances convince EU
policy-makers and their national counterparts that the fate of our
communities is a lost cause. Acquiescing to such Israeli statements
allows Israel to continue to act with impunity. If anything, our
communities ought to be set as an example to show that the European
Union will not allow Israel to unilaterally dictate the terms of a
peace agreement, but that international law will be the standard to
which Israel's actions will be held. The European Union ought to
take up the fate of these four communities as a cause to demonstrate
it is serious about confronting Israel's continued settlement policy
in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Faced with the all too vivid realization they stand little chance in
fighting Israel's decision in Israeli courts, the people of Wadi
Fukin appeal to the international community to support their efforts
to retain ownership over their own lands and livelihoods. The
villagers are aware that they have very little chance to win in a
confrontation in court since the Israeli laws and rules have
proven, time and time again, that they were designed to legalize the
expropriation of land for the sole benefit of a settler population
which is illegal under international law.
Some of the confiscated lands are cultivated, while others are not,
due to the fact that we have been impeded from using these lands in
any way. We are not allowed to build roads to be able to reach these
fields by tractor, nor are we allowed to build houses, playgrounds,
industrial, touristic, or sports facilities. The fact that Wadi
Fukin's only playground is being threatened with demolition offers a
striking example of Israel's policies that essentially constitute a
suffocating grip on our village.
We therefore appeal to you and the international community to act
upon your declarations, beyond mere words of condemnation. While
welcoming such statements of support, we urge you to introduce
practical measures that will demonstrate the European Union's
seriousness in opposing Israel's decision and its recent actions in
the Bethlehem governorate. We, the people of Wadi Fukin, ask for
your assistance to help us not to freeze or delay these plans, but
to completely reverse and annul them, and hence prevent our families
from once more facing the threat of dispossession.
The EU should take concrete and effective measures to meet its legal
obligations and use all the measures it has at its disposal,
including sanctions, to change Israel's policy of regularly
violating international law.
We urge the EU to:
--- ban all trade with illegal Israeli settlements,
--- ensure that European companies stop participating in any Israeli
project in the OPT,
--- freeze the main framework of EU-Israeli economic relations, the
EU-Israel Association Agreement and Horizon 2020 Research Program,
until this decision is completely reversed.
Faithfully yours,
Ahmad Sokkar
Head of the village council of Wadi Fukin, Bethlehem
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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