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<h1 class="title" id="page-title">Villagers facing massive Israeli
land grab urge action from Europe </h1>
<div class="submitted">
<span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2014-10-01T12:32:28+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username"
xml:lang="" about="/users/patrick-strickland"
typeof="sioc:UserAccount" property="foaf:name" datatype="">Patrick
Strickland</span> on Wed, 10/01/2014<br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/villagers-facing-massive-israeli-land-grab-urge-action-europe">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/villagers-facing-massive-israeli-land-grab-urge-action-europe</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</span> </div>
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media-element file-full" style="width:618px;"><br>
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<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/west-bank">Bethlehem</a>.
Along with Jabaa, Nahalin and Surif, much of Wadi Fukin’s land
will be stolen and given to three nearby Jewish-only <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-settlements">settlements</a>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“Until this decision [to confiscate the land] is completely
reversed,” Sokkar is calling on the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/european-union">European
Union</a> 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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Residents have also responded by holding weekly demonstrations
each Friday, which Israeli occupation soldiers have attacked. </p>
<h2>Razed</h2>
<p>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, <a
href="http://www.btselem.org/settlements">according</a> to the
human rights group <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/btselem">B’Tselem</a>.</p>
<p>More than 100 smaller colonies known as “<a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/settlement-outposts">outposts</a>”
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>After suffering repeated attacks from Zionist militias, most
notably the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/haganah">Haganah</a>,
during the early and mid-1940s, Wadi Fukin lost some 9,000
dunams (around 2,225 acres) during the 1948 <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/nakba">Nakba</a>, the
ethnic cleansing of Palestine that led to Israel’s
establishment.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<h2>Dumping sewage</h2>
<p>The indigenous residents of Wadi Fukin — many of whom were
displaced in 1956 to nearby Palestinian communities,
particularly the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/dheisheh-refugee-camp">Dheisheh</a>
refugee camp — were permitted by Israeli occupation authorities
to return to part of the village in 1972.</p>
<p>Two more settlements were subsequently built in the area: <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/beitar-ilit">Betar
Illit</a> in 1984 and Bet Ayin in 1989. Until today, Wadi
Fukin’s inhabitants have faced continuous military harassment,
settler violence and land confiscation.</p>
<p>In 2005, Israeli occupation authorities seized 218 acres of
Wadi Fukin’s land.</p>
<p>Israel’s suffocating restrictions have created continuously
worsening conditions for the indigenous Palestinian population
in Wadi Fukin.</p>
<p> “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.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<h2>No justice</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups have
roundly condemned Israel and called for the cancellation of the
plans.</p>
<p>Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/human-rights-watch">Human
Rights Watch</a>, <a
href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/09/03/israel-reverse-illegal-plans-west-bank">said</a>
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.”</p>
<h2>War crime</h2>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>In a <a
href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/09/03/israel-reverse-illegal-plans-west-bank">press
release</a> 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.”</p>
<p>The human rights group <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/amnesty-international">Amnesty
International</a> <a
href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/israel-must-scrap-illegal-land-grab-west-bank-2014-09-01">also
said</a> the plan to confiscate land in Wadi Fukin must be
“rescinded immediately.”</p>
<p>“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 <a
href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/israel-must-scrap-illegal-land-grab-west-bank-2014-09-01">press
release</a> issued on 1 September.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>The European Union <a
href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4407135,00.html">announced
guidelines</a> for avoiding aid to Israeli settlements in
2013, though the rules have yet to be meaningfully implemented
and <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/eu-sanctions-israeli-settlements-not-state-created-them/13012">do
not address the root causes</a> of Israeli colonialism.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>Full letter</h2>
<p>The full text of the open letter is reproduced below:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>8 September 2014 </p>
<p>Dear Madam, Sir,</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>We urge the EU to:</p>
<p>— ban all trade with illegal Israeli settlements,</p>
<p>— ensure that European companies stop participating in any
Israeli project in the OPT,</p>
<p>— freeze the main framework of EU-Israeli economic relations,
the EU-Israel Association Agreement and Horizon 2020 Research
Program,</p>
<p>until this decision is completely reversed. </p>
<p>Faithfully yours, </p>
<p>Ahmad Sokkar</p>
<p>Head of the village council of Wadi Fukin, Bethlehem</p>
</blockquote>
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