JDHURF
11th March 2008, 05:58
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! reports that Israel has openly announced new neo-colonial settlement construction within the West Bank:
Israel Announces New West Bank Settlement Construction
In Israel and the Occupied Territories, Israel has announced the construction of hundreds of new homes in a Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank. It’s the third time Israel has openly announced new settlement-building since renewing US-backed peace talks with Palestinian leaders last November. Israel agreed to freeze settlement construction under the US-backed road map. But it now says the freeze only applies to those settlements it doesn’t want to keep.
As Noam Chomsky observes, "the guiding principle of the occupation has been incessant and degrading humiliation, along with torture, terror, destruction of property, displacement and settlement, and takeover of basic resources, crucially water." There can be no serious discussion of a peace process, of the two-state settlement, when Israel is actively carrying out policies which denigrate the basis of the two-state settlement. Not to mention that Israel's expansion is in violation of international law and every UN resolution related to the Israel-Palestine conflict and no argument can be made that Palestinian terrorist actions, such as the shooting of qassam rockets into Sderot, provoke or necessitate Israeli expansion.
Chomsky continues:
Harvard’s Sara Roy, as she writes that under the terms of disengagement, Gazans are virtually sealed within the Strip, while West Bankers, their lands dismembered by relentless Israeli settlement, will continue to be penned into fragmented geographic spaces, isolated behind and between walls and barriers.
Her judgment is affirmed by Israel’s leading specialist on the West Bank, Meron Benvenisti, who writes that ‘the separation walls snaking through the West Bank will create three Bantustans’ (his words): north, central and south, all virtually separated from East Jerusalem, the center of Palestinian commercial, cultural and political life. And he adds that this, what he calls the soft transfer from Jerusalem, that is an unavoidable result of the separation wall, might achieve its goal. Quoting still, ‘the goal of disintegration of the Palestinian community, after many earlier attempts, have failed.’ ‘The human disaster being planned,’ he continues, ‘will turn hundreds of thousands of people into a sullen community, hostile, and nurturing a desire for revenge.’ So, another example of the sacrifice of security through expansion that’s been going on for a long time.
It is not only [i]wrong, Israel's expansionist program, but, in fact, self-destructive. Anyone who is concerned with the security and livelihood of both Palestinian and Israeli citizens and who seeks a peaceful resolution to the conflict must necessarily oppose Israel's program of expansion, of further stealing Palestinian land and resources, imprisoning Palestinians in their own land, and demand that serious negotiations be resumed, which means that UN resolutions must be respected by both Palestinians and Israelis.
Israel Announces New West Bank Settlement Construction
In Israel and the Occupied Territories, Israel has announced the construction of hundreds of new homes in a Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank. It’s the third time Israel has openly announced new settlement-building since renewing US-backed peace talks with Palestinian leaders last November. Israel agreed to freeze settlement construction under the US-backed road map. But it now says the freeze only applies to those settlements it doesn’t want to keep.
As Noam Chomsky observes, "the guiding principle of the occupation has been incessant and degrading humiliation, along with torture, terror, destruction of property, displacement and settlement, and takeover of basic resources, crucially water." There can be no serious discussion of a peace process, of the two-state settlement, when Israel is actively carrying out policies which denigrate the basis of the two-state settlement. Not to mention that Israel's expansion is in violation of international law and every UN resolution related to the Israel-Palestine conflict and no argument can be made that Palestinian terrorist actions, such as the shooting of qassam rockets into Sderot, provoke or necessitate Israeli expansion.
Chomsky continues:
Harvard’s Sara Roy, as she writes that under the terms of disengagement, Gazans are virtually sealed within the Strip, while West Bankers, their lands dismembered by relentless Israeli settlement, will continue to be penned into fragmented geographic spaces, isolated behind and between walls and barriers.
Her judgment is affirmed by Israel’s leading specialist on the West Bank, Meron Benvenisti, who writes that ‘the separation walls snaking through the West Bank will create three Bantustans’ (his words): north, central and south, all virtually separated from East Jerusalem, the center of Palestinian commercial, cultural and political life. And he adds that this, what he calls the soft transfer from Jerusalem, that is an unavoidable result of the separation wall, might achieve its goal. Quoting still, ‘the goal of disintegration of the Palestinian community, after many earlier attempts, have failed.’ ‘The human disaster being planned,’ he continues, ‘will turn hundreds of thousands of people into a sullen community, hostile, and nurturing a desire for revenge.’ So, another example of the sacrifice of security through expansion that’s been going on for a long time.
It is not only [i]wrong, Israel's expansionist program, but, in fact, self-destructive. Anyone who is concerned with the security and livelihood of both Palestinian and Israeli citizens and who seeks a peaceful resolution to the conflict must necessarily oppose Israel's program of expansion, of further stealing Palestinian land and resources, imprisoning Palestinians in their own land, and demand that serious negotiations be resumed, which means that UN resolutions must be respected by both Palestinians and Israelis.