By Jennifer Thompson
As the third anniversary of the Oslo peace accords between the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel approaches, and PLO President Yasser Arafat meets the new Israeli prime minister for the first time, the Israeli government is aggressively expanding settlements in the Palestinian territories.
It announced on August 27 that it would construct 900 new housing units in Kiryat Safeer settlement west of Ramallah. According to the August 30 Palestine Report, the Israeli press reported that the 900 units will be followed by the building of another 906 after adequate infrastructure is established.
The Israeli government announced in the last week of July that it would resume subsidising Israeli settlers and begin construction of two massive highways through the northern half of the West Bank before December.
On August 2, the Israeli cabinet voted unanimously to cancel restrictions on building and development in settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The settlers' Yesha Council had announced plans the previous week to increase the number of settlers in the West Bank and Gaza to 500,000 in the next four years. Two thousand apartments in West Bank settlements which had already been constructed but which Labour would not allow to be sold are now on the market.
The network of settlers' bypass roads, allowing them to travel in the Palestinian territories without encountering Palestinians, was begun by Labour and has already swallowed vast areas of confiscated lands. According to Middle East International's Peretz Kidron, Likud Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu favours planting settlers along the bypass roads — "ribbon" development.
Palestinian Authority local government minister Saeb Erekat attacked the August 27 decision, accusing Israel of aiming to "ruin the peace process". The Israeli decision came only two days after settlers added 11 caravans to Ofra settlement near Ramallah and Beit Haggai settlement near Hebron, said Palestine Report. They were among 300 that will be added to settlements in the West Bank in the coming weeks.
The Likud government, elected in May, has been promising to reactivate the peace process while simultaneously violating agreements on one of the most critical issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict — that of the eventual fate of the settlements, slated for discussion in the final phase of the Oslo timetable, which was to have begun in May.
"We see how these mobile homes become permanent", PA legislative councillor Hanan Ashrawi said. "You cannot say you are part of a peace process based on land for peace, and continue to confiscate land."
"The world and Israel must understand that there are two issues which could end the peace process ... Jerusalem and settlement", said PLO Executive Committee member Faisal Husseini.
Netanyahu has not hidden his intention to increase settlements and settler numbers. Referring to the increase from 100,000 to 145,000 settlers during Labour's 1992-1996 government, Netanyahu reportedly asked US President Bill Clinton during his recent US visit, "Do you expect my government to do less?". According to Kidron, Netanyahu's "present term of office in 2000 could end with over 200,000 Israelis firmly ensconced in the territories".
Netanyahu justified land confiscation and building roads, in apparent breach of the Oslo accords' stipulation against changing the facts on the ground, in a recent interview with the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds. Netanyahu told the paper, "The Oslo Accords did not mention any restrictions on this issue ... Oslo does not talk about settlements at all. Oslo does not outline the policy of opening a road or building housing units; we decide on these issues ..."
In the first week of August, Israeli infrastructure minister Ariel Sharon reportedly ordered the Land Authority to buy "any available land" on either side of the Green Line marking Israel's borders following the 1948 war. He announced plans for two major roads through the West Bank, one north of Jerusalem and the other a "Trans-Samaria" highway which will divide the West Bank in half. He had announced on July 30 plans to build a new city, Beit Gufreen Kibbutz, on the Green Line and plans to build two bridges in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
The Israeli government announcements have given new impetus to settlers' land grabbing activities. One week after the partial ban on new settlements was lifted, construction work began near West Bank settlements; new land was confiscated, either by court order or by the sheer force of armed settlers; and empty houses in settlements were occupied.
By mid-August, Palestinian villagers in the north of the West Bank reported new settlers arriving in Salit and Avnei Hefetz settlements in the Tulkarem area and Rebaba, near Nablus. Eviction orders were given to landowners in Tubas, near Nablus; Israeli authorities confiscated and sealed off land belonging to the villages of Al Janyah and Ras Karkar, near Ramallah; and settlers' leaders said that they had asked defence minister Yitzhak Mordechai to ratify dozens of plans to expand settlements, especially in the north and centre of the West Bank.
In the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Israeli authorities began levelling 18 hectares of agricultural land for a bypass road leading to the settlement of Morag. On August 9, hundreds of Gaza Strip residents conducted Friday prayers on the threatened land. Gazan women organised a protest march on August 14. The protesters called on the PA to move quickly to confront the Israeli settlement "monster".
The first of 300 caravans were set up near Jerusalem in the third week of August, the nucleus for a new settlement to be called Neve Shmoel. Khalil Tufakji, a Palestinian geographer, said that the new settlement would extend Givat Ze'ev settlement, continuing the ring being built around Palestinian Jerusalem.
According to the August 23 Palestine Report, large areas of land belonging to the villages of Samu'a and Sa'ir, near Hebron, are slated for confiscation for the construction of two new bypass roads. Landowners have been served confiscation orders from the Israeli military administration. When the roads are constructed, there will be eight bypass roads in the Hebron area, said Tufakji.
According to the same report, the settlement of Bet El, near Ramallah, will soon be enlarged to accommodate 50 large housing units, a sports centre and a cultural centre. The new area will be built on land which has been confiscated along the main Ramallah-Nablus road.
According to an earlier Palestine Report, settlers will resume a plan to build 1026 housing units near the village of Al-Khader, near Bethlehem. The settlement of Efrat has so far swallowed 18 hectares of Al-Khader land.
Settlement in and around Jerusalem is a key strategy for Israel, aiming to push Palestinians out of the city and expand its borders, before talks on its final status begin. In early August, Israeli interior minister Eli Souisa said that he would do his utmost to encourage settlements in all parts of Jerusalem.
Palestinian opposition to the announcements was reflected in a general strike called throughout the Palestinian territories on August 29, accompanied by other protests.
Egypt has also been pressing Israel to continue the peace process in good faith, and in late August gave Israel three weeks to "achieve the desired progress on all [peace] tracks, especially the Palestinian track", reported the state-run Evening Al-Ahram. If Israel did not keep its promises, the Third Economic Conference for the Middle East and North Africa, to be held this year in Cairo in November and in which Israel would participate, might be cancelled, President Mubarak had warned earlier.