Settlements threaten Middle East peace
On December 20, three countries voted against the UN General Assembly resolution which expressed support for the Middle East peace process and called for a final settlement under which Israel would withdraw from "the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, and from the other occupied Arab territories". The resolution also said settlements were illegal, and called them an obstacle to peace.
The three countries which opposed the resolution were Israel, the United States and the Dominican Republic.
On the one hand, Israel agreed to make resolution 242 and the exchange of land for peace the basis of the Declaration of Principles, without specifying what it meant by them. On the other hand, the swiftly multiplying facts on the ground suggest that as far as the Labor government is concerned, many of the settlements are here to stay.
When Rabin met with them on December 16, he encouraged residents in the 27 Jordan Valley settlements originally established by the Labor Party to expand their presence and feel secure for the future. Israel is widening a temporary bypass road three kilometres from the Jordanian border. Eventually a permanent road will enable settlers to travel through the Jordan Valley without going through areas of Palestinian autonomy.
The Israeli Housing Ministry has announced plans to spend a huge $660 million on new roads to link up the settlements. Recently thousands of acres of Palestinian land have been confiscated — partly for new road-building and partly for settlement expansion. At a press conference in Jerusalem on January 24, the Palestine Human Rights Information Centre revealed that 45,000 dunums (4500 hectares) of West Bank land had been confiscated since September 13. Sixty-three houses had been demolished in that period.
Israel is pushing ahead with its plans to build 15,000 new houses which will be part of an unbroken band of settlements around East Jerusalem to Ma'aleh Adumim and perhaps beyond to the border of Jericho. In this way "Jerusalem" will swallow up to a third of the West Bank.
[Abridged from Breaking the Siege, newsletter of the Middle East Justice Network.]