JERUSALEM, Monday, January 07, 2019 (WAFA) – A recent report by the Israeli settlement watchdog group, Peace Now, warned that the Israeli government is allocating Palestinian land in the south of the occupied West Bank for the E2 settlement project that will cut the southern West Bank in half and destroy chances of a two-state solution.
“On December 26, 2018, the State informed the High Court of Justice that the government had allocated to the Ministry of Housing an enormous area of 1,182 dunums south of Bethlehem, near the village of al-Nahla, for the purpose of planning a new settlement (Givat Eitam),” said Peace Now.
“This is a plan known by the diplomatic world and the media as “E2,” which, like the infamous “E1” area that would cut West Bank in half if settled, is considered a plan that, if implemented, could cut in half the southern West Bank and destroy the chances of a two-state solution.”
Peace Now said that the Israeli Ministry of Housing started many years ago preparation for establishing a new settlement of about 2500 units in that area. However, land allocated at the time was small. But, with the new allocation, “a highly significant step in promoting the plan” has been taken, it said.
“The significance of allocating all the land now to the Housing Ministry for planning is that it will be possible to prepare in a few months or a few years a detailed plan to be approved by the planning institutions, after which it will be possible to begin construction,” said Peace Now, which has petitioned the High Court demanding that it be given advance notice by the Israeli Civil Administration, the arm of the military government in the occupied territories, of any intention to allocate the land for settlement purposes.
As part of the petition for publishing allocations for Givat Eitam, which is still pending, said Peace Now, the State has now announced its intention to allocate the land to the Housing Ministry and that within 30 days the allocation will take effect.
“The government is crossing a red line in promoting the new settlement in al-Nahla, which could be a fatal blow to the chances for a two-state solution and an Israeli-Palestinian peace,” said Peace Now reacting to the State announcement. “Moreover, the (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu government is taking a dangerous step to avoid public criticism in Israel and around the world; it is no accident that this and other settlement announcements over the past few days have been done during the Christmas holidays, when the entire Western world is on vacation, and immediately after the elections in Israel were announced.”
The watchdog group said Palestinian landowners of the land lost years of legal battle to keep their land, and yet in spite of this, the land is supposed to be allocated for the use of the Palestinian residents, the protected population under international humanitarian law. Yet, “recent data revealed by Peace Now proves that less than half a percent of the land was allocated to the Palestinians, of which even that was almost always connected to the development of settlements (e.g. compensating Palestinians for taking their private land for the purpose of establishing a settlement). All the rest was allocated for Israeli use.”
Like the E1 plan east of Jerusalem, which is designed to create a corridor from west to east that will sever Palestinian contiguity in the heart of the West Bank, the E2 plan also aims to create a corridor from west to east – from the settlements of Gush Etzion, through the settlement of Efrat and eastward to the settlements of Tekoa and Nokdim (south of Bethlehem towards Hebron), said Peace Now.
M.K.
