Settlements | The American Task Force on Palestine

IDF Civil Administration pushing for land takeover in West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Akiva Eldar - July 22, 2011 - 12:00am

The IDF Civil Administration is taking steps to increase state-ownership of West Bank lands, an internal military document reveals. The policy enables increased construction not only around settlement blocs like Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim and Gush Etzion, but also in strategic areas like the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea. Until now it was not known that the administration, which is a military agency, was charged with distinguishing between the blocs Israel is demanding to annex as part of a final-status agreement and the rest of the settlements.

Might some stay?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
July 21, 2011 - 12:00am

EVERY Friday and often after school on other days, Israeli soldiers fire tear-gas and sonic bombs at the Palestinian children as they approach a spring. It sits in a valley that separates Nabi Saleh, an Arab village of 500 people half an hour’s drive north of Jerusalem, from Halamish, a religious Jewish settlement. On most nights jeeps roll through the village; over the past 18 months the Israeli army has detained 32 of its children, some as young as eleven.

Hebron (Walzer)
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Utopian
by Michael Walzer - (Blog) July 20, 2011 - 12:00am

Last week, with a few friends, I visited Hebron, taken there by one of the leaders of Breaking the Silence, the organization of ex-soldiers that aims to educate Israelis about the meaning and character of the Occupation. (Its collection of “testimonies” about IDF conduct in the territories has recently been published.) Toward the end of the visit, while my friends took a quick look at the Tomb of the Patriarchs—I have an aversion to religious shrines—I sat with our guide, drinking coffee in an Arab shop. Settler kids warned us not to sit there; the owner wasn’t a Jew.

EU 'disappointed' in settlement construction
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ynetnews
July 20, 2011 - 12:00am

The European Union on Tuesday expressed "great disappointment" in a tender issued by the Construction and Housing Ministry this week for the construction of 6,900 housing units, including some 300 units in the settlements of Beitar Illit and Karnei Shomron. Maja Kocijancic, spokeswoman for the EU's foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, said that such acts go against the international community's ongoing efforts to form a peaceful solution which will maintain Israel's safety and the Palestinians' right for an independent state.

Israel: Support waning for Palestinian state bid
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Associated Press - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am

Israel's deputy foreign minister says he believes international support for recognizing an independent Palestinian state at the U.N. this fall is waning. Danny Ayalon has been leading Israel's international lobbying effort against the Palestinians. He says he has met with representatives from dozens of countries, and he believes many are not going to vote with the Palestinians. With peace talks stalled, the Palestinians plan to ask U.N. member states to vote for recognition of an independent state. The vote is expected to be largely symbolic, but could isolate Israel.

Jewish settlers are terrorising Palestinians, says Israeli general
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Independent
by Catrina Stewart - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am

A senior Israeli army commander has warned that unchecked "Jewish terror" against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank threatens to plunge the territory into another conflict. In unusually outspoken comments, Major General Avi Mizrahi took aim at extremist Israeli settlers, and said the yeshiva, or religious seminary, in Yitzhar, one of the most radical Jewish strongholds in the West Bank, should be closed, calling it a source of terror against Palestinians.

Lone West Bank pair charged with stopping settler-Palestinian clashes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Hugh Naylor - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am

NABLUS // The job of heading off clashes between Palestinians and Jewish settlers on the outskirts of this venerable West Bank city falls to a small number of employees of the Palestinian Authority's housing and village affairs unit. Two, to be exact. For more than five years, Ghassan Doughlas and his assistant Khader Oweis have toiled to devise ways to support outlying Palestinian villages that bear the brunt of violence from neighbouring Jewish settlements.

Israel plans hundreds more Jewish settler homes
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Alertnet
July 18, 2011 - 12:00am

Israel announced plans on Monday to build another 294 homes in two Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and the Palestinians said the move hardened their resolve to seek statehood recognition from the United Nations. Israel's Housing Ministry linked the new construction to a nationwide plan to lower housing prices, which have skyrocketed in recent years, and appease protesters demanding affordable living space.

Israeli minister says Palestinians losing UN bid
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Associated Press
by Daniel Estrin - July 18, 2011 - 12:00am

JERUSALEM — International support for a planned Palestinian declaration of independence at the U.N. in September is waning, in large part because of intense Israeli lobbying against the initiative, a senior Israeli diplomat claimed Monday.

Settler violence against Palestinians up 57 percent in the West Bank
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Daily Star
by Tom Perry - July 15, 2011 - 12:00am

HUWARA, Occupied West Bank: Scorched hillsides and charred olive groves near Nablus pinpoint the latest acts of arson by hard-line Jewish settlers against Palestinians who say they are ever more the victims of such attacks in the West Bank. “The olive tree is the only source of income for farmers,” said Mohammad Zeban, a Palestinian farmer, lamenting the damage inflicted on hundreds of olive trees by a recent fire near the village of Huwara. “They want to annihilate us.”

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