Jewish Colonisation & Illegal Settlements

JEWISH COLONISATION AND ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS
INTRODUCTION

In the late 19th Century, Palestine was divided into three northern Sancaks (Beirut, Acre and Balqa) which were part of the larger Vilayet of Beirut. Jerusalem was an independent Sancak of its own in the south. In those days, Palestine was neither large nor prosperous. It had a population of 500,000 Arabs. The late 1880’s saw the beginning of Jewish colonisation, spurred on by persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia and the genesis of the Zionist movement in Western Europe.
In 1918 there were 644,000 Arabs (92% of the total population) and 56,000 Jews (8%) with the Jews establishing their settlements in the lowlands, on approximately 2% of the land. This was facilitated via moshavot, privately owned villages and collective farms, known as kibbutzim. These were the prototypes for building illegal settlements on Arab land.
Together with the Arabs, the British drove out the Ottomans in 1920 and The League of Nations mandated Britain to govern Palestine with the proviso of establishing a national home in Palestine for the Jews, in accordance with the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 (see previous postings). The Palestinian Arabs understandably resented this, especially in the 1930’s, when massive numbers of Jews began arriving from Germany. The futile efforts by the British to stop this mass immigration were in vain and land transfer to the Jews, likewise. In May 1948, Jewish ownership of the land had increased to 6% from the 2% of 1918. The boundaries with Lebanon were drawn up in 1920 and agreed in an Anglo-French Convention; the boundary delimited in 1923. The boundary with Transjordan was delimited in 1922 and the boundary with Egypt remained unchanged. This meant that Palestine consisted of 25,900 square kilometres. This is not coterminous with Biblical Palestine or the former Ottoman districts.

The conflict of May 1948, resulted in Israeli control of 77% of the former Palestine, contrary to the 56% given to the Jews under the United Nations partition plan of 1947. 600,000 Arabs were forced to flee from Israel, leaving only 160,000 Arabs inside the new State of Israel. In 1948 Israel’s population had increased to 915,000. 83% were Jews and 17% Arab. The 1967 Arab-Israeli war left Israel in possession of Sinai and Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. All three were colonised; 22 settlements of 4,000 Jewish settlers in Sinai, a source of revenue through tourism, the Gulf of Aqaba and Rafah plundered for its rich agriculture and 100,000 Syrians fled for their lives from the Golan Heights. The West Bank, occupied since 1967, is the Arab land most coveted by Israel, because of its importance and natural position, to be a heartland for any future Palestinian State; Jerusalem being its natural capital.
Illegal Israeli settlement policies pursued the template of the Alon (sometimes called Allon) plan, establishing moshavim and kibbutzim along the Jordan Valley,until 1977 and ran parallel with a campaign of forced migration by Bush Emunin through terrorism. The group became famous for a failed attempt to blow up the Dome of the Rock and the massacre at the Islamic College of Hebron, a revenge attack for the murder of a Jewish student. The group (a terrorist organisation) sprayed machine-gun fire into the college and tossed in a hand grenade, killing three students and wounding thirty-three more. They were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1983 but had their sentences commuted a total of four times resulting in their release in 1990, by Chaim Herzog.

In 1980, the restrictions on Jews purchasing private land were lifted and the Jewish West Bank population rose from 12,000 in 1980 to 45,000 in 1985. Long-term plans were drawn up for dozens more villages and a half-dozen towns to accommodate 100,000 Jews. In 1997, Matitiyahou Drobless, head of The World Zionist Organisation Settlement Division, prepared his first comprehensive plan for establishing colonies throughout the West Bank and beyond. The majority of these were built on the central mountain ridge and around Palestinian population centres. Drobless proposed high volume traffic arteries to connect Israel to the West Bank and beyond. The Jews ultimate goal was explained to Time Magazine, March 1980 by the economic editor of the Jerusalem Post, Meir Merhav,”...is to be carved up by a grid of settlements and strongholds into a score of little Bantustans so that [The Palestinians] shall never coalesce again into a contiguous area that can support autonomous, let alone, independent existence.”
The majority of Jewish settlements are of a “community” type known as yishuv kehillati focussing on light industrial entrepreneurships and involve commuting daily to Israeli urban centres with very little agricultural activity. The systematic repeating of these communities through illegal settlements has led to a network of new roads, water and electric supplies servicing the Jewish settlements but neglecting the Arab ones instead, affecting them adversely; with cases of Israeli sewage infecting the Arab water supply. Israeli capital investment in the Jerusalem suburbs is increasing daily, the prospect of the return of these suburbs to the Arabs seems highly unlikely.

Sources: Blake, G. Dewdney, J. Mitchell, J. THE CAMBRIDGE ATLAS of the MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA. Cambridge University Press CAMBRIDGE 1987

THE NEW YORK TIMES, 27th December 1990, Section A; page 3

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