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Settlements in Focus - Vol. 2, Issue 15: "...Questions Answered on the Report on Settlement Construction on Privately Palestinian Land"

12/29/06 Settlements in Focus For the Record: Peace Now Answers Questions about its Report on Settlement Construction on Privately-Owned Palestinian Property (Vol. 2, Issue 15)A publication of Americans for Peace Now On November 21st the Israel Peace Now Movement's Settlements Watch team released a report entitled "Breaking the Law in the West Bank - One Violation Leads to Another." The report was broken in a front page, above-the-fold article in the ...

12/29/06


Settlements in Focus

For the Record: Peace Now Answers Questions about its Report on Settlement Construction on Privately-Owned Palestinian Property (Vol. 2, Issue 15)
A publication of Americans for Peace Now


On November 21st the Israel Peace Now Movement's Settlements Watch team released a report entitled "Breaking the Law in the West Bank - One Violation Leads to Another." The report was broken in a front page, above-the-fold article in the New York Times (http://www.peacenow.org/hot.asp?cid=3187).

Since then, the report has generated overwhelmingly positive coverage, along with some criticism, primarily from the settlers, their supporters, and right-wing U.S. organizations. Peace Now's Settlements Watch director Dror Etkes addresses some of the major questions raised about the report in this special issue of Settlements in Focus.

Some critics have challenged the definition of "private land" used by Peace Now in its recent report. Can you clarify what definition you used and why it is consistent with the official Israeli government definition?

The issue of land ownership in the West Bank is indeed complicated, in no small part because Israel closed the land registry process shortly after taking control of the West Bank in 1967, making it impossible for Palestinian owners to register private property. For more on this issue, see B'tselem's Report, "Land Grab," pp. 38-39 http://www.btselem.org/Download/200205_Land_Grab_Eng.doc.

However, with respect to the Settlements Watch report, the simple fact is that Peace Now did not come up with its own definition of "private land" or make any of its own judgments about what land should be considered "private." Rather, the report is based entirely on information which the Civil Administration had gathered, mapped, and created as GIS data (digital geographic information system data, with ownership data superimposed on images of the terrain).

Examination of the Civil Administration's data leaves no question about what the State of Israel views as "private land." The Civil Administration has categorized as "private land" land that falls into one of two categories: parcels which have been formally registered by their owners before Israel closed the land registry process in 1967 (keeping in mind that only about one-third of West Bank land was registered at that time, for a variety of reasons, including efforts to avoid paying taxes to Ottoman authorities and complicated joint ownership arrangements), and parcels that have been continuously cultivated by their owners, establishing a status of legally-recognized de facto ownership. For more details, see p. 8 of the Settlements Watch report, available at: http://www.peacenow.org.il/data/SIP_STORAGE/files/9/2569.pdf

It is important to point out that no governmental official or body has claimed that the data used by Peace Now is not genuine. In fact, government officials have validated the report's findings according to some press reports. Ha'aretz, for example, reported that "Senior officials in the Israeli Civil Administration confirm the reliability of the data and the conclusion to be drawn from them."

For the full Civil Administration reaction to the report, see: http://www.peacenow.org.il/data/SIP_STORAGE/files/5/2605.doc.

For the Settlements Watch response to the Civil Administration's reaction, see: http://www.peacenow.org.il/data/SIP_STORAGE/files/6/2606.doc.

Peace Now has publicly urged those who have questioned the data upon which the report is based - including the definition of "private land" - to join us in demanding that the government of Israel officially release the data for all the review.

Some critics have charged that the data are questionable because your source is unnamed. Why did you use an unnamed source and why do you still believe that the data are solid?

Settlements Watch was given the digital data from a trustworthy third party who received it directly from the Civil Administration. For the obvious reason of source protection, we cannot expose the identity of this third party.

After receiving the data, we conducted a due diligence exercise to verify the validity of the data. This involved:

  • comparing the leaked database with data available from other sources, such as maps showing juridical boundaries of settlements. In every case we found that the digital data is consistent with the other available information. Examples can be seen in the end of the PowerPoint presentation which is available on http://www.peacenow.org.il/data/SIP_STORAGE/files/4/2624.ppt
  • looking at specific cases on the ground (control/test cases) and making sure that the facts on the ground corresponded to the information in the database. For example, for a given case, we went into the West Bank and verified for ourselves whether areas which are cultivated by Palestinians, or were cultivated until recent years, are indeed also recorded as "private" land in the database; in every case we checked, the reality on the ground corresponded with the data.
  • using information provided to Settlements Watch directly by the Civil Administration (in response to specific queries about specific sites) as a tool to calibrate the authenticity and accuracy of the database; in every case, these "samples" - data previously provided to us by the Civil Administration - corresponded with the leaked database.
  • comparing our findings with the findings of Talia Sasson - the Israeli attorney assigned by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to complete a comprehensive review of the situation in the West Bank with respect to the illegal settlement "outposts." In every case the information in the database was consistent with information presented in Sasson's report. For details of the Sasson Report, see http://www.peacenow.org/hot.asp?cid=390)

Based on our confidence in the source which provided the data, plus the cross-referencing we performed with other reliable data, Settlements Watch is confident that the data are genuine and that there can be no doubt that its source is indeed the Civil Administration. If the data do include any inaccuracies, they are the result of human error on the part of the Civil Administration's mapping unit.

Again, Peace Now has publicly urged those who have questioned the data upon which the report is based to join us in demanding that the government of Israel officially release the data for all the review.

Why didn't you hold off on issuing the report until you could obtain the data formally and verify officially that they are valid?

The Settlements Watch team sought to officially obtain the data from the Civil Administration, filing a request under Israel's law of the "freedom of information." The Civil Administration refused to comply with our request, forcing us to turn to the courts, where we have long experience challenging Israeli government policy with respect to the settlements. We petitioned the Court to compel the Civil Administration to turn over the data. In response, the government insisted to the Court that the data should not be turned over to Settlements Watch, and engaged in delay tactics, arguing that "The issue of the petition is a complex and most sensitive issue, where, among others, security considerations and foreign relations aspects of the State of Israel are concerned. In order to formulate a position in this case, the Respondents requires additional discussions..." (Emphasis Added)

Settlements Watch does not believe that the issue of the petition is especially complex - it involves what should in any case be public data (land ownership data is indeed fully public for areas west of the Green Line). Moreover, in a democracy where the government is accountable to its citizens, it is deeply troubling that the state would argue that such facts are so "sensitive" that they should not be subject to any public oversight, especially when it appears that withholding the data reflects, at least in part, an effort to cover up gross governmental malfeasance.

In looking at the question of whether to wait for a court decision (and hope that the Court eventually will rule in our favor) or proceed with the leaked data, Settlements Watch examined the state's position and drew three conclusions: first, the state is deliberately withholding the data; second, the state recognizes that the data reveal governmental malfeasance (either by deliberate policy or by turning a blind eye to violations); and third, based on past experience, it is reasonable to assume that the state will employ a further delaying tactics to avoid having the Court compel it to hand over the data.

Based on these conclusions, and with the data in hand and its authenticity verified to our own satisfaction, we made the decision to go ahead and publish now.

It has been suggested that much of the land that is categorized in the report as privately-owned by Palestinians may in fact be owned by Jews, who bought it from Palestinians who now fraudulently claim to still own it. How can you be sure that the land marked in red on the maps is in fact owned by Palestinians and not Jews?

The land registry for the areas in question - designated "Area C" of the West Bank (areas under full Israeli control) - is not open to the public. As noted above, this is in contrast to the situation in Israel itself (west of the Green Line) where anyone can check to see who owns every parcel and block of land in the country. It is thus indeed difficult to ascertain the ownership of a particular parcel and it is indeed possible that some parcels may have been sold, including to Jewish owners.

Assuming such claims surface, they will have to be dealt with on their merits - something that will require transparency in the land registry process, as requested from the beginning by Peace Now.

Some say that there is nothing new in the report - that the status of some of the land on which settlements are built has always been "disputed." What is new here? Is it just the magnitude of the issue?

The Settlement of Ofra

(& the illegal outposts of Amona, Beit Gadud, Ofra North East)

It is dishonest and disconnected from reality to say there is nothing new here. Certainly before the report was published, many or even most Israelis probably took it for granted that the settlements infringe on Palestinian property rights. However, it is unlikely that anyone would have guessed that the extent of the land grab - calculated conservatively here, since we are relying only on Israeli sources and ignoring the very problematic issue of land seized as "state land" - would be so massive. So the magnitude of the problem is certainly an issue. As noted earlier, the word "disputed" has no relevance here - there is no dispute in the data over the official status of the land in question. Land which the Civil Administration considers "private" is clearly indicated as such. The only dispute is between the official data and the reality on the ground, as it was been showed in the report: namely, that so much land used by the settlements is actually land that even the state recognizes is privately-owned by Palestinians.

More important, however, is the question of the government of Israel's role in this large-scale land theft. While in the past Palestinians have charged that their land was being stolen for settlements (and blamed the settlers for the theft), the Israeli government has generally responded by (a) asserting, as a simple fact, that settlements are not being built on private land, and (b) by arguing that land disputes are difficult to resolve, since land ownership is complicated and hard to verify. The Settlements Watch report is important - and controversial - first and foremost because it proves, using official Israeli government data, that the government of Israel maintains detailed information about private Palestinian land ownership in the West Bank and has knowingly disregarded this information in order to hand over privately-owned land to the settlers. It also shows that the State of Israel is actively trying to conceal evidence of this reality.

Indeed, attacks on the report by settler advocates are somewhat puzzling, since the report actually bolsters the argument that if one is looking to blame someone for the taking Palestinian land in order to build settlements, they should blame successive governments of Israel and official government policies, rather than make the settlers into a scapegoat.

Some say that the report is not really a big deal, politically or practically. Land disputes can be sorted out by the Israeli courts and Palestinians who think there is Jewish construction on their land can go to court to make their case.

It is an insult to Israel and Israeli democracy to say that this case is not a "big deal" politically. We think it is a very big deal when the government of a democratic state blatantly disregards its own laws. We think it is also a very "big deal" when that same government tries to hide its actions from public review by declaring the evidence of the crime too "sensitive" to be revealed. Israel is a democracy where rule of law is one of the basic tenets of the society. Israelis and supporters of Israel should be alarmed to learn about these systematic violations of the rule of law by the government of Israel, and they should be alarmed that the government now appears to want to cover up the issue by claiming the facts are too sensitive to bear public scrutiny. The fact that the state chose to flout Israeli law for the benefit of the settlements - whose very purpose is to block the establishment of a viable Palestinian state and which today pose a great challenge to achieving any real "separation" between Israel and the Palestinians - only compounds the offense.

Practically speaking, the report is also a very "big deal." Israel is currently constructing a security barrier that attaches large "settlement blocs" to Israel - areas which are supposedly part of the Israeli "popular consensus" regarding territory that will eventually be annexed to Israel. However, construction of the barrier is not the same as legal annexation of the land, and based on the findings of this report, efforts to annex much of the land may prove legally problematic, since much of the area in these settlement blocs - including large areas on which settlements have been built - is private land owned by Palestinians. This is the case in Ma'ale Adumim, where 87% of the settlement's land is recognized by the government as private land. It is also the case in Ariel (35% of its land is private) and Givat Ze'ev (44% of its land is private). All told, the percentage of private land in the settlements which are west of the barrier - land Israel is expected to eventually try to annex - is even higher than the percentage of private land in settlements east of the barrier (41.2% vs. 36.4%).

Some have criticized the timing of the report. The country just fought an ugly and demoralizing war in Lebanon, is still facing off against Hamas and Palestinian extremists in Gaza, and is facing the threat of a nuclear Iran. Why did Peace Now decide this was a good time to issue this report?

We believe that, for Israel's sake, information like the data contained in our report should not be hidden, but rather it should be widely disseminated, forcing the people and government to confront the consequences of these misguided policies, ensuring that the policies do not continue, and beginning the process of figuring out how the damage can be undone.

Anyone who follows the situation in Israel and the Middle East knows that there is never a "good" or "right" time to come out with this type of report. Moreover, it should be recognized that some supporters of Israel, both in Israel and abroad, simply cannot countenance any public criticism of Israeli behavior, viewing such criticism as a betrayal of the country, rather than evidence of Israel's vibrant democracy and strong civil society.

Settlements Watch would have preferred that the land theft policies documented in our report had never been put into practice in the first place, or that somewhere along the way a brave government would have put a stop to them and rectified the wrongs that had already taken place. Unfortunately, we are dealing not with what we wish had happened but with the reality on the ground today, and that reality does not reflect positively on the government of Israel.

Certainly the Settlements Watch report has been explosive, and certainly it has focused worldwide attention on some very unflattering aspects of Israeli policy, past and present, in the West Bank. However, real supporters of Israel should not be afraid of criticizing Israeli policy or worry about being accused of airing the nation's dirty laundry in public. Israel is a vibrant democracy, with a strong and independent judiciary, an active and representative parliament (the Knesset), and a government that is, like any democratic government, responsible to its citizens. A healthy democracy, such as the one that exists in Israel, is strengthened, not threatened, by challenges from organizations that are part of its civil society. Hiding from the truth, or seeking to hide the truth, is dangerous and debilitating to democracy and civil society in any country, including Israel.

Why didn't Peace Now just take the information to Israeli authorities and the Israeli courts, rather than turning to the pages of newspapers around the world?

As detailed earlier, Peace Now is already pursuing a case in the Israeli courts to try to get the data related to this report officially released. Thus far the state is not cooperating. Given this experience, it seems unrealistic to suggest that resorting to the courts to deal with the conclusions of this report is in any way a serious option at this stage.

As for the decision to take the case to the international press, our goal was not to issue yet another interesting report that would become a footnote in the historical record, but rather to issue a report that would change the terms of the debate altogether. In making our decision, we took into account our close familiarity with the Israeli mainstream press and the way it deals with stories related both the settlements and violations of Palestinian rights. The sad reality is that, given the understandable focus on Israelis' own suffering and problems during these difficult times, there is very little interest in or appetite for such stories in the Israeli media.

For this reason, we chose to offer the first look at our report to the most important and credible paper in the world, the New York Times. We were gratified that the Times believed the story was sufficiently important to run on the front page of the paper, above-the-fold, with a large photo. It should be understood that prior to running the story, NYT staff spent many hours with Settlements Watch, establishing for themselves the credibility of our data and our conclusions.


Produced by Lara Friedman, Americans for Peace Now,
and Dror Etkes, Peace Now