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Jerusalem Post: "Peace Now to Israelis: 'Settlements aren't Obama's problem, they're yours'" & Ynet: "Peace Now: Settlements are a burden on Israel"

Movement launches new campaign aimed at reminding public of security, diplomatic and economic cost of settlement project

Jerusalem Post: "Peace Now to Israelis: 'Settlements aren't Obama's problem, they're yours'"

Jul. 14, 2009
JPost.com Staff

The Peace Now movement launched a new campaign on Tuesday, calling on Israelis to push for a freeze on settlement construction.

The campaign focuses around the slogan: "Settlements are not Obama's problem, not the world's problem, but your problem."

At a press conference held in Jerusalem Tuesday morning, Peace Now chair Yariv Oppenheimer said, "The Israeli public has been brainwashed, first by the Labor party, and then by Kadima, Likud and obviously the right-wing parties, that settlement building is in the nation's interest."

"We want to remind the Israeli public that settlements are a fundamental obstacle to reaching a two-state solution," he went on.

Jerusalem Post: "'Settlements aren't Obama's problem'"

Jul. 14, 2009
by Tovah Lazaroff

Under the slogan "Not Obama's. Not the world's. Settlement activity is an Israeli problem," Peace Now launched a new campaign Tuesday designed to show how the settlements are a stumbling block to peace.

The issue of settlements has to be solved for internal Israeli reasons, which have nothing to do with pressure from US President Barack Obama or the international community, said Peace Now secretary-general Yariv Oppenheimer.

"Anyone who believes in the two-state solution must support a settlement freeze," because the only alternative is a one-state solution, said Oppenheimer.

His group, he said, plans to take out billboard and newspaper ads against the settlements, presenting them as a financial, diplomatic and security problem.

If Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is sincere when he says he wants a two-state solution, he should freeze settlement activity, said Oppenheimer.

Hagit Ofran of Peace Now warned that by 2015 the number of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Israel was likely to exceed the number of Jews, by 51.5 percent to 48.5%. She said that these projections were based on numbers from the Central Bureau of Statistics in Israel and the PA.

If the West Bank is not given to the Palestinians, Jews will become a minority within their own state, she said.

Financially, she said, the settlements have been a burden, and over the years they have cost the government NIS 100 billion. In the 2009-10 draft budget, between NIS 1b. and NIS 3b. were to be spent on the settlements. Of this, only NIS 1b. has been clearly accounted for.

Turning to the 100 unauthorized outposts in the West Bank, Ofran claimed that 700 soldiers guarded 36 of them.

However, her facts on the campaign itself came under heavy attack from demographer Yoram Ettinger and the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.

Ettinger called the Peace Now figures "absolute nonsense," asserting that the Palestinian population figures in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip used to make the argument were inflated. He estimated that last year, Jews made up 59% of the population on either side of the green line, compared with Peace Now's estimate of 51%.

Dani Dayan, who heads the Council, said he found it outrageous that Peace Now would talk about how settlements were an internal Israeli problem when the group relied on funds from Europe.

With respect to the number of soldiers guarding unauthorized outposts, he said, based on Peace Now's figures, there would be 20 soldiers assigned to each of those 36 outposts.

People living in those communities are entitled to protection, he said, but the numbers "have no foundation, they are a gross exaggeration."

The IDF refused to confirm the Peace Now statistics regarding the unauthorized outposts, but said it protected Israeli citizens no matter who they were and where they were. It added that it based its treatment of the outposts on directives from the political echelon.



Ynet: "Peace Now: Settlements are a burden on Israel"

Movement launches new campaign aimed at reminding public of security, diplomatic and economic cost of settlement project

by Efrat Weiss

"Not Obama's. Not the world's. The settlements are your problem" - this is the slogan chosen to lead Peace Now's new media campaign against the Israeli expansion in the West Bank.
 
The movement's Secretary General Yaniv Oppenheimer explained at a press conference Tuesday that the campaign aims to "wake up the public, who's forgotten that freezing construction in the settlements serves the Israeli interest, first and foremost."
 
He added that the campaign, which addresses the diplomatic, security and economic cost of the settlements, sends the message that not all the Israeli public stands behind the settlement project. In time the organization plans to start staging demonstrations within the Green Line and in settlements and outposts.

According to Peace Now, at the end of 2008, 52% of the population living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea were Jewish and 48% were Palestinian. If natural growth in the area continues at the same rate, by 2015 the situation is expected to be reversed - with 51.5% Palestinians and 48.5% Jews.

'Settlements are a burden'

The movement said this would be the end of the Jewish State. Therefore, they said, Israel should actively pursue the two-state solution, to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was committed in his Bar Ilan policy speech. And since the settlements are an obstacle to this solution, their expansion should be halted.
 
On the security level, Peace Now said that there was currently a need to evacuate 100 illegal outposts, which house some 4,000 people. They claimed that at least 36 outposts were constantly being guarded by 700 soldiers.

Economically speaking, the group stated that over NIS 100 billion (roughly $25 billion) have been invested in the settlements over the years.
 
"The settlements are a security burden and soldiers died to protect them. I call on the opposition, Kadima and Meretz to start acting on the matter immediately," said Peace Now's Mossi Raz.