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Middle East Peace Report- December 7, 2009

Volume 11, Issue 12

Fear of Settler Violence; What Happens in Ten Months?; No Action on Outposts; Government Settlement Construction Down; Settlements Undermine Israel's Standing; Jerusalem Tensions

Fear of Settler Violence: A special meeting of leaders from various organs of Israel's security services was recently convened concerning the personal safety of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
 
The meeting was called in light of the protests against Netanyahu's initiative to stop most new construction in settlements.
 
One senior security official told Ma'ariv that the primary concern is that the opposition declared by the settlers and the leaders of the Settlers Council will be construed by some "errant weeds" as a green light to pull the trigger.
 
Settlers Council Chairman Danny Dayan likened the construction moratorium to British efforts to limit immigration to Palestine during World War II. Another leader of the settlements, Binyamin Regional Council Chairman Avi Roeh termed the Israeli policy a "wretched decree, which is tantamount to an edict of religious persecution."
 
Itzik Shadmi, chairman of the Binyamin's Residents Committee, called on settlers to build in violation of the new policy. "All that is built will be approved retroactively by the council chairmen after their authorities are reinstated," he promised.
 
The Jewish Voice, a settler news outlet, called for violence. "There is no discrimination among us: if there is no quiet for the Jews - there shall be no quiet for the Arabs," it stated. "If Arabs are victorious due to violence against the Jews - the Jews shall also be victorious due to violence against Arabs."
 
The Jewish Voice continued with a call for sedition: "To date, since the freeze decree, the Civil Administration inspectors have not dared enter Yitzhar. This is because every entry into the settlement requires many troops, and ends in great damage to IDF and police property, even more damage to Arab property as well as to their bodies, and to the entire sector being set aflame for several days. When, in each settlement, a police vehicle will be unwelcome, and the Civil Administration inspectors will realize that they have ten minutes to flee before their tires are slashed - the ability of the regime to implement its decrees will vastly decrease."   (Ma'ariv, 12/6/09; Haaretz, 12/6/09)
 
Fear of Settler Violence, Part II: On top of numerous scuffles between settlers and Israeli law-enforcement personnel in recent weeks, today's Yedioth Ahronoth reports that police now "suspect that extreme right-wing activists set fire early yesterday morning to a house and two cars belonging to Palestinians in the Einabus village near Nablus."
 
The Palestinian homeowner reported that settlers torched his cars, his home and his tractor before fleeing. 
 
Yedioth Ahronoth reports that Israeli police are examining whether the arson was perpetrated as part of the "price tag" policy promoted by right-wing activists. (Yedioth Ahronoth, 12/7/09)
 
What Happens in Ten Months? Responding to settler criticism of his decision to freeze most new construction in West Bank settlements for ten months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that "the freeze is a temporary and one-time affair, after which we will renew construction."
 
Israelis appear to be skeptical about that prediction.
 
Only a third of Israeli Jews believe that the freeze will actually last only ten months, while 40% think that the freeze will continue indefinitely, according to a poll commissioned by IMRA, a pro-settler media monitoring organization.
 
The poll also discovered that only a fifth of Israeli Jews think that Netanyahu decided to impose the construction restrictions to promote the peace process with the Palestinians. 68% believe that the effort is intended to placate President Barack Obama.
 
In Yedioth Ahronoth, columnist Shimon Shiffer notes that Israel's interests behind the decision - including American assistance to Israel to thwart the threat posed by Iran and the need for progress on the Palestinian track - are not likely to change after ten months.
 
Shiffer believes that after ten months, Netanyahu "will continue to try to maneuver between all the bad options, his voters from the right wing will continue to take potshots at him, and the Americans will hint that if he renews construction they will enable the Europeans to pass sweeping resolutions in the Security Council that signify recognition of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital." (Yedioth Ahronoth, 12/2/09; IMRA, 12/4/09)
 
No Action on Outposts: The Israeli government informed the Israeli High Court of Justice last week that it plans to defer action against settlement outposts built in violation of Israeli law.
 
The government position was revealed in a response to a petition filed by the Israeli Peace Now movement. Peace Now had sued to compel the Israeli government to evict residents of six unauthorized outposts.
 
The government response indicated that enforcement of the moratorium on new construction in settlements required so much manpower that other law-enforcement tasks must be postponed.
 
"The effort required to fulfill this mission [of enforcing the moratorium] requires reinforcements and the concentrations of efforts to enforce the order. In addition, this new order requires the postponement of other enforcement tasks, including those that arise from various [legal] petitions filed on this matter," read the Israeli government response. (Yedioth Ahronoth, 12/3/09; Ynet, 12/2/09; Bhol.co.il, 12/3/09)
 
Government Settlement Construction Down: The first six months of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's term in office saw a shift in the pattern of construction starts in West Bank settlements.
 
New data published by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics showed a dramatic, 60% drop in government-initiated construction starts from April to September 2009.
 
Over the same period, however, there was a similarly dramatic rise in construction projects initiated by the private sector.
 
Taken together, these trends cancel each other out, such that the number of construction starts from this period is on par with previous years. "Settlers don't have anything to complain about," remarked Peace Now leader Yariv Oppenheimer. (Jerusalem Post, 12/2/09; PeaceNow.org.il, 12/2/09)
 
 
Settlements Undermine Israel's Standing: Writing in today's Yedioth Ahronoth, the former chief of staff to then-Prime Minister Ariel SharonDov Weissglas sees the Israeli decision to stop most new construction in settlements as an indication of the growing Israeli realization that the settlement enterprise is not consistent with Israel's long-term interests.
 
Weissglas observes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "decision - regardless of its practical value - is evidence of the fact that it is starting to accept the steadily worsening diplomatic reality, which is making the continued Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria (including East Jerusalem) impossible.  The dispute surrounding the settlements and their expansion has long since ceased to be a matter between Israel and the Palestinians, it has become the cause of a confrontation between Israel and the world."
 
"What Sharon understood," Weissglas adds, "and [Ehud] Olmert after him, is now becoming apparent to the current government: Good or bad, just or unjust, that is the reality.  No one in the world agrees to Israel's presence in a majority of the Judea and Samaria territories and the continued construction there.  Israeli persistence will bring upon it diplomatic isolation, and this is something that Israel cannot afford.  The freeze plan is an attempt to avoid this.  It is not important in and of itself, but as a first sign of a process of understanding and sobriety, it is highly meaningful." (Yedioth Ahronoth, 12/7/09)
 
Jerusalem Tensions: Rising tensions between settlers and Palestinian residents in an East Jerusalem neighborhood came to blows last week after settlers took over a house on Tuesday. Five were injured, including two Israelis, one Arab, and two foreign nationals.
 
This was the third property that settlers have taken over in Sheik Jarrah in the past year.
 
Tensions in East Jerusalem may also be rising because of Israeli efforts to strip Palestinians from Jerusalem of their right to live there. 4,577 Arab Jerusalemites lost their residency rights in 2008, a sharp increase from previous years: From 1967 to 2007, a total of 8,558 Arabs lost their rights to reside in Jerusalem.
 
Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have the same legal status as people who immigrated to Israel legally but are not entitled to citizenship. Under Israeli law, residents can be stripped of that status if they leave the country for seven years or if they obtain a legal status in another country.
 
"They are treated as if they were immigrants to Israel, despite the fact that it is Israel that came to them in 1967," explained Israeli human-rights attorney, Yotam Ben-Hillel. (Haaretz, 12/2/09; New York Times, 12/2/09)