From Bantustan to Palitustan
Settlement Inspection Tour
by Uri Avnery
One can
know everything about the settlements, and still be shocked to the core
when seeing the reality on the ground with one's own eyes. That was the
unanimous impression of the 52 Gush Shalom activists who conducted an
inspection tour of the settlements in the Jerusalem area, led by Michael
("Mikado") Warshawsky. |
On the ground it is clear that the
settlement effort is continuing with unabated vigor under the auspices
of the Barak-Meretz government. The obvious aim is to create a pattern
of Jewish settlements, big and small, connected by a network of superb
(and practically empty) "bypass" roads. These roads are no less - and
perhaps even more - important than the settlements themselves, because
they imprison the Palestinian villages in small enclaves beyond which
they cannot expand.
Where a "hole" exists between
settlements, it is filled by gas stations (serving practically
nobody),"industry parks" (as yet empty) and other devices. Some
settlements, like Efrat (near Betlehem), are a thin line of houses
streching many kilometers, hill after hill, so as to cut off Palestinian
villages from each other.
By such devices, the settlements,
while still constituting a small minority in many areas, are the
dominating factor. Palestinian towns and villages are surrounded by the
settlement pattern, hemmed in on all sides, unable to expand and
accommodate their natural increase, unable even to utilise their land
reserves - those which have not yet been confiscated under the pretext
that they are, legally (meaning the arbitrary Israeli occupation law),
"government land".
In order to keep the Americans quite
(they are, of course, well informed), the new settlements are
camouflaged as a "thickening" of existing settlements "to satisfy the
natural needs of the population". It is pointed out that this happens
well within the "town plans" of the settlements. In order to understand
the trick, one must know that from the beginning, tiny settlements were
allotted the area of big towns. For example, Ma'aleh Adumim (between
Jerusalem and Jericho), with its 20 thousand inhabitants, has a bigger
land area than Tel-Aviv. It can therefore expell Beduins many kilometers
from the existing township, because they are residing on its "town
planning" land.
Within the municipal borders of
annexed East Jerusalem, the Israeli settlers constitute already a small
majority. In many places, the ground is prepared for a massive influx of
new settlers, doubling and even tripling the existing Jewish population.
Some people still harbor the illusion
that the settlements are being created by a bunch of wild fanatics, who
are dragging behind them an unwilling government. The real picture is
totally different: The settlements were and still are being created by a
powerful group within the establishment. This power centre, in which
Arial Sharon plays a leading role, and which is much more powerful than
the official cabinet, is pushing the settlement operation already for
many years according to a well-prepared, detailed plan, step by step,
under the auspices of successive Israeli governments, both Labor and
Likud. Since Oslo it also supervises the so-called peace process, making
sure that nothing said in the agreements may hinder its efforts.
The whole operation is designed to
continue the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by other means, preventing any
peace that does not maintain complete Israeli control over all the
territory of Mandatory Palestine, leaving the Palestinians at most some
Bantustan-like enclaves devoid of real independence. The immediate
objective is tear off big chunks of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and
annex them to Israel proper, under the title "settlement blocs".
TOI - 6 November 1999
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