The Israeli government in its session held on January 29, 2012, approved a new colonial project entitled “National Priority Areas” which includes series of benefits and financial allocations to be granted to the targeted areas. According to the map of national priority areas adopted by the Israeli government, 70 illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank out of 557 communities targeted in the project, will benefit from the cabinet’s decision where the allocations would include the following:-
Industry and agriculture: It includes:
1. Grants and tax benefits for Industry.
2. Employer support.
3. Aid to factories in crises.
4. Help in developing infrastructure for industry
5. Grants for industrial research and development costs.
6. Priority in funding technological incubators.
7. Grants and tax benefits for agriculture.
8. Aid to rural settlements through the settlement division (agriculture or industrial…).
Housing Incentives: It includes:
1. Housing assistance which will include subsidized loans to apartment (location loans) and loan supplements as a part of relaxed entitlement standards e.g. the minimum age criterion for receiving loans.(Housing Ministry)
2. Development cost subsidy that includes subsidies to cover 50% of development costs for contractors and entrepreneurs. (Housing Ministry)
3. Budget public buildings where the Housing Ministry underwrites the construction and renovation of public buildings to greater extent in preferred areas. (Ministry of Housing).
Israel Lands Administration: It includes:
Discount of lands price
Exemption from tender for land.Example on these incentives: On January 2012, the “Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction” published a tender for building new 213 housing units in the settlement of Efrat southwest of Bethlehem Governorate under a program called “Mechir Lamishtaken” in which it offers substantial discounts on the land price, where the Israeli government sells the land to contractors for less that its full market value (usually as much as 50 % lower) then the contractor sells the new housing units for lowest price.
Moreover there are other incentives and benefits in the education sectors be given in the targeted areas. According to the Israeli Prime Minister Office, “the decision designated to encourage positive migration to the communities and to assist in finding solutions to ease the housing situation in addition to its contribution in strengthening the economic conditions in these communities”.
Furthermore the head of the council of the illegal Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley, David Lahiani, indicated that: “It will help the Jordan Valley in a dramatic way….. And he is preparing to build new 150 housing units in the settlements in the area” He also added that “No other Government since that of former Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin has done as much for the Jordan Valley. Map 1
Old- New Project with the Aim of a Sustainable Occupation
The Israeli desire for preparing the “National Priority Areas” project was actually revealed in the year 2002 when the former Israeli PM at that time Ariel Sharon set up a map for the proposed communities to be classified as national priority areas, while the project had been subjected to amendments during the Olmert’s and Netanyahu’s eras as follows:-
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Ariel Sharon Government Map -2002: The map at the time included all of the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank except those in the city of Jerusalem.
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Ehud Olmert Government Map -2008: On August 24, 2012, Olmert’s government adopted a peripheral areas as a national priority with a new map based on the geographical criterion of physical and transportional distance for the city of Tel Aviv, where according to that map the Israeli settlements in Hebron Hills and in the Jordan Valley are classified as national priority areas.
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Netanyahu Government Map: When Netanyahu’s government took office in 2009, and according to what is so-called “National Priority Areas Law 5747-2007”, which was included in the economic arrangements law, the government decided to establish, along with the criterion of socioeconomic strength and geographical location, an additional criterion for other needs and standards of the population in the areas which necessitate its advancement and development for the priority areas, where at the end, the map included 90 Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, 70 of which adopted formally in the government session on January 29, 2011.
It is worth pointed that according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, that the socioeconomic status of the illegal settlements in the West Bank is higher than the average in “Israel”, e.g.:
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The level of income for the Israeli family in the settlements (13,566 NIS per month) which is 10% higher than the national average in Israel which is (12,242 NIS per month).
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The unemployment level in the settlements is below the national level (6.5% in settlements compared to 7.3 % throughout Israel), where as an example the unemployment rate in Efrat settlement is 1.6% and 1.2 % in Beit El settlement while it is 5% in Ashkelon city and 5.5% in Ashdod.
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The Israeli settlements shows strong socioeconomic indicators despite the fact that 1/3 of the settlers population-according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics – is ultra orthodox, a group that ranks among the poorest in Israel population, but the economic figures for those (ultra orthodox settlers) living in the Israeli settlements are higher than the average rate in Israel, which is a clear example of the effects of the government economic benefits policies for the Israeli settlements.
According to an analysis conducted by the Geopolitical Information System & Remote Sensing Department, at the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem/ ARIJ, for the settlements classified by the government as a national priority areas, 30 settlements located in the Eastern Segregation Zone (along the eastern terrains of the West Bank), 19 settlements in the Western Segregation Zone (area isolated by the Segregation Wall), while the remaining 40 settlements are located in the heart of the West Bank (between the eastern and the western zones), of which 30 are located in the corridors that interrupted the geographical contiguity of the Palestinian Territory and establish a geographical link between the eastern and the western zones .
Moreover, 38 settlements that targeted in the project are classified as religious settlements, which reflects the pressure that practiced by the current Israeli right wing government, which is in fact a settlers government, to move forward with expanding the illegal settlements and eliminating any opportunity to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians where the settlement issue constituted and remains to be a main challenge and obstacle in any possible negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
New Israeli Strategy…….. Escape Forward
The peace process is going through a dark tunnel in light of the Netanyahu’s extremist right wing government colonial and expansionist behavior and plans, where it evades commitments to reach a just, lasting and durable peace agreement with the Palestinians based on the international legitimacy. Instead, the Israeli government is moving forward with plans that prolong the years of its military Occupation of the Palestinian land mainly by expanding the illegal Israeli settlements (199 settlement) and their outposts (232 outpost) which constitute the main obstacle to reach to an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on “Two State Solution”.
Legal & International Status
Israel is refusing to comply to the International law rules and conventions and to the United Nation Security Council Resolutions UNSCRs especially those concerning the construction of the settlements in the OPT including East Jerusalem, despite the fact that their existence are Illegal and constitute a grave breach of the International Law. Furthermore, Israel is deliberately expanding the settlements and the outposts in an attempt to imposing them as de facto situation.
Article XXXI of the 1995 Oslo agreement provides that: Israelis forbidden from building or planning to any project or settlements or any colonial expansion or any plan that lead to change the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The article provides “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations”.
Also the Forth Geneva Convention also states in Article 49 that “The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies.
In May 2001, the head of the International Red Cross delegation to Israel and the Occupied Territories said that settlements are ‘equal in principle to war crimes’. (Note: ‘The transfer, the installation of population of the occupying power into the occupied territories is considered as an illegal move and qualified as a ‘grave breach.’ It’s a grave breach, formally speaking, but grave breaches are equal in principle to war crimes’, Rene Kosirnik, head of the ICRC delegation to Israel and the OPT, press conference 17 May 2001.)
Furthermore, the existence of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and its expansions are Illegal and in contradiction with the international law rules, United Nations Security Council Resolutions such as 237 (1967), 271 (1969), 446 (1979), 452 (1979) ,465 (1980.
Resolution 446 March 22, 1979 calls on Israel to rescind its previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem and, in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories’ .
Also the resolution 452 of the 1979 “calls upon the Government and people of Israel to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem.
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