Looking for information about what is actually happening in the West Bank, I fell upon the website of the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ). ARIJ is a nonprofit organization that since 1990 has spent its time monitoring what it calls "Israeli colonizing activities" in the West Bank and Gaza. Since 2006, the monitoring of activities in Gaza is no longer the subject of its role, but reporting on the West Bank continues.
So what has been going on lately in the West Bank that gives this organization concern?
Here’s just a sampling of information from reports covering the past month of January 2007 from its website, Eye on Palestine. Much of it is focused on the Wall and land being confiscated to make way for its path. With 40% of the West Bank in Israel’s hands, one could probably find a long list of reports of similar daily events going back many decades. Unlike our own references to the West Bank, the partial military orders republished in these reports refer to Judea and Sumaria, whose symbolism is self-evident.
http://www.arij.org/...
Environmental "Ecocide": The undeclared Israeli War against Palestinian trees
The Israeli anti-environment policy against the Palestinian agriculture falls no further than encoded "Ecocide" policy of "State Vandalism", which is an organized, predetermined eradication of trees, as more than 1.4 million trees were uprooted from the occupied territory since the beginning of the Second Intifada in the year 2000 until the end of 2006, which practically violates every article and clause of the International Humanitarian Law, and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.
Israel hits Beit Iksa, Nabi Samuel and Beit Surik with new military order in favor of the Segregation Wall
Israeli Occupation forces handed out residents of Beit Iksa, Nabi Samuel and Beit Surik a new military order stating the confiscation of 565 dunums (each roughly a quarter acre) of their lands for the construction of a section of the Segregation Wall that runs on their villages’ lands.
Israel Defense Forces Order to Seize lands
According to my authorities as a Military Chief Commander in the Region of Judea and Samaria, and as I believe that it is imperative for military reasons due to the special security situation in the region, I order the following.....
Kfar Ad Dik and Deir Ballut in Salfit Governorate receive new land confiscation order
On the 23rd of November 2006, the Israeli Army handed out residents of Kfar Ad Dik and Deir Ballut villages, a new military order to confiscate lands for military purposes, mainly to construct the Segregation Wall. The military order stipulates the confiscation of 538.7 dunums from lands of the two villages (1 dunum=1/4 acre).
Israel Defense Forces Order to Seize lands
According to my authorities as a Military Chief Commander in the Region of Judea and Samaria, and as I believe that it is imperative for military reasons due to the special security situation in the region, I order the following.....
The Segregation Wall confiscates the majority of Haris Village Lands
An Israeli Company announced plans to develop 165 dunums of lands belonging to Haris village residents. The lands at issue were declared 'confiscated' by the Israeli Occupation Forces some time ago (18+ months) through a military order that was randomly dispersed in the fields for the village residents to find. The order stated that the confiscation is for the construction of the Israeli Segregation Wall.
52,000 Palestinian Residents in the Eastern Segregation Zone undergoing intolerable human suffering
Right from the time Israeli occupied the West Bank territory in 1967, the stretch of the eastern terrains of the West Bank was regulated differently than the rest of the occupied territory as the Israeli Army wasted no time to consider that sector, including the Jordan valley area subject to a special Israeli regulations as much of it was declared closed military area, other substantial areas declared military bases and large areas used to establish illegal Israeli settlements on lands seized by the Israeli State under the Absentee property law. Meanwhile, the indigenous owners of the land, the Palestinians had restrictions regulated to their movement and utilization of land, which became the subject to military considerations.
Plans to separate the Jordan Valley from the rest of the West Bank dated back to the year1967. The year in which Yigal Alon (the head of the Israeli Ministerial committee on Colonies at that time), drafted a plan by which the Jordan Valley would be the eastern border of Israel and would extend to a depth of more than 20 km west of the Jordan River.
Today, the Israeli Army control the Eastern Segregation Zone and the Jordan valley area with 25 checkpoints that block the access of the Palestinian residents into and out of the Jordan Valley area.
Israel resumes "House Destruction" policy in Al Walajeh Village northwest of Bethlehem City
The Israeli occupation forces, and for the second time demolished the house owned by the resident Munther Mahmud Abdel Kader Hamad, from Al Walajeh village, under the pretext of "Security Needs".
This is not the first time Munther’s house has been demolished. In 31/1/2006, almost a year ago, the Israeli occupation Army demolished the house under the pretext of security purposes to build the Segregation Wall. When the owner of the demolished house, Mr. Munther rebuild his house again, he received a notice warning him that he built his house without permit, and therefore his house is under demolishing order, that was when he petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to stop the demolishing order, but the court refused the petition and in December 12/2006, the Israeli bulldozers demolished Munther’s house once again.
In light of the Israeli plans against Al Walajeh village, the latter stand to have no future, in fact the residents are being manipulated and squeezed by the Israeli state to voluntarily leave their village with the devised and imposed strict building policy and now by the Segregation Wall.
Americans seldom get to look at life inside the West Bank or to appreciate what it means to live under its military occupation. Hope this sampling turns a few stones.