|
the stuff below has been posted on this site for quite some time, so maybe getting some 'real information' is a change, FOR YOU! And maybe, you could 'cut' a few of the extraneous addendums on your postings, as a matter of simple decorum and courtesy ( like this stuff:Features
Community News
Compu-net
Law and You
Weather(KSA)
Classified
20 Years of King Fahd
Kahil's Cartoon)
Isn't time you calmed down a bit and tried to be more selective in your postings, maybe even editing them to highlight what might be new. Do really expect people who have jobs, family responsibilities,and actually spend time reading and researching these affairs to wade through such long-winded expositions?
..................
'The only way for Israelis to have security is, quite simply, to end the 35-year-old occupation of Palestinian territory. Israelis must abandon the myth that it is possible to have peace and occupation at the same time, that peaceful coexistence is possible between slave and master. The lack of Israeli security is born of the lack of Palestinian freedom. Israel will have security only after the end of occupation, not before.'
Marwan Barghouti, General-Secretary of the Fateh Party(West Bank), The Washington Post, January 16, 2002
SETTLEMENTS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
UN Security Council Resolution 465 of 1980
5. Determines that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.
The Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory states that 'the Occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies'.
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998) defines 'the transfer directly or indirectly by the Occupying power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies' as a War Crime indictable by the International Criminal Court.
SETTLEMENT FACTS
Number of settlements in the West Bank (5,640 sq. km.): 130
Number of settlements in the Gaza Strip (360 sq. km.): 16
Number of settlement areas in East Jerusalem: 11
Number of settlement areas in the Golan Heights: 33
Total settler population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip:
1972: 1,500
1983: 29,090
1992: 109,784
2001: 213,672
Total settler population in East Jerusalem:
1972: 6,900
1992: 141,000
2000: 170,400
Total settler population in the Golan Heights: 17,000
Palestinian population:
-- 2 million in 650 locales in the West Bank (including 200,000 in East Jerusalem)
-- 1.1 million in 40 locales in the Gaza Strip
An estimated 100,000 Israelis, comprising 50 percent of the settler population, reside in eight settlements. The average population in the remaining one hundred forty settlements is 714.
Built-up settlement areas occupy 1.4 percent of the West Bank's 5,640 sq. km. Settlement boundaries enclose almost 10 percent of West Bank territory. In addition, with the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000, Israel appears to be planning 'no-go' areas between 70 and 500 meters wide around each settlement and every military installation in the occupied territories.
According to the YESHA Council, 3,000 settlers--comprising 1.5 percent of the settler population of 200,000--in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip--moved out of the settlements during 2001. This exodus was more than compensated for by natural increase and an influx of new residents, enabling the settler population to grow at a rate of 5 percent.
On August 12, 2001, Ha'aretz reported that the settler departure rate had exploded to 5 percent--or 10,000 people. A typical annual rate is 1 percent.
At least 360 Palestinian homes were demolished in the Gaza Strip by the IDF during the first year of the intifada. Since October 2000, Israeli authorities have demolished more than 200 houses in the West Bank.
In September 1993, there were 32,750 dwelling units in the West Bank and Gaza Strip settlements. Between 1993 and July 2000, construction was initiated on an 17,190 units.
Settlers in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights received government mortgages during 2000 at a rate more than twice the national average. There were 16 new mortgages for every 1,000 settlers during the year 2000, compared to 6 per 1,000 Israelis.
Israel has uprooted 5.5 sq. km. of Palestinian orchards and destroyed 4.5 sq. km. of field crops.
Back to Table of Contents
© Copyright 2002 The Foundation for Middle East Peace. All Rights Reserved
|
|