The Quiet Population Transfer That Dares Not Speak Its Name
A quiet phenomenon has been taking place over the last decade: the quiet dispossession of the Palestinians from their lands, which in turn increases their despair and leads them to abandon their villages. All this is done in our name and with our funds, but the government makes certain Israelis remain ignorant of the facts.
By Yesh Din, written by Yossi Gurvitz
Yesh Din published one of most comprehensive reports, The Road to Dispossession (which has its own mini-site), dealing with the illegal outpost Adei Ad. The outpost sits between four Palestinian villages and robs them of their lands. The information we gathered shows a quiet phenomenon of the last decade: the dispossession of the Palestinians from their lands, which in turn increases their despair and leads them to abandon their villages. In other words, a quiet population transfer, paving the road to the annexation of Area C to Israel. The annexation is already in practice: Yesh Din recently received a letter saying the government intends to whitewash the outpost Derekh Avot, by declaring the Palestinian lands on which it sits to be public lands.
Yesh Din documented 96 criminal offenses carried out by Israeli civilians around Adei Ad, where 26 families reside. The number would look more impressive once one recalls that these are only the offenses the organization managed to record (Yesh Din was founded in 2005, Adei Ad in 1998 – Yesh Din’s ability to investigate events prior to 2005 is very limited). Thus, it should be stated that there are many undocumented offenses. Among these Yesh Din can track: 21 offenses deal with violence against Palestinians, 47 with property crimes, and 28 offenses of taking over land. The Israeli police closed almost all of the cases, and in 92% of the cases, the investigators failed to do their job and find the culprit.
As a result of several international obligations, the government has found it difficult to create new settlements since 1999. A government resolution from 1995 forbids the creation of new settlements. So the process of building new ones has, in effect, been privatized: a process which can be hardly considered as anything but a conspiracy between the government and the settlers. As the latter go off what would officially be considered illegal building of settlements, the government (which declared the action illegal) is swift to provide the outlaws with IDF protection, as well as all of the utilities the settlers need. The Sasson Report, which will celebrate its tenth birthday in a year, used a very harsh language:
It would appear, therefore, that violation of the law became a fixture, became institutionalized. We do not deal with a felon or a group of felons acting against the law. The picture is that of blatant violation of the law by certain state authorities, public authorities, local councils in the Judea and Samaria region, and the settlers – all while presenting a false image of an institutional system acting legally.
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