Village and Settlements

[Classical_Liberal]

...."Settlement' to me, implies a lonely, crude outpost in some hostile wilderness, populated by intrepid frontier folk dressed in rude skins and carrying muskets. But most of the 'settlements' are actually gated communities, modern suburbs that could have been airlifted straight from Southern California complete with all the amenities‹red tile roofs, ample bathrooms, swimming pools, guard towers, razor wire and an armed security force backed by the Israeli military. They are built on land confiscated without compensation from Palestinians, and the vast majority of them have been built since the Oslo accords were signed. Currently, settlements and their reserve lands occupy 42% of the West Bank‹and comprise only about 10% of the population. They also use 80% of the water. In Gaza, the situation is even worse. 6,500 settlers occupy 54 square kilometers out of a total of 365. What this translates to is a population density of 665 people per square kilometer for settlers, over 25,000 for Palestinians‹and in the refugee camps, where a third of the people live, the density is over fifty thousand people per square kilometer.

Not only that, but the settlements are linked by special roads that bypass Palestinian villages and towns and carve up the West Bank and Gaza into isolated fragments. Palestinians are not allowed on most of them, and they are protected by soldiers and checkpoints and closures. The Israeli government spends four billion New Israeli Shekels a year on added military security for the settlements alone‹not counting the billions spent on construction, infrastructure, grants and incentives for settlers, and more, totaling over fifty billion NIS since 1967.

If you want to know why Palestinians lost faith in the Oslo process, why they distrust the Israeli government and why they are wary of new negotiations, just step outside your door and look around at the place where you live. Imagine what it would feel like to have a hostile population plant themselves on the next ridge over, taking land without paying compensation for it. Imagine if you had to stand in line and present documents in order to leave your town or visit the next one, if the shortest route to visit your best friend was blocked by a roadblock, if you had to be searched by soldiers every day on your way to work or coming home, and could be detained and made to wait for no particular reason, if your kids had to pass a checkpoint to get to school, and if at moment your house could be entered, searched, or even blown up with no warrant or due process, and you'll start to understand the frustration that built to this current intifada.......

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/03/30/9990188