Monday, August 01, 2016
Elder of ZiyonYes, illegal settlements in the West Bank.
They are illegal because Area C is legally fully under Israel's control. Indeed, even if you consider it "occupied territory," the occupier has the right to administer zoning laws and stop people from throwing up buildings anywhere they please, often stealing water and other services from neighboring, legal towns.
To build these structures without permission is illegal both under national and international law.
Here is a set of haphazard-looking buildings that were built in a valley near the Jewish town of Keidar. I stitched together three video screenshots. Click on it to see it full size; you should be able to discern about five separate clusters of buildings roughly in a straight line.
They are built this way in order to block any Jewish communities from being built. It is almost like a giant game of Go. These communities aren't viable on their own; their entire purpose is to create facts on the ground.
Afterwards, I looked on Google Earth to find how these buildings have sprung up over time. Here is an animated GIF showing how these illegal structures are being continuously built over the past several years, without the Israeli government doing anything about it.
This area was originally a training zone for the IDF, which is now unavailable because of the people who live there illegally.
Most or all of these structures are being built by the EU, which proudly puts its logos on the buildings, as this photo from another "settlement" shows (circled, click to enlarge):
Zooming in, under the EU flag is says "Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection."
These illegal villages are popping up all over:
This one had EU logos on a number of structures.
Regavim told me that these are not areas that Bedouin have been traditionally found. Many of the residents are not natives of Area C either; Europe is bringing in Arabs from Areas A and B in order to perform a land grab. Schools that they are building are busing in Arabs from Areas A and B as well.
The EU is not doing anything humanitarian, rather it is cynically using Palestinians. The residents of these communities are pawns.
And "international law" suddenly is not important to people who love to cite it when attacking Israel.
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