Israeli settlements growing, despite vow to U.S.

Israeli settlement building is increasing despite their government's promise to the Americans that such building would cease. The Israeli government recently completed a study of the settlements and found that there was "rampant illegal construction in dozens of settlements". And much of this is taking place on Palestinian land.

The study is not being released to the public because it is considered "political and diplomatic dynamite."

The report compared the reality on the ground with the official figures for settlements held by the Israeli establishment, and found that there is "an amazing discrepancy between the Civil Administration's data and the reality on the ground."

"Everyone is talking about the 107 outposts," said a source familiar with the data, "but that is small change. The really big picture is the older settlements, the 'legal' ones. The construction there has been ongoing for years, in blatant violation of the law and the regulations of proper governance."

Three years ago, in talks with the Americans, Israel promised that all new construction in the older settlements would take place near existing neighborhoods. The idea was that construction would be limited to meeting the needs of the settlements' natural growth, and bringing to an end the out-of-control expansion over territory.

In practice, the data shows that Israel failed to meet its commitments: many new neighborhoods were systematically built on the edge of areas of the settlement's jurisdiction, which is a much larger territory than the actual planning charts account for.

The data also shows that in many cases the construction was carried out on private Palestinian land. In the masterplans, more often than not, Palestinian properties were included in the construction planned for the future. These included Palestinian properties to which the state had promised access.

And what solution have the Israelis come up with to tackle this embarrassing problem? Surely the government will now propose demolishing these settlements in the same way as they demolish Palestinian properties built without planning permission?

Oh no, they have a much more novel solution:

A senior security official expressed concern that with Spiegel's retirement, the data base will not be updated and the data will be lost.

"The [defense] establishment does not necessarily have an interest in preserving this information. It may cause diplomatic embarrassment vis-a-vis the Americans and cause a political scandal. It is not unlikely that there will be those who will seek to destroy the data," the senior officer says.

So there we have it. Simply destroy the data and the problem will be solved. What you don't know can't hurt you...

Of course, the reality is slightly different if you are a Palestinian whose land has been built on or who finds himself unable to have access to his crops due to this illegal building.

But who listens to the Palestinians anyway? As the dreadful Michelle Malkin would say, they have a religion of perpetual outrage.

I mean, it's not as if anything is being done to them to cause this outrage is it?

The Israelis will make this embarrassing fact disappear and the Malkin's of this world will continue to act as if we have no idea why these people are being so unreasonable.

This mindset is the cause of all tensions in the Middle East, it is a mindset that demands that others deal with the world as we see it rather than as it actually is.

It is a mindset in which people like Malkin now campaign for people to "adopt a sniper."

We will only sort out the Middle East when we honestly acknowledge the grievances of the people whose land has been stolen and whose lives have been destroyed.

Hiding the truth or pretending that we don't understand the reason for Arab grievances simply exacerbates the problem. But the Michelle's of this world don't really care about that...

I suppose we can expect an "adopt a settler" campaign soon enough.

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tag: Israel, Palestine, Road Map, illegal, settlement, building,