- During the months of the war, Israel promoted plans to expand and establish settlements in East Jerusalem by building approximately seven thousand housing units, including 2,500 new units in each of the “Givat Shaked” settlements, the “Lower Canal” and “Kadamat Zion” settlements. How many settlements did you establish after October 7 and those that you expanded in the West Bank?
First, with regard to Jerusalem, the Israeli program is clear, that it cannot be divided into its east and west under Israeli sovereignty, and the process of merging between East and West Jerusalem is taking place now through the construction of the infrastructure, tunnels and bridges that you see. Among these projects (comes) the establishment of new settlements, or the expansion of old settlements that are within this program.
The Ramat Rachel area, which is considered the first kibbutz established in Jerusalem in 1924, and today it will be established under the name “Lower Canal”. It is the canal that used to bring water from the “Koziba” area in the Arroub camp, with a length of 70 kilometers from Hebron, and it delivers water to the city of Jerusalem. It was called the Lower Canal due to the presence of remains. Roman aqueduct.
These lands on which the settlement will be built are Green Line lands, “no man’s land” that were seized after 1967. They are located south of Ramat Rachel on the lands of Sur Baher. The establishment of this outpost is the process of constructing a settlement dam (about 7,000 housing units), starting from the southeast of Mount Abu Ghneim, then extending to the lower canal, then heading to Givat Hamatos, known as Khirbet Tabalya, which has been approved, and until this moment only its structure has been erected. Infrastructure (streets). The reason for this is the presence of German pressure, given that part of these lands belong to the Lutheran Church.
To the west of it lies the settlement of Gilo, and if we look at this line that will be established, it is a southeastern to southwestern line, meaning the establishment of a settlement dam that separates the Palestinian communities located within the municipal borders, from the Palestinian cities located outside the municipal borders, which are Beit Jala, Bethlehem, and Beit Sahour. .
At the same time, the establishment of these “Givat Shaked” settlement outposts on the lands of Beit Safafa/Sharafat comes within the plan that we talked about, which is “encirclement, infiltration, and dispersion.” Givat Shaked is located on the armistice line. The goal is to remove the Green Line and end Resolutions 242 and 338, given that the borders have been modified. According to the Israeli vision, if we assume that there is a Palestinian state and the return to the armistice line will have ended by imposing a fait accompli policy through these colonies, which are from Mount Abu Ghneim from the south-east to Gilo from the south-west, and of course there is the “Givat Yael” colony, which It will be held on the lands of Al-Walaja.
Therefore, 7,000 units inside Jerusalem are part of an Israeli program to build 58,000 housing units to resolve demographics. Because in 1973, a decision was taken in the Arnon Ghegni Committee, which was formed by Golda Meir at the time (that) the number of Arabs should be 25% and 75% Jews, and Israeli studies spoke (about) that in the year 2040 the number of Arabs will be 55% and 45% Jews, and therefore it was established The wall and the settlements, which are within the borders of the municipality of Jerusalem, which were expanded in 1967, are 15 settlements spread from north to south.
Settlement in the West Bank: There is a terrible expansion within a program that began in 1977 and 1979. At that time, the head of the Jewish Agency at the time, Mattityahu Drobles, spoke about a million settlers, and when we entered the peace process in 1991-1992, the number of settlers was 110 thousand, and today we are talking about 506 thousand settlers inside The West Bank, if we add 230,000 in Jerusalem, we reach 800,000, and we are close to a million settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Settlement in the West Bank is not only settlement construction, but (includes) the implementation of bypass road projects in Huwwara and the Hebron region, and this falls within the program that was drawn up in 1983 (under the title): Military Order No. 50 to establish roads.
Hebrew Shepherd
The new thing currently is the seizure of land in the sense of “uprooting and replacing” and “control and control” through what is called the “Hebrew shepherd.” What is happening in the West Bank is that one of the Jewish shepherds controls large areas of land with sheep and cows and expels the Palestinians and replaces them with the shepherd, and thus the pastoral outposts have spread. In the West Bank, within a program we call: a Jewish minority and a majority of lands under Jewish control.
This poses a very great danger to the point that the Israeli side began deporting the Bedouins from areas inside the West Bank, whether on the Al-Marajat road between Ramallah and Jericho or in the areas north of the Jordan Valley and south of Hebron, such as Masafer Yatta. This is what is new, and the conditions of the Gaza war were exploited by the process of arming the settlers, and another stage began, which is Control and sovereignty over these areas.