Settlements as Theft. Settlers as Criminals.

Israel, spending huge amounts to create and expand settlements in occupied land has, for decades, consistently increased both the area of land taken from the Palestinians as well as the settler population using that land.[1]

When Likud began governing in 1977, the process of colonizing Palestinian land began. In 1972 the West Bank settler population was 800. By 1983 it was 22,800. (See bar graph of the rate of colonization of the West Bank from 1972 to 2004).

These settlements violate international humanitarian law and “lead to the infringement of international human rights law,” such as the “right to self-determination, equality, property, an adequate standard of living and freedom of movement”.

Israel’s settlement process, as I see it, is a process of land and resource theft that entails subjugating the Palestinians and their lawful claims to this land and its resources. This process of theft involves a “complex legal and bureaucratic mechanism” by which Palestinians are denied access to and use of their land and resources. The land is stolen in various ways and based on various pseudo-justifications: Land is declared “State land”; the Ottoman Lands Law of 1858 is used; land is seized ostensibly for “military needs”; land is declared abandoned; land is expropriated for public needs.

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