There is no Green Line; Israel makes sure of that
JVL Introduction
This detailed piece from Ha’aretz looks at how changes in funding arrangements, in responsibilities of ministries and yet more examples of creating nature reserves to take over Palestinian land are further consolidating the presence of settlers in the West Bank, erasing any hint of the Green Line and making a separate Palestinian State impossible. Of course, it has been near impossible for some time as many activists have pointed out for the same reasons as those rather gleefully noted in this February 2024 Jerusalem Post Opinion by former deputy communications director under Netanyahu Michael Freund. The article is headed “Palestinian statehood is dead and is never coming back”. He notes, as anti occupation activists have before, that the size of the settler population has increased by 38% in the past 10 years. At just over 517,000 Jewish Israelis living in West Bank Settlements, this is over 5% of Israel’s population (and a larger percentage of the Israeli Jewish population, which is just under 80% of citizens of the State of Israel).
Funding is key and the new “the Settlements and National Missions Ministry” established by the government as a dedicated office for “civilian” activity in the West Bank has, despute the “war” on Gaza, had its budget almost tripled at the same time as all other Ministries’ funding has been cut. Decisions about new settlements will come directly from the Minister without needing further approval and we must never forget that all settlements are illegal under International Law.
LL
This article was originally published by Ha'aretz on Tue 9 Apr 2024. Read the original here.
Israel's Government Is Eliminating the Green Line – With Money
Budget by budget, law by law: from forcing cell phone companies to expand coverage in the occupied territories to laws that facilitate the transfer of public funds to settlements. This is how Netanyahu’s far-right government is working towards de facto annexation
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Great article once again you beauties. Went to the Manchester demo today and the JVL were there yet again,
The EU/US and the ‘west in general’ are the cause of all the trouble regarding Israels borders. Many Israeli leaders have played along with the ‘two states solution’ by making sure the talks pan out for years, and at the same time continuing with the settlement enterprise with the intent to create so many facts on the ground that the settlement enterprise would simply be irreversible. The EU/US have not stopped any of this, when they have the power to do so, in the case of the US a threat to withhold arms sales, or in the EU case threatening israels trading arrangement as an associate EU member, and other special deals they grant Israel. The worst complaint the US/EU make when Israel regularly announce thousands of new settlements is, ‘this is not helpful’, of course the Israelis take this mild “rebuke” as a green light to carry on with its illegal settlement building. And now here we are, facing a major war