Commentary Magazine..
02 October '14..
Defining “settlements” has always been difficult. The relevant international law instruments speak only of people being “transferred or deported” by an occupying power. However, most Jews in the West Bank have not been moved there by the Israeli government (that is why they are called settlers, not transferees and deportees).
But recent months have seen an unprecedented broadening of the concept of settlement activity to include things that do not involve Jews moving and, in this week’s dust-up, things that have already happened. The peace camp has been defining settlements down.
The Israeli government has not issued new authorizations for the building of new homes in the “settlements” since before the collapse of negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas. Even Peace Now grudgingly concedes a “semi-freeze.” Yet the absence of new tenders creates a problem for peace processors: they traditionally blame any foot-dragging by Abbas on these tenders, and insist that if Israel desisted, the primary obstacles to fruitful negotiations would be removed.
Yet as the moratorium grows longer, Abbas has, contrary to peace-process predictions, only moved farther away from negotiations. Indeed, he has fully adopted a new strategy of using international pressure to give him his demands without the trouble of having to make compromises.
Unable to blame “new settlement activity,” the peace camp, uncritically parroted by the media, has defined settlements down. Anything is now called “new” settlement activity. Last month, Peace Now treated a surveying decision that certain lands were not owned by private parties–Jewish or Arab–as a massive outrage, though the technical and administrative action would not result in a single hut being built for a single Jew.
Now, lacking new activity to decry, the peace camp seizes on old projects, planned by prior governments, and passes them off as new. This is the story behind this week’s outrage over the Givat Hamatos neighborhood in Jerusalem. The area is one where Jews already live, and immediately abuts the huge neighborhood of Gilo. It is “over” the Green Line by a few meters.
However, this project received final approval in 2012. This week’s outrage is literally a rewarming of the statements from two years ago.
Daniel Seidemann is an influential European-funded activist focusing on keeping Jews out of parts of Jerusalem formerly occupied by Jordan. His NGO said this when the plan was adopted back then:
Givat Hamatos is happening NOW, and approval of just the first part of the plan – Givat Hamatos A – suffices in having the full detrimental impact of the scheme… Construction of Givat Hamatos, whether private or public. (sic) can take place within a few short months, since building permits may be issued at any time.
Perhaps the action two years ago was not final? No, the NGO reported back then that it was indeed “final.” So by definition no new decision of substance has been taken since–but that has not stopped Peace Now and Seidemann from recycling the outrage, which resulted in raining the ire of the U.S. down on Israel, or as they see it, on Netanyahu.
Part of the problem is the permanent industry of European-funded settlement snoops. They count every new shack and every new permit (whereas ironically the EU has a limited grasp on how many Turkish settlers are on its own territory). They will not be silent simply for lack of what to report. One wonders if they will be even silent if all their political demands were realized, or whether they would, as has happened in Gaza, define occupation down.
Link: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/10/02/the-peace-camps-recycled-outrage/
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