The surreal spectacle of Israeli generals lobbying for Palestinian terrorists - by Caroline Glick

...The best way to end this situation is for the government to shut down the Civil Administration and get the IDF out of the governing business in Judea and Samaria. So long as the government continues to empower unaccountable generals to administer civilian areas instead of its accountable, civilian bureaucracy, we will continue to be confronted with the surreal spectacle of Israeli generals lobbying for Palestinian terrorists.

Caroline Glick..
Our World/JPost..
27 June '17..
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Our-World-The-PLOs-IDF-lobbyists-497984

Should the United States pay Palestinian terrorists? For the overwhelming majority of Americans and Israelis this is a rhetorical question.

The position of the American people was made clear – yet again – last week when US President Donald Trump’s senior envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt met with Palestinian Authority chairman and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and repeated Trump’s demand that the PA cut off the payments.

Not only did Abbas reject their demand, he reportedly accused the presidential envoys of working as Israeli agents.

Abbas’s treatment of Kushner and Greenblatt was in line with his refusal to even meet with US Ambassador David Friedman, reportedly because he doesn’t like Friedman’s views.

The most amazing aspect of Abbas’s contemptuous treatment of the Trump administration is that he abuses Trump and his senior advisers while demanding that Trump continue funding him in excess of half a billion dollars a year, and do so in contravention of the will of the Republican-controlled Congress.

Abbas’s meeting last week took place as the Taylor Force Act makes its way through Congress.

Named for Taylor Force, the West Point graduate and US army veteran who was murdered in March 2016 in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian terrorist, the Taylor Force Act will end US funding of the PA until it ends its payments to terrorists and their families – including the family of Force’s murderer Bashar Masalha.

The Taylor Force Act enjoys bipartisan majority support in both the House and the Senate. It is also supported by the Israeli government.

Given the stakes, what could possibly have possessed Abbas to believe he can get away with mistreating Trump and his envoys? Who does he think will save him from Congress and the White House? Enter Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS), stage left.

C'mon folks, get a grip, There’s no grab!

...We call on the government to instruct the Civil Administration to renew the survey process with full force, not as retribution for terrorist attacks, that are ongoing, but in order to continue developing communities and give a Zionist answer to the systematic and organized attempts of the Palestinian Authority and its collaborator NGOs to take over vast areas of Judea and Samaria and deprive the Jewish people of their legal right to live there.

Gevaot, located in the Etzion settlement bloc..
(photo credit:Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)

Ari Briggs..
Opinion/JPost..
09 September '14..

Last week, the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria declared that some 1,000 acres in the area of Gush Etzion was public (state) land. This step was taken in accordance with decisions of the Security Cabinet following the kidnapping and horrific murder of three boys three months ago in Gush Etzion.

As expected, the extreme left-wing NGOs in Israel, led by Peace Now, exploded with an intensive campaign against this step, and shortly thereafter, the US, the UN and certain European countries began to condemn the move and demanded that Israel repeal its decision.

In a malicious manner intended to throw sand in the eyes of the international community, and to blacken the name of Israel, Peace Now purposely misrepresented this step – which was simply the formal completion of a well-known process – as expropriation of land, and another example of “occupation, expulsion and theft.”

However, an accurate analysis of this declaration and its basis in law completely disproves the claim that Israel has taken over privately owned land. The opposite is actually true – this entire process, implemented by the government, of surveying and officially declaring land to be state land, is intended to ensure that no private property rights will be harmed and that new or expanded communities will be established only on land that belongs unequivocally to the sovereign power according to international law, and not to a private individual.

What is the process of survey and declaration? In 1978, Prof. Aharon Barak, who was then the legal adviser to the government, declared, “The basic assumption in determining ownership of land is that all land is public land, except if it has been acquired by an individual.

Thus, any land which is desolate and against which no private ownership claim has been registered is assumed to be public land.” This mirrors land law in all western countries where there is only public land or private land.

Does Ha'aretz Provide the Full Picture? Distorting Eli's Lands Status

Chanan Amiur..
CAMERA Media Analyses..
03 February '13..

This past week, Ha'aretz reported that according to the Civil Administration, at least 166 homes in the settlement of Eli were built on private Palestinian land. Yet the Civil Administration has never made such a determination. Once again, Ha'aretz readers are treated to a distorted headline.

Chaim Levinson reported on Jan. 29 ("At least 166 homes in Israeli setttlement built on private Palestinian land"):

At least 166 houses in the West Bank settlement of Eli were constructed on private Palestinian land, a recent survey by the Civil Administration revealed.

A quick check reveals that Ha'aretz's error is two-fold. The land upon which the 166 homes are built is not defined as private Palestinian land -- not according to the state, which built the homes in the 1990s; not according to the army, whose then GOC Central Commander signed off on the demarcation boundaries of the new settlement which the state declared; and certainly not by the residents of Eli.

More importantly, Ha'aretz errs by wrongly stating that the Civil Administration defines the land as privately owned Palestinian land. According to Guy Inbar, the spokesman for the Civil Administration, the administration defines the land in question as "survey lands" or "land under clarification," meaning they are currently going through a procedure to resolve possible claims of private ownership and to complete the process of declaring them state lands.

Moreover, it is undisputed that no Palestinian claims ownership of these particular lands. At most, there are possible signs of earlier cultivation during an undetermined historical period. If they were cultivated at all in the past, it is not known by whom. Thus, to claim that these are private Palestinian lands is like declaring a murder based on a possible motive, but without a body or a weapon. What serious investigator would determine a murder took place under these circumstances? In any event, the Civil Administration has not determined that these are privately owned Palestinian lands. Then, how, and why, has Ha'aretz falsely attributed this claim to the administration?

Steal it, waste it, but still complain? It's PA crying time again.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
19 July '12..

It comes back again and again: The canard that Israel is denying West Bank Palestinians water rights negotiated under the Oslo Accords. Just last week Haaretz regurgitated the issue with a story about water supply disruptions in eastern Jerusalem, and another story about confiscation of water tanks in the Jordan Valley. You had to read the fine print to discover that illegal Palestinian tapping into Israel's water lines were the cause of the problem.

For much too long, Israel has failed to respond fully to Palestinian water claims against Israel, which are ubiquitous in the U.N. and NGO world. Only recently has the Civil Administration and the Israeli Water Authority, along with one of Israel's top hydrologists, Professor Haim Gvirtzman of the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University, begun to fight back with properly documented counter-claims.

The newly released studies show clearly that Israel has fulfilled all of its obligations according to the agreements it signed in 1995 with the Palestinian Authority (and in fact has exceeded them), while the Palestinians are wasting tremendous amounts of water while refusing to utilize modern water conservation or sewage treatment methods.

In an exceptional study published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Gvirtzman shows that large differences in per-capita consumption of natural water between Jews and Arabs that existed in 1967, when the administration of Judea and Samaria was handed over from Jordan to Israel, have been reduced over the last 40 years and are now negligible. The Palestinian Authority currently consumes 200 million cubic meters of water every year, with Israel providing more than a quarter of this. This is more than Israel is supposed to provide to a full Palestinian state under a final settlement arrangement.

Nevertheless, the Palestinian Authority claims that it suffers from water shortages in its towns and villages due to the Israeli occupation, and it cites international law in support of its claims. These claims amount to more than 700 million cubic meters of water per year, including rights over the groundwater reservoir of the mountain aquifer, the Gaza Strip coastal aquifer and the Jordan River. These demands amount to more than 50 percent of the total natural water available between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

Gvirtzman refutes these claims and points to the real problem: The Palestinian Authority employs no sustainable development practices when it comes to water usage. It has done nothing to prevent massive leaking in its domestic pipelines, nothing to implement conservative irrigation techniques, and nothing to recycle sewage water for irrigation.

What about Jewish farmers?

Op-ed: Police protect Arab olive harvesters, but do almost nothing for Jewish farmers

Orit Struck
Israel Opinion/Ynet
06 October '10

The headlines informed us that the IDF, Civil Administration, and Israel Police are preparing for the olive harvesting season in Judea and Samaria. “This mission is of the highest priority,” and hence, in the midst of a period replete with terror attacks, major manpower and great operational effort will be dedicated in order to allow the harvest to go “to the last olive.”

The media also prepares and places itself at the service of the “harvest coalition” – dozens of subsidiaries of the New Israel Fund and European Union that shall accompany the harvesters in order to turn a simple, popular agricultural effort into a raging, media-covered global event. We can assume that Mitchell, Clinton, and maybe even Obama shall make time in their busy schedules to ensure that each one of the farmers known as “Palestinians” will get to enjoy the fruit of their labor.

On the other hand, in a sort of mirror image, Jewish farmers who work their land by law in the very same area suffer daily abuse at the hands of their Arab neighbors, who are backed and incited by the very same leftist human-farmer rights champions. The damages sustained by these Jewish farmers are estimated at hundreds of thousands of shekels, and who could estimate the heartache of a farmer whose corps were damaged?

Yet the State of Israel’s law enforcement authorities do almost nothing to protect them, and the media barely covers them or their pain.

(Read full story)

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Eretz Israel calls upon us - Netzer

womeningreen.org.il
13 July '10

In the heart of Gush Etzion, between Alon Shvut and Elazar, there are thousands of dunams of green and beautiful hills.

On this area, a determined battle is being waged on each meter of land- the same battle that is taking place all over Eretz Israel, in Judea, Samaria, the Galil, the Negev and Jerusalem.

In the past years, the Arabs, funded by international anti-Israeli organizations who disguise themselves as so-called "humanitarian" groups, have started a campaign to take over our lands, by agriculture. When the Arabs work the land a few years, they receive a "chazaka" (ownership) even though the land never was theirs. The representatives of the Civil Administration ignore the Arab take-over of our lands, and in this way we are losing our land reserves around our communities.



In 2005, after the expulsion from Gush Katif and Northern Samaria, a group of people from Elazar decided: No more!" The Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. They started building a house on the hills outside Elazar, called the area NETZER. Eight times they built, eight times the government destroyed.

From building houses they went on to planting and agriculture. Since the founding of the YIBANEH fund for building and expanding in the hills of Judea, founded by Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green), we managed to plant, thank G-d, some 3 dunams with olive trees and vines. On each piece of land that is still vacant and that the Arabs have not taken away yet, we prepare the land with a tractor and plant.

Now there is a race- who will get the land first.

For us Jews it is hard to keep up with the pace. The Arabs are funded with millions of dollars from these anti-Israeli organizations. We only have you, lovers of Israel, to count on...

We started with operation "establishing facts on the ground" without any funds. Since the operation started we managed to already raise some monies and thank G-d our agricultural work camp started a few days ago in which we hope to redeem a few dunams (a video about this will be sent out shortly) but we need much more.

Twenty people each contributing $150 will redeem one dunam, in which 36 olive trees or 220 vines will be planted. Not everyone can be out in the fields, but everyone can donate. Be partners in redeeming the Land of Israel.

for details: www.womeningreen.org
Nadia Matar 050-5500834 or Yehudit Katsover 050-7161818

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With Justice For All

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
24 May '10

So, who gets the better deal?

Seems that

The Civil Administration retroactively legalized 1,611 Palestinian structures built without the necessary permits all over the territories in recent years, according to internal documents obtained by Haaretz...The practice of granting legal status after the fact to illegally built structures is commonly applied in the state's dealings with illegal Palestinian construction. According to internal memos circulated by the office of the Coordinator of Government Activties in the Territories, the state retroactively legalized 956 homes in 14 West Bank towns in 2008 alone.

...According to the documents, the most extensive legalization of unauthorized Palestinian construction has been in the Hebron region. The facts and figures cited in the COGAT memos deal exclusively with Area C [which] encompasses 60 percent of the West Bank, pockets of land home to 130,000 Palestinians and 312,000 settlers.

(Read full post)

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Israel ignoring 400 Palestinian house demolition appeals

Chaim Levinson
Haaretz
07 December 09

(Anybody actually surprised?)

The State Prosecutor's Office never responded to some 400 High Court petitions filed by Palestinians seeking to save their West Bank homes from demolition orders - which means the homes cannot be demolished - according to an advocacy-group report released today.

The homes were classified by the state as being illegally built. The state prosecutor justified its failure to act by stating that either way, the homes were unlikely to be demolished.

The report, released by the Regavim organization, which says its goal is to preserve "national lands," reveals an underreported trend in the West Bank: Palestinians petitioning the High Court to save their homes from demolitions ordered by the Civil Administration.

In most cases, once a petition is filed, the state issues an interim order preventing demolition. The state is then expected to respond to the petition, after which a date is set for a court hearing.

But in 400 such cases - involving 700 homes - the government never responded. This means the interim orders against the demolitions are left in place.

One such petition was filed in 1997 by a resident of the West Bank town of Anata, near Jerusalem. Judge Theodor Or filed a temporary order preventing the demolition, and for several years the case remained frozen, because the state never responded. The interim order is still in effect, and the homeowner therefore has immunity against demolition, granted by the High Court.

Regavim contacted the Attorney General's Office on the matter.

Deputy Attorney General Malkiel Blass stated in response, "There is a gap between the scope of the orders and the demolitions. In these circumstances, priorities must be drafted. After examining the matter, I didn't find any failings in the attorneys' actions."

"It is unacceptable to instruct an attorney to ask the court to hold a hearing on a petition over demolishing a home, when even if the petition is accepted, the structure will likely not be demolished," he wrote.
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'Oxfam aids illegal Palestinian deeds'

Tovah Lazoroff/Yaakov Lappin
JPost
1 November 09

Oxfam International is involved in illegal Palestinian construction and agriculture activity in the West Bank, the Regavim advocacy group says.

The NGO charged on Thursday that Palestinians had illegally siphoned water in the area of Kiryat Arba with the assistance of Oxfam.

The civil administration on Thursday demolished an illegal water-siphoning operation just outside the Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron, which it claimed was linked to an international organization, but it did not name Oxfam.

It said that Palestinians had illegally linked pipes into the main authorized Palestinian water supply.

Ovad Arad of Regavim, however, said that Oxfam was involved in the project and had posted signs touting its work in the area.

He added that Oxfam also helped Palestinian farmers construct an illegal terraced field in the area, which he said the civil administration also destroyed on Thursday.

Arad alleged that contrary to the civil administration's claims, the Palestinians were stealing Israeli water with the help of Oxfam.

A source in the Kiryat Arba municipality said that the activity occurred within the settlement's boundaries and that the water siphons were connected to larger pipes that serviced both Israelis and Palestinians.

Oxfam International spokesman Michael Bailey in Jerusalem said in response, "We understood that an agricultural well and a field had been damaged and that some irrigation equipment had been removed.

"We are concerned about the impact of that on the Palestinian farmers," Bailey said.

He knew nothing, he said, of any illegal siphoning or of any other illegal activity connected to his organization.

The Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria said its actions were part of a policy of enforcement against pirate water supplies, and that Palestinian civilians were the primary victims of the illegal wells.

"The pirate wells are connected to water pipes and reduce the flow of the legal water supply to Palestinians," the civil administration said.

"International elements have been involved in this activity. We have warned the organization in question that they were partaking in an illegal construction project, but they refused to take heed of our warning," the civil administration added.

It refused to name the organization in question, and would neither confirm nor deny Regavim's allegation that it was Oxfam.

Regavim, created four years ago, operates on both sides of the Green Line, to monitor illegal construction and to preserve state land.

Arad said that its focus has been on illegal Palestinian and Israeli Arab activity, given that left-wing groups have solely focused on illegal Jewish construction.

In a letter that the organization's attorney Amir Fischer wrote to the civil administration, the IDF and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Arad said that Oxfam had intensified its activity in the West Bank and was helping Palestinians build illegally and carry out agricultural activity on state land.
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