The Financial Times Skewing of Khan al-Ahmar Every Which Way - by Simon Plosker

The Khan al-Ahmar issue has become a significant international story that deserves to be covered with the nuance that such a complicated case deserves. The Financial Times fails on all counts.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
08 November '18..

The case of the Bedouin encampment Khan al-Ahmar has become a cause célèbre for many foreign media outlets as well as European governments and non-governmental organizations.

After a decade-long legal battle, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled in September that the Bedouins failed to demonstrate ownership of the land, clearing the way for the government to demolish the ramshackle collection of structures located right next to a main highway east of Jerusalem between the Israeli settlements of Ma’ale Adumim and Kfar Adumim. Currently, the demolition order has been frozen on orders of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to continue the search for a solution that avoids removing the Bedouin residents by force.

That the case has been framed almost entirely as a ‘human rights’ issue has skewed the coverage. After all, cold facts and legal arguments carry little weight when confronted with images of Israeli soldiers and bulldozers ranged against screaming Bedouin women and children fighting for their homes.

It’s these scenes that dominate a five and a half minute video report from the Financial Times that deliberately frames the dispute against Israel with scant regard for Israel’s side of the argument. (And yes, it is an argument with two sides as demonstrated by the exhaustive legal battle that has taken place.)

Let’s look at the language that the FT’s Mehul Srivastava uses to frame the dispute:

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The 2018 EU heirs to Sykes-Picot and Khan al-Ahmar - by Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg

...Sykes-Picot and the European adventure in the Middle East did not end well, to understate the case. Like the entire colonial enterprise, but to an extreme, the foreign rulers had no understanding of the numerous ancient cultures, histories, societies, fears and hatreds in the region. They were soon overwhelmed with revolts, terrorism, and other difficulties, including the never-ending war between the Jews and Arabs. By 1948, the Europeans were gone, leaving a trail of violence that continues 70 years later. It seems, however, that the heirs to Sykes and Picot have learned little if anything from this dismal experience.

Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg..
JPost/Opinion..
04 October '18..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Sykes-Picot-2018-The-EU-and-Khan-al-Ahmar-568707


In 1916, midway during what was referred to then as the Great War, the European colonial powers were also busy carving apart the remains of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. One of the entrees was prepared by Mark Sykes, a British aristocrat, member of Parliament and military officer, and François Georges-Picot, a French diplomat.

Working with a map of the region, they drafted the agreement under which imperial France took control of the lands north of what is today’s border between Lebanon and Israel (including Syria and northern Iraq), and England claimed the southern territory – Transjordan and the rest of Iraq. What they referred to as Palestine (the Holy Land) was supposed to be under joint “protection,” with the participation of the soon-to-disappear Russian empire.

Sykes-Picot and the European adventure in the Middle East did not end well, to understate the case. Like the entire colonial enterprise, but to an extreme, the foreign rulers had no understanding of the numerous ancient cultures, histories, societies, fears and hatreds in the region. They were soon overwhelmed with revolts, terrorism, and other difficulties, including the never-ending war between the Jews and Arabs. By 1948, the Europeans were gone, leaving a trail of violence that continues 70 years later.

It seems, however, that the heirs to Sykes and Picot have learned little if anything from this dismal experience. Today, European politicians and diplomats, with their entourage of public relations consultants and NGOs, are busy drawing new borders for what they imagine to be a “solution” to the conflict. Today’s imaginary map has two states – Israel and Palestine – living “peacefully, side by side.”

To get to this arrangement, the Europeans, led now by Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and including an entourage of diplomats, NGO officials (paid by the EU), and public relations spinners, have focused their attention on the tiny encampment of Khan al-Ahmar. This site, situated strategically just outside Jerusalem on the four-lane highway that connects Israel’s capital to the Dead Sea, the Jordan River, and from there, to Amman and, some 72 hours later (by car or tank), to Iraq.

Whether the Bedouin nomads put their tents down in this desert area in the 1950s (during the Jordanian occupation) or in 1988, as the Israeli government contends, is open to infinite dispute. In 1991, Palestinians tried to build permanent structures in the location, including a school. For three decades, Israel has rejected all the efforts to turn Khan al-Ahmar into a Palestinian outpost that would become the core of an ever-expanding presence along the strategic highway near Jerusalem.

Fiction vs. Reality: The true story behind the Jahalin Bedouin in Khan al Ahmar - by Naomi Kahn

The community’s traditional culture and clan-based lifestyle will be fully protected and insulated from outside influences in a location only four miles away that provides electricity, running water, a government-built and many other basic modern “conveniences” that the Jahalin have never had—conveniences the Palestinian Authority has never made any attempt to provide.

Naomi Kahn..
JNS.org..
05 July '18..

David Halbfinger’s recent article, “As Israel Pushes to Build, Bedouin Homes and School Face Demolition” (The New York Times, June 24, 2018, co-authored by Rami Nazzal) begins with a statement that sets the tone for what is to follow: “The herders are being herded.”

The implication, of course, is that Israel is treating the innocent, unfortunate Jahalin Bedouin of Khan al Ahmar like animals, but the facts of the case indicate precisely the opposite: I’m sure there are many hard-working, tax-paying citizens of Israel (and other countries all over the world) who would love to be “herded” into an all-expenses-paid, fully developed plot of land and paid tens of thousands of dollars by the state to move in. In fact, several years ago, another branch of the Jahalin clan agreed to precisely this treatment and voluntarily relocated; the families that remained in Khan al Ahmar agreed to move as well, but were bullied or patronized by their “representatives” into retracting their consent and have been dragged through Israel’s courts ever since.

The history of the illegal outpost at Khan al Ahmar includes some very interesting facts that Mr. Halbfinger neglected to mention: The Jahalin Bedouin are an offshoot of a larger tribe based in southern Israel, in the Arad region. After a blood feud broke out within the tribe, some of the families were forced out and migrated north through the Judean desert, arriving and settling in their present location after the 1973 Yom Kippur War (see aerial photographs of the area here). From day one, they knew that this would not be a permanent solution for their needs. The highway and growing communities around them were already facts of life; the Jahalin knew they would have to relocate.

Despite the claims that Mr. Halbfinger makes in his article, some 80 percent of the residents of Khan al Ahmar are employed in Ma’ale Adumim, Kfar Adumim and other Israeli communities in the area—and have been for many years. Shepherding is a hobby for most, a means of supplementing income and maintaining their connection to Bedouin folklore. The Bedouin of Khan al Ahmar, like Bedouin tribes throughout the Middle East, abandoned their nomadic existence generations ago; the structures (as opposed to tents) at Khan al Ahmar are a very good indication of this trend.

(Continue to Full Column)

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Seems the EU continues to build illegal settlements, just to complain when Israel demolishes them - by Elder of Ziyon

...The irony is that the UN is saying what a terrible crime it is to relocate a few dozen families who are nomadic anyway, but it insists that over a half million Jews who have lived in the same area for decades (and many of whose ancestors lived there much longer) must be ethnically cleansed from the area they call "Palestine."

Elder of Ziyon..
05 February '18..

From the UN yesterday:

Statement by acting Humanitarian Coordinator for the OPT, Roberto Valent, on the Israeli authorities’ destruction of donor-funded classrooms in the Palestinian community of Abu Nuwar I am deeply concerned by the Israeli authorities’ demolition this morning of two donor-funded classrooms (3rd and 4th grade), serving 26 Palestinian school children in the Bedouin and refugee community of Abu Nuwar, located in Area C on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The demolition was carried out on grounds of lack of Israeli-issued permits, which are nearly impossible to obtain.

Abu Nuwar is one of the most vulnerable communities in need of humanitarian assistance in the occupied West Bank. The conditions it faces also represent those of many Palestinian communities, where a combination of Israeli policies and practices –including demolitions and restricted access to basic services, such as education – have created a coercive environment that violates the human rights of residents and generates a risk of forcible transfer. This is the sixth demolition or confiscation incident in Abu Nuwar school by the Israeli authorities since February 2016.

This means that for the past two years, every four months, the EU builds an illegal school building and Israel tears it down.

Does it sound like the EU really cares about educating the kids? They could arrange transportation to another school if they wanted, for example.

These games are clearly meant not to help Palestinians but to embarrass Israel, with photos of demolished buildings that they claim were schools that probably never had any classes.

Abu Nawar is located in the E1 section that connects Ma'ale Adumim with the rest of Jerusalem. That is really what this is all about - the international community is hell bent on stopping Israel from connecting the two.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Ein al Hilweh, Umm Jamal, Leftist NGOs vs. Facts and Israeli Law - by Meir Deutsch

...Israeli law is more than merely a battering ram to be used against Jewish settlers by leftist NGOs. It is intended to create and preserve livable conditions throughout the country. We at Regavim will continue to demand that Israel’s laws are universally and equally applied and upheld by all sectors and segments of society – for our mutual benefit.

Meir Deutsch..
JPost/Opinion..
15 November '17..
Link: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Ein-al-Hilweh-and-Umm-Jamal-Facts-on-the-ground-514374

Recently, various media outlets published news and editorial pieces about the Civil Administration’s intention to enforce “delimitation orders” on two Palestinian Beduin encampments in the Jordan Valley. Under the blazing headline “Stop the Evictions,” an editorial in Haaretz unleashed a full-scale attack, notifying readers in Israel and around the world that the State of Israel is planning to evict hundreds of unfortunate Palestinian Beduin, victims of recurring “illegal, unjustified and dangerous” Israeli actions, from two villages in Israel’s Jordan Valley – Ein al Hilweh and Umm Jamal.

Zehava Gal-On, who tweeted about it yesterday, told her readers that these villages “have been there for decades” and that they “are situated on private, Arab-owned land.” Yesterday, The Jerusalem Post’s Tova Lazaroff addressed the issue, as well.

Although Lazaroff’s article correctly described the “Palestinian Beduin villages” of Umm Jamal and Ein al Hilweh as illegal, that’s more or less where the factuality ends. Quoting attorney Tawfiq Jabareen, who represents these illegal encampments, Lazaroff repeated his patently false statement that “some of the families came 30 years ago from the South Hebron Hills and others were here before 1967.”

In fact, aerial photos taken as recently as 2004 show that there was no village – Beduin, Palestinian, or any other kind – in this area; aerial photos going back to 1999 debunk Jabareen’s claims altogether. At most, in certain seasons there were tents in the area, constructed for temporary shelter by the nomadic shepherds who passed through with their flocks. This hardly constitutes ownership, settlement, or historic claims to land.

Even worse, Lazaroff’s article fails to convey the absurdity of the situation on the ground in the Jordan Valley. The location of the “villages” of Ein al Hilweh and Umm Jamal endangers everyone who utilizes the roads and interchanges these illegal settlements are currently obstructing – including Jewish residents of Maskiot, Arab residents of Tubas, and the Beduin themselves. The Umm Jamal squatters’ camp has begun to encroach upon an IDF firing zone – putting the Beduin squatters themselves in grave danger. Why, we might well ask, would the United Nations Office for Coordination of Human Rights Affairs want the Civil Administration to permit their continued residence in a firing zone?

Boycotts of Israeli products from Judea and Samaria no longer satisfy Brussels - by David M. Weinberg

...In short, the EU's support of the Palestinians has graduated from passive diplomatic and financial assistance to subversive participation in the Palestinian Authority's illegal construction ventures. The explicit EU intent is to erode Israeli control of Area C and east Jerusalem while promoting Palestinian territorial continuity leading to runaway Palestinian statehood.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
October '17..
Link: http://davidmweinberg.com/2017/10/20/mind-blowing-european-union-chutzpa/

Israel should repulse the escalating European Union campaign of intimidation.

You see, boycotts of Israeli products from Judea and Samaria no longer satisfy Brussels. Ramping up its confrontation with Israel, the European Union has gone into the business of establishing "settlements" for the Bedouin and Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, tower-and-stockade style.

This includes the wild Bedouin building spurt that the EU has insolently funded in the strategic E1 quadrant between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, in entirely purposeful defiance of Israel.

The IDF defines the area in question as a pivotal part of Israel's strategic depth and essential to defensible borders for Israel. It is also Area C under the Oslo Accords, which means that Israel holds exclusive civilian and military control.

Yet illegally established Palestinian villages and Bedouin shantytowns have slowly closed the corridor between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim, where a major highway runs, crawling to within several meters from it. These illegal outposts steal electricity from the highway lights and water from Israeli pipelines.

Civil Administration data, presented last year to the Knesset's subcommittee on Judea and Samaria, showed that 6,500 Palestinians were living in some 1,220 illegally built homes in the area, and the number undoubtedly has grown since then – thanks to the EU.

The imperious EU has poured perhaps 100 million € into EU-emblazoned prefabs, EU-signed roads, and water and energy installations – in E1, in Gush Etzion (near Tekoa), in the South Hebron Hills, and even in the Negev.

Illegal Settlements and the EU’s Stealth War against Israel - by Melanie Phillips

Through its illegal settlements policy, the EU is conducting a stealth war against Israel.

Melanie Phillips..
As I See It/JPost..
17 March '16..

For those who bash Israel, it is axiomatic that Israel is building illegal settlements in Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank, against international law.

This is peddled ad nauseam by the EU and the myriad anti-Israel NGOs it funds, and is the basis of the EU’s policy of labeling goods from the “occupied territories.”

Yet astoundingly, the EU itself is behind the building of illegal settlements there.

Last year, it announced it was providing €3.5 million to fund infrastructure projects in Area C, the section of the disputed territories under Israeli control.

These settlements, which fly the EU flag and display its logo on their structures, are to be found in more than 40 locations in Area C. According to the Israeli NGO Regavim which maps this activity, between 2012 and 2014 more than 400 of them were constructed within the Adumim area near Jerusalem alone.

Under the Oslo Accords, Area C is administered by Israel. The EU settlements, constructed without Israeli permission and against Israeli zoning laws, are therefore illegal squatter camps.

Israel regularly demolishes these structures.

Last month, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nikolay Mladenov, complained to the UN Security Council that, since the beginning of this year, Israel had demolished on average 29 Palestinian-owned structures per week, three times the weekly average for 2015. “These actions run directly counter to the idea of peace,” he said.

The EU maintains that it is merely providing humanitarian aid for the Palestinians.

This is clearly disingenuous. The Arabs living in the disputed territories are not living in starvation or destitution, the proper focus of true humanitarian aid.

No, the EU has another objective in mind altogether – one it barely troubles to conceal.

It is using settlement construction to reshape demographic reality and undermine Israel.

It elides the “humanitarian imperative” with its belief that Area C would be “part of any viable future Palestinian state.” By assisting Arab development in Area C, it is creating facts on the ground to bring that state into being. Its officials actually say so.

Time to Enforce the Law Equally? Long Past Time! - by Ari Briggs

The strength of the naysayers in the Arab sector has always been their threat to ensure fire, hail and brimstone if the government actually enforced the law.

Ari Briggs..
Opinion/JPost..
13 January '16..

Israel is currently suffering from a horrific wave of terrorism. However, below the radar, Israel has been suffering from increasing lawlessness for quite some time.

These two developments violently converged recently on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv, when a terrorist, an Israeli Arab who lived in an illegal house in Arara, murdered three civilians in cold blood on a quiet Friday afternoon.

The heinous attack in Tel Aviv is a bitter result of the progressive Israeli surrender of sovereignty in the Arab sector. One that could possibly have been stopped had the rule of law been upheld consistently and throughout the country.

This surge of lawlessness includes everything from seizing land, illegal construction and agricultural theft to protection rackets and corruption. Here is a small example of how entrenched this lawlessness is: In the town of Arabeh in the north, fines for illegal construction imposed by the regional development committee on town residents were offset by the town, which gave them a discount on arnona (municipal tax) equivalent to the amount of the fine.

What’s happening on the ground is massive illegal construction in the Arab sector, in the south, center and north of the country.

In the Negev, the illegal seizure of state land spreads over 200,000 acres in the area between Beersheba, Arad and Dimona. One just has to look at Google Earth to see more than 1,000 villages, hamlets and illegal outposts that expand exponentially each year, taking more and more land, encouraging even more Beduin to leave their legal dwellings and venture into the “business” of stealing land and illegal building.

In the center, one only has to venture into Taiba, Tira, Kalansuwa or Jaljulya to see the lack of enforcement of building codes, in stark contrast to the strict enforcement in place in neighboring towns of Kfar Saba or Hod Hasharon.

In the north there are an estimated 30,000 illegal structures. The threat of violent protests and general strikes should the government start to enforce the law is very real. This is based on the experience of the last demolition of an illegal home in the north, which happened in Kfar Kana in 2013, where fire bombs, burning tires and rioting coincided with a three-day general strike.

However, illegal construction is only a symptom of a much wider problem: The failure of the State of Israel to impose the law equally, on all its citizens, throughout the land. This has led to rates of serious crime in the Arab sector increasing dramatically.

Tax evasion is rampant, with hundreds of thousands of citizens not paying municipal taxes and/or income taxes. There are over 25,000 illegal weapons of all kinds in the Arab sector, and their elected officials incite against Israel day and night.

For a decade, we have warned about the loss of sovereignty in the Arab sector. It should be clear to all that sovereignty is not a theoretical issue. When it is not enforced, it no longer exists. The unbelievably high numbers of illegally built structures is not only a good example but a major source and enabler of lawlessness. The facts speak for themselves: There are more than 110,000 illegally built homes in the Arab sector that have been conveniently ignored.

For decades, the State of Israel has been content to turn a blind eye to this severe phenomenon, and to take shortcuts in maintaining the rule of law. The price is now being paid by all citizens of the State of Israel, including members of the Arab sector.

A timely but unfortunate example is the amount of illegal construction in the town of Arara, where the terrorist who carried out the attack in Tel Aviv lived. Out of 4,368 homes there, 942 are illegally built – over 20 percent.

It is argued by some that the true reason for the illegal construction is that Israel does not approve building plans.

So here are the facts: the municipal plan for Arara, approved in 2006, enables the construction of thousands of additional housing units – a fact that pulls the rug out from under those that claim discrimination.

It now seems to be clear, even to the government, that changes need to be made.

Briggs - Al-Zarnog and Beit El: A tale of two settlements

Ari Briggs..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
09 June '12..

In the beginning of the twentieth century, a group of Zionist Jews acquired a parcel of land measuring around 65 hectare (26 acres) in the Negev, in the area of Moshav Nabatim, between Beersheba and Dimona. It was registered in the names of the purchasers in the Land Registry of the British Mandate, and after the establishment of the state, in the Israel Land Registry (Tabu). Over time, their successors' names were also registered.

However, even though the land was fully registered in the names of the legal owners in the land registry, the Beduin of the Abu Kwider tribe took control of the land and established an illegal settlement called Al-Zarnog. At various times the many landowners wrote to local authorities yet their pleas for help were ignored. Today this illegal settlement contains more than 350 solid structures, mostly homes, all of which were built illegally, on land privately owned by Jews.

There is no need to mention that throughout the years the authorities did not act to prevent the establishment of the settlement and definitely did not move to destroy its illegal buildings.

This week, Regavim, an Israeli not for profit organization dedicated to the protection of national land, turned to the minister of the interior and other relevant enforcement authorities, in the names of the landowners, to demand the evacuation of the illegal Beduin settlement and the return of the land to its true owners.

Illegal Arab buildings to be demolished. But this time, no one will protest.

Elder of Ziyon
25 October '10

When Israel demolishes Arab buildings in East Jerusalem that are illegally built - for example in al-Bustan, which was zoned to be a green open space and now has over a hundred illegal buildings - there is no shortage of self-proclaimed "human rights" workers willing to vigorously protest for the rights of the people to build these structures.

(AlJazeeraEnglish | July 03, 2010 In Gaza, around 20 families have had their homes demolished as part of a plan to regulate housing in the strip. The deposed government of Hamas says the houses were built illegally on governmen towned land and should be torn down. But the families say they paid for the land.Al-Jazeera's Nicole Johnston reports from Rafah, in southern Gaza. Y)


Somehow, I don't think they are going to be as concerned in this case:

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Hamas destroys dozens of homes in Gaza

Strip's rulers say buildings knocked down with bulldozers were constructed illegally on government land. 'They promised reform and change – instead they've destroyed our homes," shouts newly homeless resident


Associated Press
Israel News/Ynet
17 May '10

(Where's George Galloway when you need him? ISM? Gideon Levy? Maybe the flotilla can bring them prefabs. In any case you would hope to see the prototypical picture of a woman sitting on rubble. As they barred the press, I have provided one, which will have to do.)

Hamas police wielding clubs beat and pushed residents out of dozens of homes in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on Sunday before knocking the buildings down with bulldozers, residents said.

Gaza's militant Hamas rulers said the homes were built illegally on government land. Newly homeless residents were furious over Palestinians on bulldozers razing Palestinian homes.

For years, Palestinians have criticized Israel for destroying houses, mostly because they were built without permits issued by the military. Now, Rafah residents complained, their own government, run by the Islamic militant Hamas that seized power in Gaza in July 2007, has done the same.

"They promised reform and change – instead they've destroyed our homes," shouted Miasar Gan, a 54-year-old woman. Gan said she and her husband had nowhere else to go.

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Court: Why won't state combat illegal Palestinian construction?

Tomer Zarchin/Chaim Levinson
Haaretz
03 September 09

(Great question!)

The High Court asked state prosecutors why the state discriminates between illegal Jewish and Palestinian building in the West Bank, citing the lack of enforcement of demolition warrants against illegally-built Palestinian buildings in the area.

The High Court hearing on Thursday came after the right-wing "Regavim movement for the protection of national land", called for the court to force Defense Minister Ehud Barak to explain why he hasn't carried out the demolition of illegal buildings in the Palestinian villages of Asaviya and Yitma in the West Bank, which are located next to the settlement of Rahalim.

The state said in response to the petition that since 1996, demolition orders were given against 50 buildings in Asaviya, but only 3 have been carried out.
In the discussion, a justice asked if the enforcement of demolition orders for illegal building by Palestinians is treated equally to demolition orders for illegal building by Jewish settlers in the West Bank. A state prosecutor said that there is a difference in understanding in the Israeli and Palestinian sector.

The same prosecutor said that civilian authorities had ruled that enforcement is different for illegal construction carried out on private property owned by someone other than the builder.

When a justice asked why only 3 demolition warrants had been issued since 1996, she was told that there is only so much manpower to carry out the demolitions and there are more pressing national concerns.

Regavim issued a statement on Thursday saying "finally the High Court understands that it is impossible to enact selective enforcement against Jews only in the West Bank."
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