TITLE: The Smotrich Method: Israeli Settlers Obtain Mortgages, Build Illegally Elsewhere in the West Bank
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-25/ty-article-magazine/.premium/the-smotrich-scheme-israeli-settlers-obtain-mortgages-build-illegally-in-the-west-bank/0000018e-7107-d1c9-af8f-7fafa6060000
EXCERPT: Trailers sit on either side of the pathways of the Harasha settlement, set on a lush hillside. Interspersed with these temporary structures are a few permanent houses. When examining the documents pertaining to some of the residents of these permanent structures, a curious picture emerges: When the homeowners obtained mortgages 20 years ago, the loans were given for lots whose numbers indicate that they are part of the neighboring settlement of Neria. Nonetheless, the recipients of these mortgages built their homes in Harasha, which at the time was still classified as an illegal outpost.
One of the settlers in Harasha is Yehuda Eliyahu, who is currently Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's right-hand man and head of the settlement administration in the Defense Ministry, a position with much influence on government policy regarding settlements and outposts. In 2004, when Eliyahu was hardly known outside of settler circles, he received a mortgage for a property on Lot Number 3153, which was situated in the Neria zoning plan.
Documents obtained by Haaretz from the Registrar of Pledges (part of the Corporations Authority), indicate that the mortgages were given with the knowledge of the World Zionist Organization's settlement department, which manages a majority of public land (state land) in the West Bank, and whose conduct has received much criticism over the years.
In fact, residents of the outpost could not have obtained the mortgages without the department's approval and without submitting its documents to the bank. The settlement department declined to respond to Haaretz' request for comment, and would not say whether they knew that these houses were actually built in Harasha and not in Neria.
And Harasha isn't the only place where this happened. In 2017, Haaretz reported that Smotrich himself took a mortgage for a lot in Kedumim that he was given by the settlement department, but then he built his house, illegally, somewhere else – outside of the Kedumim zoning plan and on land that had not been designated as state land.
TITLE: Israel is in crisis, so why is it building yet more settlements
https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/editorial/2024/03/26/israel-palestine-settlements-gaza-west-bank-peace/
EXCERPT: A few days ago, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hardline nationalist ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, revealed plans to build on 800 hectares of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank. This has been described by Israeli watchdog Peace Now as the largest area of land seized since the 1993 Oslo Accords. The move has also drawn the ire of the EU, which described the settlements as “a grave breach of international humanitarian law” and was criticised by Jordan, which denounced "the Israeli government’s ongoing violations of all international law norms".
As if the seizure of Palestinian land was not bad enough, efforts to find Jewish residents to populate it continue unabated. In the past week, The National has reported from the US on an Israeli real estate company that is advising Jewish Americans on how to quickly and easily buy up West Bank land and property. Those who avail themselves of this offer should be clear about what they’re buying in to; settling the West Bank means benefiting from a discriminatory, militarised and lawless occupation. In addition, the settlements suffer from many problems. One example of this was laid out in a report published last week by the Norwegian Refugee Council that described the “devastating environmental and economic consequences” from the unlawful discharge of untreated wastewater from settlements into Palestinian lands.
It seems remarkable that cabinet members of a country at war think that now is the time to redouble their efforts to completing a project that leaves Israel more isolated and less secure. In earlier years, hardline settlers were a tool of Israel’s political and military establishment to be championed, tolerated or uprooted as needs dictated. Since then, the radical settlers and other religious nationalists have embedded themselves and their agenda in the heart of government. This has had some clear consequences – Israeli soldiers are posted in large numbers to protect settlers in the West Bank, even during wartime, and controversial draft legislation currently being championed by Mr Netanyahu would extend exemption from army conscription for ultra-Orthodox Jews, a divisive issue for many Israelis.
Emboldened and enabled, the settler movement and their political champions at home and abroad have also noted how little real international pressure has been brought to bear for their activities. Although the US, France, Britain and the EU have recently imposed some sanctions on individual settlers, this response fails to appreciate how the project is not solely the work of a few radicals – it is a process enabled by Israel’s legal and security institutions.
The settlements are almost universally deemed illegal, therefore they are a potential pressure point for influential countries. Extending and deepening sanctions would send a clear message that the days of dispossessing Palestinians is at an end. Such a message would be timely, as some Israelis – as well as former US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner – openly contemplate a re-occupation of the Gaza Strip, as if the ruined territory was a piece of prime real estate to be bought and sold.
TITLE: Jewish settlers set their sights on Gaza beachfront
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68650815
EXCERPT: We meet Daniella Weiss, 78, the grandmother of Israel's settler movement, at her home in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, where red-roofed houses are spread over hilltops and valleys. She's in constant motion despite having an arm in plaster.
Her vision for the future of Gaza - now home to 2.3 million Palestinians, many of them starving - is that it will be Jewish.
"Gaza Arabs will not stay in the Gaza Strip," she says. "Who will stay? Jews."
She claims that Palestinians want to leave Gaza and that other countries should take them in - although in a lengthy interview, she rarely uses the word "Palestinian".
"The world is wide," she says. "Africa is big. Canada is big. The world will absorb the people of Gaza. How we do it? We encourage it. Palestinians in Gaza, the good ones, will be enabled. I'm not saying forced, I say enabled because they want to go."
There is no evidence that Palestinians want to leave their homeland - although many may now dream of escaping temporarily, to save their lives. For most Palestinians, there is no way out. The borders are tightly controlled by Israel and Egypt, and no foreign countries have offered refuge.
I put it to her that her comments sound like a plan for ethnic cleansing. She does not deny it.
"You can call it ethnic cleansing. I repeat again, the Arabs do not want, normal Arabs do not want to live in Gaza. If you want to call it cleansing, if you want to call it apartheid, you choose your definition. I choose the way to protect the state of Israel. "
A few days later, Daniella Weiss is selling the idea of a return to Gaza over cake and popcorn at a small gathering, hosted by another settler in their living room.
She has a projector, showing a new map of Gaza, complete with settlements, and leaflets entitled "Go back to Gaza".
"People are asking me what the odds are this will happen?" she says.
"What were the odds back then when I came to these dark mountains and made it into this heaven?"
The handful in attendance seem already convinced. "I want to go back immediately," says Sarah Manella. "When they call me, I will go back to Gush Katif [the former Israeli settlement bloc in Gaza]."
What about the people who live there, we ask.
"The area is empty now, "she replies. "Now you don't need to think where to put the settlement, you only need to come back and put a new settlement."
Gaza is far from empty, but much of it has been erased after almost six months of relentless Israeli bombardment.
It is the "greatest open-air graveyard" in the world, in the words of the EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.