Près de 40 % des colonies israéliennes sont illégales,
car construites sur des terres propriétés privées de
Palestiniens
Israël s'est conduit comme un Etat mafieux en se livrant à
des vols de terres privées au mépris non seulement du droit
international mais aussi du droit israélien." Le rapport
publié mardi 21 novembre par l'organisation La Paix maintenant est
un "acte d'accusation sans concessions de tout le processus de colonisation"
mené par Israël. Selon le texte, basé sur des données
officielles et illustré de photos aériennes, près de
40 % des terres des colonies israéliennes en Cisjordanie ont été
confisquées à des propriétaires fonciers palestiniens
de "façon totalement illégale".
"Longtemps, les responsables officiels ont prétendu que les
colonies étaient construites sur des terres domaniales, or il apparaît
que c'est faux", a affirmé Yariv Oppenheimer, porte-parole
de la Paix maintenant, lors d'une conférence de presse à Jérusalem.
Parmi les exemples donnés figurent notamment Maalé Adoumim,
la plus grande colonie de Cisjordanie (plus de trente mille habitants),
située à l'est de Jérusalem, où 86,4 % des terres
appartiennent à des Palestiniens.
Les blocs de colonies que le premier ministre, Ehoud Olmert, veut annexer
au territoire israélien dans le cadre de son plan de retrait unilatéral
de Cisjordanie sont elles aussi construites à hauteur de 41,4 % sur
des terres privées palestiniennes. Ces chiffres ne comprennent pas
les douze quartiers israéliens construits à Jérusalem-Est
qu'Israël a conquis en 1967, puis annexés.
"VOLS DE TERRES"
"Nous allons transmettre toutes ces données basées
sur des documents officiels israéliens au conseiller juridique du
gouvernement qui fait office de procureur général, en espérant
qu'il ouvrira une enquête et lancera des procédures judiciaires
contre tous ceux qui se sont rendus coupables de ces vols de terres",
a affirmé Yariv Oppenheimer.
Une porte-parole du conseil des colonies juives de Judée-Samarie,
la plus importante organisation de colons, a rejeté ce rapport.
"Ce document où il n'y a rien de nouveau n'est qu'un tissu de
mensonges qui s'intègre dans la guerre menée par La Paix maintenant
contre les juifs", a-t-elle dit. Selon elle, "les implantations
ont été construites avec l'autorisation du gouvernement sur
des terres n'appartenant pas à des Palestiniens".
Un rapport officiel rédigé en 2004, à la demande de
l'ancien premier ministre Ariel Sharon, qui demandait l'évacuation
de cent cinq colonies "sauvages" dispersées en Cisjordanie
est resté lettre morte, malgré de multiples promesses des
dirigeants israéliens aux Etats-Unis.
LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 21.11.06 | 14h02
Israeli Map Says West Bank Posts Sit on Arab Land
JERUSALEM, Nov. 20 - An Israeli advocacy group, using maps and figures leaked
from inside the government, says that 39 percent of the land held by Israeli
settlements in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians.
Israel has long asserted that it fully respects Palestinian private property
in the West Bank and only takes land there legally or, for security reasons,
temporarily.
If big sections of those settlements are indeed privately held Palestinian
land, that is bound to create embarrassment for Israel and further complicate
the already distant prospect of a negotiated peace. The data indicate that
40 percent of the land that Israel plans to keep in any future deal with
the Palestinians is private.
The new claims regarding Palestinian property are said to come from the
2004 database of the Civil Administration, which controls the civilian aspects
of Israel's presence in the West Bank. Peace Now, an Israeli group that
advocates Palestinian self-determination in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
plans to publish the information on Tuesday. An advance copy was made available
to The New York Times.
The data - maps that show the government's registry of the land by category
- was given to Peace Now by someone who obtained it from an official inside
the Civil Administration. The Times spoke to the person who received it
from the Civil Administration official and agreed not to identify him because
of the delicate nature of the material.
That person, who has frequent contact with the Civil Administration, said
he and the official wanted to expose what they consider to be wide-scale
violations of private Palestinian property rights by the government and
settlers. The government has refused to give the material directly to Peace
Now, which requested it under Israel's freedom of information law.
(...)
Within prominent settlements that Israel has said it plans to keep in any
final border agreement, the data show, for example, that some 86.4 percent
of Maale Adumim, a large Jerusalem suburb, is private; and 35.1 percent
of Ariel is.
The maps indicate that beyond the private land, 5.8 percent is so-called
survey land, meaning of unclear ownership, and 1.3 percent private Jewish
land. The rest, about 54 percent, is considered "state land" or
has no designation, though Palestinians say that at least some of it represents
agricultural land expropriated by the state.
The figures, together with detailed maps of the land distribution in every
Israeli settlement in the West Bank, were put together by the Settlement
Watch Project of Peace Now, led by Dror Etkes and Hagit Ofran, and has a
record of careful and accurate reporting on settlement growth.
The report does not include Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed and does
not consider part of the West Bank, although much of the world regards East
Jerusalem as occupied. Much of the world also considers Israeli settlements
on occupied land to be illegal under international law. International law
requires an occupying power to protect private property, and Israel has
always asserted that it does not take land without legal justification.
One case in a settlement Israel intends to keep is in Givat Zeev, barely
five miles north of Jerusalem. At the southern edge is the Ayelet Hashachar
synagogue. Rabah Abdellatif, a Palestinian who lives in the nearby village
of Al Jib, says the land belongs to him.
Papers he has filed with the Israeli military court, which runs the West
Bank, seem to favor Mr. Abdellatif. In 1999, Israeli officials confirmed,
he was even granted a judgment ordering the demolition of the synagogue
because it had been built without permits. But for the last seven years,
the Israeli system has done little to enforce its legal judgments. The synagogue
stands, and Mr. Abdellatif has no access to his land.
Ram Kovarsky, the town council secretary, said the synagogue was outside
the boundaries of Givat Zeev, although there is no obvious separation. Israeli
officials confirm that the land is privately owned, though they refuse to
say by whom.
Mr. Abdellatif, 65, said: "I feel stuck, angry. Why would they do that?
I don't know who to go to anymore."
He pointed to his corduroy trousers and said, in the English he learned
in Paterson, N.J., where his son is a police detective: "These are
my pants. And those are your pants. And you should not take my pants. This
is mine, and that is yours! I never took anyone's land."
According to the Peace Now figures, 44.3 percent of Givat Zeev is on private
Palestinian land.(...)
STEVEN ERLANGER. New York Times, November 21, 2006
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