Israeli DM Retroactively Legalizes Illegal Settlement Expansion

[stockholmer]

In response to petition, State retroactively legalizes dozens of housing units at Shilo settlement. Peace Now: Government's true policy exposed. The Defense Ministry has approved two plans for the construction of 119 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Shilo, Ynet has learned.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4153870,00.html

The building permits were revealed in the State's response to a petition filed with the High court of Justice by Peace Now eight months ago after the construction of 40 units had already begun on a number of Shilo plots. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Monday. Defense Minister Ehud Barak's bureau said in response: "Anything approved in Shilo is just approval of the existing situation; any additional construction will need a new permit."

In its petition, Peace Now claimed the construction was illegal and was not included in the original plan for the area, as approved by the Central Bureau of Planning at the Civilian Administration of Judea and Samaria.

In its response, submitted Wednesday, the State said that in light of the petition it has decided to retroactively authorize all permanent housing units included in the two construction plans.

If implemented, the construction plans would expand Shilo by 60%. There are currently 195 housing units in the settlement, in addition to caravans.

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http://www.peacenow.org.il/eng/content/interim-report-settlement-activity-end-moratorium-0

Interim Report: Settlement Activity since the End of the Moratorium

On the 26th of September 2010, the 10 months settlement moratorium http://peacenow.org.il/eng/node/99 came to an end. Since then, the settlers have managed to “catch up” with the construction freeze and erase its effect, starting construction of some 2,000 housing units in 75 different settlements and outposts, one third of them in settlements east of the Separation Barrier (this number is higher than the yearly average for the last few years). Meanwhile the Israeli Government has approved the planning and marketing of at least 800 new units in 13 settlements.

Following is a summary of the settlement activity in the West Bank (not including East Jerusalem) in the 8 months since the end of the moratorium.


1. Intensive Construction – Mainly at Isolated Settlements

As soon as the freeze order expired, the Israeli government adopted a policy allowing any previously approved construction, as well as approving some new construction projects. According to Peace Now’s count, there are 13,000 units http://peacenow.org.il/eng/node/332that can be built without need for any further approval of the government. Since the end of the moratorium the settlers started construction on at least 1,976 housing units, of which:

♦ 21% are in settlements west of the built-up Separation Barrier (420 units);

♦ 33% are in settlements east of the Separation Barrier (659 units). As a point of comparison, in the past few years construction east of the barrier made up only 20% of the total construction;

♦ 46% are in settlements West of the planned route of the Barrier that hasn’t been built yet (897 units).

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[azurnoir]

1. sigh we've seen the apparent satisfaction of some here on DU over this

but with every new unit build a one state solution becomes closer to reality