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israel settlements
'Cashing in on Genocide': Israeli Firm Pitches Beachfront Real Estate in Leveled Gaza
"A house on the beach is not a dream," reads an advertisement from a company notorious for building in the occupied West Bank.
Dec 19, 2023
Palestine defenders this week condemned a proposal by an Israeli real estate developer specializing in the construction of illegal settlements to build beachfront homes for Jewish colonists over the bombed-out ruins of Gaza.
"A house on the beach is not a dream," reads an advertisement published by Harey Zahav—an Israeli company notorious for building settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank—that drew international attention following last week's Practical Preparation for Gaza Settlement Conference in Tel Aviv.
The ad depicts an artist's rendering of luxury homes superimposed over an actual photograph of a Gaza neighborhood destroyed by Israeli attacks—which have killed nearly 20,000 people while displacing over 85% of the embattled strip's 2.3 million people since early October.
While the Israeli government funds settler organizations, Harey Zahav's proposal is not believed to be state-supported. However, critics noted that Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel has drafted a plan to forcibly expel Gazans into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and that a separate proposal by the right-wing think tank Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy declared that "there is currently a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip."
Such plans have been compared with the Nakba ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Arabs—by deadly violence and forced displacement—from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
"An Israeli real estate firm is already cashing in on genocide, churning out blueprints to build Israeli homes in Gaza on land leveled by bombs," activist Sarah Wilkinson said Tuesday on social media.
Harey Zahav's proposal comes amid statements by Israeli political and military leaders that critics say incite or advocate genocide of Palestinians. Even prior to the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, numerous Israeli officials called for the recolonization of a Gaza Strip from which some or all of the Palestinian residents—around two-thirds of them the descendants of Nakba refugees—have been removed.
While Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, the besieged enclave is still considered occupied under international law.
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American Anthropological Association Endorses Academic Boycott of Israeli 'Apartheid Regime'
"The discipline of anthropology, as the study of humanity, bears a distinct and urgent responsibility to stand against all forms of racism and racist practices," the AAA said in response to the BDS movement's boycott call.
Jul 24, 2023
The American Anthropological Association on Monday became the largest U.S. academic association to endorse a Palestinian call to boycott Israeli universities and other institutions complicit in what the group called Israel's "apartheid regime."
In a major victory for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian human rights, more than 7 in 10 of the 37% of American Anthropological Association (AAA) members who participated in the monthlong referendum voted in favor of a motion to back the boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
"The Israeli state operates an apartheid regime from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea."
With 12,000 members, the AAA is the largest U.S. scholarly group to support BDS' boycott call. The motion applies only to institutions, not individual anthropologists.
"This was indeed a contentious issue, and our differences may have sparked fierce debate, but we have made a collective decision and it is now our duty to forge ahead, united in our commitment to advancing scholarly knowledge, finding solutions to human and social problems, and serving as a guardian of human rights," AAA president Ramona Pérez said in a statement.
"AAA's referendum policies and procedures have been followed closely and without exception, and the outcome will carry the full weight of authorization by AAA's membership," Pérez added.
The AAA motion, drafted in March, notes that ever since the Nakba, the 1947-49 dispossession and expulsion of more than 700,000 Arabs by Zionist Jews establishing the modern state of Israel, "Palestinians—including activists, artists, intellectuals, human rights organizations, and others—have documented and circulated knowledge of the Israeli state's apartheid system and ethnic cleansing."
"The Israeli state operates an apartheid regime from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, including the internationally recognized state of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank," the motion asserts, adding that "Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the Israeli state's regime of oppression against Palestinians... including by providing research and development of military and surveillance technologies used against Palestinians."
"Israeli academic institutions do not provide protections for academic freedom, campus speech in support of Palestinian human and political rights, nor for the freedom of association of Palestinian students on their campuses," the document continues. "Israeli academic institutions have failed to support the right to education and academic freedom at Palestinian universities, obstructing Palestinian academic exchanges with academic institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere."
"The AAA membership vote to boycott complicit Israeli universities is wholly consistent with the association's stated commitment to anti-racism, equality, human rights, and social justice."
In a statement, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) said, "We thank the many AAA members who worked tirelessly to ensure the association was on record as refusing ties with Israeli universities complicit in Israel's crimes against us. We thank those who took the time to learn from and listen to indigenous Palestinian voices."
"The AAA membership vote to boycott complicit Israeli universities is wholly consistent with the association's stated commitment to anti-racism, equality, human rights, and social justice and furthers the drive to decolonize anthropology and academia in general," PACBI added.
The motion notes that a United Nations special rapporteur and groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B'Tselem—an Israeli organization—"have confirmed that Israeli authorities are committing apartheid against the Palestinian people, and have documented the institutionalization of systematic racial oppression and discrimination."
Others who have condemned Israeli apartheid include former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and South African cleric and activist Desmond Tutu—both of whom were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize—and multiple cabinet-level former Israeli government officials.
Focusing on its field of expertise, AAA's motion claims "anthropological frameworks and methods, ethnographic and archaeological, are actively used by the Israeli state to further its system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing," and that the organization's 1999 Declaration on Anthropology and Human Rights states that "anthropology as a profession is committed to the promotion and protection of the right of people and peoples everywhere to the full realization of their humanity."
Therefore, according to AAA, anthropologists have an "ethical responsibility to protest and oppose" human rights crimes, and "the discipline of anthropology, as the study of humanity, bears a distinct and urgent responsibility to stand against all forms of racism and racist practices."
AAA also highlights U.S. financial, military, and diplomatic support for Israel, which the group calls "decisive" in "enabling and sustaining" Israeli apartheid, including the 56-year illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the unlawful construction and expansion of Jewish-only settler colonies there, and the "ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip."
Last year, the Middle East Studies Association, the leading learned organization dedicated to study of the region, voted 768-167 to join the BDS movement, which counts more than 350 academic departments, programs, centers, unions, and societies worldwide among its supporters.
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Israel 'Legalizes' 9 Apartheid Settler Colonies in Occupied Palestine
"Make no mistake; this isn't about retaliation for the recent terror attacks," said one critic. "This is nothing else than colonialism, and the U.S. and E.U. won't do anything about it; instead, they say that they are 'deeply concerned.'"
Feb 12, 2023
Israel's far-right Security Cabinet on Sunday approved the immediate "legalization" of nine Jewish-only settler outposts in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem over what critics called the empty objection of benefactor the United States and in violation of international law—under which all Israeli settler colonies are illegal.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich both claimed responsibility for the action, in which they sought government recognition of 77 illegal settler outposts. The ministers and other Israeli officials said the move was in response to recent deadly attacks against Jews by Palestinian resistance fighters, including a vehicular assault that killed three people—two of them young children—near East Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood on Friday.
"Legalizing war crimes won't lead to peace or stability."
"It is not enough and we want more, but it is an important start," Ben-Gvir, who leads the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, tweeted Sunday. "The training of the settlements will join the extensive police activity in East Jerusalem, and another series of measures to deter terrorism," he added, a reference to the cabinet's move to increase the number of security forces in Jerusalem and ramp up operations in Palestinian neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem.
The nine settler outposts—Avigayil, Beit Hogla, Givat Harel, Givat Ha-Roeh, Givat Arnon, Mitzpe Yehuda, Malchai HaShalom, Asa-el, Sde Boaz, and Shaharit—were considered illegal even under Israeli law. Under international law, all settlements, in which anti-Arab apartheid is strictly enforced, are illegal. Most were built on land seized from Palestinians through terrorism and ethnic cleansing during the Nakba, or catastrophe, when more than 700,000 Arabs were expelled during the establishment and consolidation of modern Israel in 1947-49, and during the conquest of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967.
\u201cMake no mistake; this isn\u2019t about retaliation for the recent terror attacks or that the Palestinian Authority went to the International Criminal Court of Justice for judicial advice about the Israeli occupation.\nIt was a question of time before Israel would legalize the outposts.\u201d— Omar \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8|\ud83c\udf49 \u0639\u064f\u0645\u064e\u0631 (@Omar \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8|\ud83c\udf49 \u0639\u064f\u0645\u064e\u0631) 1676240987
\u201cThis is nothing else than colonialism, and the U.S. and EU won't do anything about it; instead, they say that they are \u201ddeeply concerned.\u201d\n\nFor every day that passes, I lose more and more faith in a peaceful two-state solution and only see a more violent future ahead of us.\u201d— Omar \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8|\ud83c\udf49 \u0639\u064f\u0645\u064e\u0631 (@Omar \ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8|\ud83c\udf49 \u0639\u064f\u0645\u064e\u0631) 1676240987
Israel's Civil Administration is set to meet in the coming days to green-light the construction of thousands of homes in existing apartheid colonies and to build more infrastructure to connect the communities with each other and Israel.
Ben-Gvir also told police to prepare for a new Operation Defensive Shield—a reference to the 2002 offensive that killed more than 400 Palestinians during the second intifada, or general uprising—"to root out terror nests... and reach the terrorists at their homes," according to the Times of Israel.
A senior Israeli official quoted anonymously by the Times of Israel slapped down Ben-Gvir's call, explaining that "decisions of such a scale are not made in statements by one minister or another on a sidewalk at the scene of an attack."
The group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East tweeted a reminder that "every settlement is illegal under international law," while Richard Burden, the vice-chair of the U.K. group Labour Friends of Palestine, said that "whatever the Netanyahu government decides to authorize, under international law the entire West Bank remains occupied territory, all the settlements built there are illegal, and Israel is in breach of its obligations under Geneva Convention."
\u201cSIGN: Our landmark European Citizens\u2019 Initiative (ECI) to #StopTradeWithSettlements demands the EU to ban trade with illegal settlements worldwide. \n\nPut an end to the #EthnicCleansing & forced displacement of Palestinians.\n\nAdd your voice NOW: https://t.co/cywDEdOZXz\u201d— BDS movement (@BDS movement) 1676214723
Both Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the International Criminal Court Rome Statute prohibit settlement activity. According to Article 8(2) of the Rome Statute, "the transfer, directly or indirectly, by an occupying power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory" are unlawful. In 2021, United Nations Palestine expert Michael Lynk said Israeli settlements should be classified as war crimes under the Rome Statute.
From 1978 until 2019, the United States State Department also considered Israeli settlements unlawful.
The decision to grant legal status to the nine settlements came despite the stated objections of the United States, which provides Israel with $3.8 billion in annual military aid, as well as diplomatic cover for what former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called "worse... apartheid than what we saw in South Africa," invasions, ethnic cleansing, and other repression.
"Our position on these matters has been clear and consistent," an unnamed Biden administration official toldAxios Middle East correspondent Barak Ravid. "We strongly oppose expansion of settlements, and we're deeply concerned by reports about a process to legalize outposts that are illegal under Israeli law."
According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, more than 620,000 Jews currently reside in around 140 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. While Israel grants every Jew in the world the right to settle in Israel, it has—against U.N. resolutions and international law—refused to allow the approximately five million Palestinian refugees alive today to return to their homeland.
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