121 Israeli settlements and about one hundred outposts currently control 42 percent of land area of the West Bank, according to a comprehensive report released on 6 July by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. As of May 2010, there are over 200 Israeli settlements on Israeli-recognised private Palestinian land, some official, some unauthorized, and some neighborhoods on land annexed to the Jerusalem Municipality’s area of jurisdiction.
The report, entitled By Hook and By Crook: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank, analyzes the means employed by Israel to gain control of Palestinian land for the building of settlements in the West Bank. Much of the information in the report is drawn from official Israeli government data and documents.
According to the report, more than half a million Israelis are now living over the Green Line (the unofficial border separating Israel from Palestinian territory captured in 1967). Of that half million, more than 300,000 are living in 121 settlements and about one hundred outposts, which control 42 percent of the land area of the West Bank. The remainder live in twelve neighborhoods that Israel established on land it annexed to the Jerusalem Municipality, wrote B’Tselem.
By cross-checking data of the Civil Administration, the settlements’ jurisdictional area, and aerial photos of settlements taken in 2009, B'Tselem found that 21 percent of the built-up area of the settlements is land that Israel recognizes as private property, owned by Palestinians, in contradiction with the government’s public claims that Israel is building settlements on state-owned land.
According to B’Tselem, settlements in the West Bank hold the status of National Priority Area A, which entitles them to a number of benefits: in housing, by enabling settlers to purchase quality, inexpensive apartments, with an automatic grant of a subsidized mortgage; wide-ranging benefits in education, such as free education from age three, extended school days, free transportation to schools, and higher teachers’ salaries; for industry and agriculture, by grants and subsidies, and indemnification for the taxes imposed on their produce by the European Union; in taxation, by imposing taxes significantly lower than in communities inside the Green Line, and by providing larger balancing grants to the settlements, to aid in covering deficits.
Over the last decade West Bank settlers have received $200 million in tax-free funding from American donors, according to a New York Times report also released on 6 July. An examination of public records in the United States and Israel by the Times identified at least 40 American groups, Christian and Jewish, that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible donations for Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade, thanks to tax breaks from United States Department of Treasury.
The money, some of which goes to schools, synagogues, and recreation centers, has also paid for housing, guard dogs, bulletproof vests, rifle scopes and vehicles to secure outposts in the occupied Palestinian territory.
One of the groups benefitting from the tax breaks is Amitz Rescue & Security, which trains and equips guard units for settlements and has, according to the Times, raised money through two Brooklyn nonprofits. On their website supporters can “send a tax-deductible check” for night-vision binoculars, bulletproof vehicles and guard dogs. “Thank you for your decision to donate to help save Jewish lives in Israel,” they write.
Differences in U.S. and Israeli law mean it is easier to fund settlements through donations from New York than from Jerusalem, according to the investigation.
The reports were released as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington to help mend strained US-Israel relations. President Barack Obama’s administration has strongly criticized Israel’s planned settlement expansion program in the West Bank and demolition and building plans in occupied East Jerusalem.
