arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)
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Palestine : settlement-expansion should stop by palestine media watch (posted by raf) Friday May 24, 2002 at 10:32 AM |
| raf.custers@euronet.be |
One year ago this week, on May 23, 2001, The Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding committee issued its final report, now commonly known as the Mitchell Report. In that report, the committee recommended, among other things, that the Government of Israel "should freeze all settlement activity, including the 'natural growth' of existing settlements." The report was subsequently fully endorsed by the US State Department and the White House, and adopted as a backbone of US policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Since then, however, settlement construction has continued unabated, with the latest announcement this week of plans for the construction of new 957 Jewish homes in the West Bank. More than that: according to the latest report from the Israeli human rights group Btselem, while settlements are built on 1.7% of West Bank land, Israel in fact has control of 41.9% of the land there....
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