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Detail - List of Reasons Why Israel Creating Settlements on Occupied Territories

Goto Source for this Table - section of Study Guide on International Law covering the illegality of the Israeli settlements on occupied territory.

The Israeli government claimed that the settlements were temporary and only built for security purposes, but from the quality of their planning and construction it is obvious these settlements are meant to be permanent. They also appear to serve many other clearly illegal purposes in Israel's plans for the Palestinian occupied territories:

• (1) Their permanence suggests that they are meant to establish "facts on the ground" making it much harder to contemplate returning those areas to Palestinian control. This is a tactic that the Zionists have been using since the early 1900's in their struggles then against British Mandate efforts to be fair to Arab concerns and thus control Jewish immigration;
• (2) Their placement in the occupied areas suggests their use to help isolate and then halt the growth of the Palestinian areas;
• (3) Their placement around Jerusalem suggests their use to help secure the annexation of East Jerusalem;
• (4) Their placement in the West Bank gives control over the water resources and the most fertile farmlands to Israel;
• (5) Their placement in the West Bank makes establishment of a viable Palestinian State increasingly undoable.

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Goto Source for this Table - section of Study Guide on International Law covering the illegality of the Israeli settlements on occupied territory.

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(c) Israel Law Resource Center, February, 2007.