<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[PNN &#8211; Palestine News Network &#8211; Human Rights Watch: Under Discriminatory Policies, Settlers Flourish, Palestinians&nbsp;Suffer]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=9288&amp;Itemid=56">20.12.10 &#8211; 09:45 </a></p>
<p>Jerusalem – To PNN – Israeli policies in the West  Bank harshly discriminate against Palestinian residents, depriving them  of basic necessities while providing lavish amenities for Jewish  settlements, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Sunday.</p>
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<div class="mosimage_caption" style="text-align:center;">Har-Homa settlement near Jerusalem</div>
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<p>The  report identifies discriminatory practices that have no legitimate  security or other justification and calls on Israel, in addition to  abiding by its international legal obligation to withdraw the  settlements, to end these violations of Palestinians’ rights.<br />
The  166-page report, “Separate and Unequal: Israel’s Discriminatory  Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,”  shows that Israel operates a two-tier system for the two populations of  the West Bank in the large areas where it exercises exclusive control.  The report is based on case studies comparing Israel’s starkly different  treatment of settlements and next-door Palestinian communities in these  areas. It calls on the US and EU member states and on businesses with  operations in settlement areas to avoid supporting Israeli settlement  policies that are inherently discriminatory and that violate  international law.<br />
“Palestinians face systematic  discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national  origin, depriving them of electricity, water, schools, and access to  roads, while nearby Jewish settlers enjoy all of these state-provided  benefits,” said Carroll Bogert, deputy executive director for external  relations at Human Rights Watch. “While Israeli settlements flourish,  Palestinians under Israeli control live in a time warp – not just  separate, not just unequal, but sometimes even pushed off their lands  and out of their homes.”<br />
By making their  communities virtually uninhabitable, Israel’s discriminatory policies  have frequently had the effect of forcing residents to leave their  communities, Human Rights Watch said. According to a June 2009 survey of  households in “Area C,” the area covering 60 percent of the West Bank  that is under exclusive Israeli control, and East Jerusalem, which  Israel unilaterally annexed, some 31 percent of Palestinian residents  had been displaced since 2000.<br />
Human Rights Watch  looked at both Area C and East Jerusalem and found that the two-tier  system in effect in both areas provides generous financial benefits and  infrastructure support to promote life in Jewish settlements, while  deliberately withholding basic services, punishing growth, and imposing  harsh conditions on Palestinian communities. Such different treatment on  the basis of race, ethnicity, and national origin that is not narrowly  tailored to legitimate goals violates the fundamental prohibition  against discrimination under human rights law.<br />
Israeli  policies control many aspects of the day-to-day life of Palestinians  who live in Area C and East Jerusalem. Among the discriminatory burdens  imposed on Palestinians that Human Rights Watch found are Israeli  practices of expropriating land from Palestinians for settlements and  their supporting infrastructure; blocking Palestinians from using roads  and reaching agricultural lands; denying access to electricity and  water; denying building permits for houses, schools, clinics, and  infrastructure; and demolishing homes and even entire communities. Such  measures have limited the expansion of Palestinian villages and imposed  severe hardships on residents, including leaving them with limited  access to medical care.</p>
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<div class="mosimage_caption" style="text-align:center;">Armed settler in the West Bank</div>
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<p>By  contrast, Israeli policies promote and encourage Jewish settlements to  expand in Area C and East Jerusalem, often using land and other  resources that are effectively unavailable to Palestinians. The Israeli  government grants numerous incentives to settlers, including funding for  housing, education, and infrastructure, such as special roads. Those  benefits have led to the consistent and rapid expansion of settlements,  the population of which grew from approximately 241,500 inhabitants in  1992 to roughly 490,000 in 2010, including East Jerusalem.<br />
“While  Israeli policy makers are fighting for the ‘natural growth’ of their  illegal settlements, they’re strangling historic Palestinian  communities, forbidding families from expanding their homes, and making  life unlivable,” Bogert said. “The policies surrounding Israel’s  settlements are an affront to equality and a major obstacle to ordinary  Palestinian life.”<br />
One of the Palestinian  communities that Human Rights Watch examines in the report is Jubbet  al-Dhib, a village with 160 residents southeast of Bethlehem that dates  from 1929. The village is often accessible only by foot because its only  connection to a paved road is a rough, 1.5 kilometer-long dirt track.  Children from Jubbet al-Dhib must walk to schools in other villages  several kilometers away because their own village has no school.<br />
Jubbet  al-Dhib lacks electricity despite numerous requests to be connected to  the Israeli electric grid, which Israeli authorities have rejected.  Israeli authorities also rejected an international donor-funded project  that would have provided the village with solar-powered street lights.  Any meat or milk in the village must be eaten the same day due to lack  of refrigeration; residents often resort to eating preserved foods  instead. Villagers depend for light on candles, kerosene lanterns, and,  when they can afford to fill it with gasoline, a small generator.<br />
Approximately  350 meters away is the Jewish community of Sde Bar, founded in 1997. It  has a paved access road for its population of around 50 people and is  connected to Jerusalem by a new, multi-million-dollar highway – the  “Lieberman Road” – which bypasses Palestinian cities, towns, and  villages, like Jubbet al-Dhib. Sde Bar operates a high school, but  Jubbet al-Dhib students may not attend. Settlements are designated  closed military areas that may be entered only with special military  permits. Residents of Sde Bar have the amenities common to any Israeli  town, such as refrigerators and electric lights, which Jubbet al-Dhib  villagers can see from their homes at night.<br />
“Palestinian  children in areas under Israeli control are studying by candlelight  while watching the electric lights in settlers’ windows,” Bogert said.  “Pretending that depriving Palestinian kids of access to schools or  water or electricity has something to do with security is absurd.”</p>
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<div class="mosimage" style="float:right;border-width:2px;"><img title="Image" src="https://i2.wp.com/english.pnn.ps/images/stories/2008/settlerattackwomen.jpg" border="0" alt="Image" hspace="6" width="314" height="235" /></p>
<div class="mosimage_caption" style="text-align:center;">settler attack Palestinian woman</div>
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<p>In  most cases where Israel has acknowledged differential treatment of  Palestinians – such as when it bars them from “settler-only” roads – it  has asserted that the measures are necessary to protect Jewish settlers  and other Israelis who are subject to periodic attacks by Palestinian  armed groups. But no security or other legitimate rationale can explain  the vast scale of differential treatment of Palestinians, such as permit  denials that effectively prohibit Palestinians from building or  repairing homes, schools, roads, and water tanks, Human Rights Watch  said.<br />
Moreover, in addressing security concerns,  Israel often acts as if all Palestinians pose a security threat by  virtue of their race, ethnicity, and national origin, rather than  narrowly tailoring restrictions to specific individuals who are shown to  pose a threat. The legal prohibition of discrimination prohibits such  broad-brush restrictions.<br />
“The world long ago  discarded spurious arguments to justify treating one group of people  differently from another merely because of their race, ethnicity, or  national origin,” Bogert said. “It’s time for Israel to end its policies  of discrimination and stop treating Palestinians under its control  markedly worse than Jews in the same area.”</p>
<p>Israel’s  highest court has ruled that certain measures against Palestinian  citizens of Israel were illegal because they were discriminatory.  However, Human Rights Watch is not aware that the courts have  adjudicated whether any Israeli practice in the West Bank discriminated  against Palestinians, although petitioners have raised such claims in a  number of cases.<br />
Human Rights Watch said that the  blatantly discriminatory practices make it an urgent matter for donor  countries to avoid contributing to or being complicit in the violations  of international law caused by the settlements. These countries should  take meaningful steps encourage the Israeli government to abide by its  obligations, Human Rights Watch said.<br />
Human  Rights Watch reiterated its recommendation that the United States, which  provides US$2.75 billion in aid to Israel annually, should suspend  financing to Israel in an amount equivalent to the costs of Israel’s  spending in support of settlements, which a 2003 study estimated at $1.4  billion. Similarly, based on numerous reports that US tax-exempt  organizations provide substantial contributions to support settlements,  the report urges the US to verify that such tax-exemptions are  consistent with US obligations to ensure respect for international law,  including prohibitions against discrimination.<br />
Human  Rights Watch called on the EU, a primary export market for settlement  products, to ensure that it does not provide incentives for settlement  exports through preferential tariff treatment, and to identify cases  where discrimination against Palestinians has contributed to the  production of goods. For example, the report documents how crops  exported from settlements using water from Israeli-drilled wells have  dried up nearby Palestinian wells, limiting Palestinians’ ability to  cultivate their own lands and even their access to drinking water.</p>
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<div class="mosimage_caption" style="text-align:center;">Archive</div>
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<p>The  report also describes cases in which businesses have contributed to or  benefited directly from discrimination against Palestinians, for example  through commercial activities on lands that were unlawfully confiscated  from Palestinians without compensation for the benefit of settlers.  These businesses also benefit from Israeli governmental subsidies, tax  abatements, and discriminatory access to infrastructure, permits, and  export channels. Human Rights Watch called on businesses to investigate,  prevent and mitigate such violations, including ending any operations  that cannot be separated from discriminatory Israeli practices.<br />
“Discrimination  of the kind practiced daily in the West Bank should be beyond the pale  for anyone,” Bogert said. “Foreign governments and businesses at risk of  being tainted by Israel’s unlawful practices should identify and end  policies and actions that support them.”</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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<p><a href="http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=9288&amp;Itemid=56">PNN &#8211; Palestine News Network &#8211; Human Rights Watch: Under Discriminatory Policies, Settlers Flourish, Palestinians Suffer</a>.</p>
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