Israel Grabs More Palestinian Land, Sets Stage for Further Illegal Colonization of Palestinian Territory
Meanwhile, in the Middle East’s only democracy, settlements continue to grow:
Some 1,700 dunams of land in the northern part of Efrat were declared state land last week, paving the way for the West Bank settlement to start the process of seeking government approval to build there.
The Civil Administration issued the declaration after rejecting eight appeals by Palestinians against the move. A ninth appeal was accepted, and the land covered by this appeal was consequently removed from Efrat’s jurisdiction.
Barack Obama and George Mitchell need to make a serious effort to stop this. Opposition to settlements has long been official United States policy, but the overwhelming tendency has been for U.S. administrations to turn a blind eye to settlement expansion. The expansion itself is an impediment to peace, and American unwillingness to stand behind our own policy commitments is devastating to our credibility in the region.
Incidentally, my understanding is that a dunam is equal to a square meter, meaning that we’re talking about around 18,300 square feet.
58 Responses to “Israel Grabs More Palestinian Land, Sets Stage for Further Illegal Colonization of Palestinian Territory”
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February 16th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
A dunam is 1000 square meters.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Nope, 1000 square meters in a dunam.
About 350 acres in all.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
that’s not quite half an acre, and about half a football playing field.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
times 1000, I meant. A different kettle of fish.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Did you honestly think the Palestinians filed nine appeals over a patch of land that would fit one (1) rather stately mansion?
February 16th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
18,300 square feet = 0.000656 square miles (or 0.066% of a square mile)
February 16th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Settlements today, settlements tomorrow, settlements to the far horizon. From the Euphrates to the Nile.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
1700 dunams = 18 298 647.7 square feet
1700 dunams = 0.65637367 square miles
February 16th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
18,300 square feet = 0.000656 square miles (or 0.066% of a square mile)
Um, according to my cell phone unit converter, it’s actually 1700.125632 square miles.
February 16th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Apparently I need a new cell phone.
February 16th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
If you like, you can Google 1700 dunams in square miles or 1700 dunams in acres and it will give you the answer directly.
February 16th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Ack, BetterMath got there first.
I note that “1700 dunams in square parsecs” also works but is less informative.
February 16th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
My car gets four furlongs to the hogshead, and that’s the way I like it!
February 16th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
For reference, note that an Iraqi dunam is about 2.5 times bigger than a Levantine dunam.
February 16th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Israel acting in bad faith? Who da thunk it?
February 16th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Thanks. I probably shouldn’t have trusted Matt’s numbers. (He seems to have been using Mark F’s cell phone.)
February 16th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
So just to be clear, this land grab is:
1700 dunams, which is
420 acres, or
about 2/3 of a square mile, or
1.7 square kilometers
There. Now we know what we’re talking about.
February 16th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
And you can see why a mars lander crashed because the units on one design parameter were not converted from inches to cm.
Basically: Bring the Metric System in!!!
Almost no one knows how many sq ft are in an acre or how many acres are in a sq mile, but it is pretty easy to figure out how many m3 are in a km3, or m3 in a dm3.
February 16th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
“Basically: Bring the Metric System in!!!”
For the most part, it’s already here. Almost every country uses it. Except for measuring land area, for some reason. It seems a lot of countries I go to have there own units for land area. It seems farmers are the last to switch over. I guess that shouldn’t surprise us.
February 16th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
This is my favorite Yglesias comment thread ever, in a Beavis-and-Butthead-talk-unit-conversion-with-Jimmy-Carter kind of way.
February 16th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
(He seems to have been using Mark F’s cell phone.)
I think I probably selected ft^2 to m^2, rather than mi^2.
February 16th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
now we’re all straight about the dunam, or, DU-nayaamm! as Clay Davis might say
February 16th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
These potential settlements may be an obstacle to peace, but if the Israeli courts approved them, I don’t see how they’re “illegal.” Matt, it hurts your credibility to adopt the meaningless buzzwords beloved of the anti-Israeli left.
February 16th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Ragout, by your criterion, the Holocaust was legal, and so was apartheid and the Serbian genocide. When people say the settlements are illegal, they generally mean that they are in violation of international law, specifically the Geneva Conventions’ requirements for fair treatment of occupied territories and the civilians living therein, as well as U.N. resolutions regarding this specific case.
February 16th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Ragout: You apparently confuse “positive law” with legality. A country legal rulings only apply to its citizens. The GOI’s actions are not necessarily “legal” in the international sphere.
February 16th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
“When people say the settlements are illegal, they generally mean that they are in violation of international law, specifically the Geneva Conventions’ requirements for fair treatment of occupied territories and the civilians living therein, as well as U.N. resolutions regarding this specific case.”
The Geneva Conventions don’t apply to the West Bank, because it isn’t an occupied territory according to the Geneva Conventions’ own definition. That subsequent UN resolutions declared it to be one do nothing to change that except highlight the extent to which this characterization has been politicized and not based on any objective concept of law or justice.
February 16th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Josh G.,
I don’t claim approval by *any* court makes something legal. I claim that the Israeli court system in particular is trustworthy. If they say that Israel’s actions don’t violate the 4th Geneva Convention, which is the law of the land in Israel, then I believe them.
Certainly I trust the Israeli courts a lot more than someone who compares them to Nazi or apartheid courts, as you do. And when Matt dismisses the Israeli courts without bothering to even make an argument, he loses credibility.
February 16th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
The Geneva Conventions don’t apply to the West Bank
That’s probably true. But my understanding is that Israel and the Israeli courts have chosen to follow the Geneva conventions anyway.
February 16th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
This seems to be a rather overblown discussion. If we are talking about 2/3 of a square mile, at worst this amounts to petty larceny rather then grand larceny.
February 16th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
If we are talking about 2/3 of a square mile, at worst this amounts to petty larceny rather then grand larceny.
Shorter SLC: chop off my big toe and I won’t complain.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Shorter SLC: segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Illegal? Please, the Arabs have no legal right to any land…
Why is it that the world is not crying racism when Hamas is promoting the murdering of Jews…? Is there some sort of double standard? One standard for the Jew, and another for the Muslim? It’s hypocrisy.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Re pseudonymous in nc
I have a better idea. If Mr. pseudonymous wants to lose 10 pounds of ugly fat, he should cut off his head.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Israel should be grateful for terrorist attacks. They give it such a wonderful excuse for expanding the settlements.
To curtail the settlements would be to reward the terrorists, you know.
February 16th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Death to Zionists today, death to Zionists tomorrow and death to Zionists forever!
Lancet has an article about the gross war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza assault. 1,360 people killed, SIXTY PERCENT of them children, another 4,000+ wounded, 40 percent of them children. And that’s just the beginning.
Zionists are Nazis. Period. Death to Zionists!
Meanwhile, according to reports today, the IDF has been ordered to accelerate plans for war with Iran, and El Baradei makes the obvious point that ignoring Israel’s nuclear arsenal undermines the NPT.
February 16th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
RSH, you should consider calming down. If I met you in person, you would not be a happy man.
February 16th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Before you start flaming me per #36, let me state that RSH just called for me and my family to be killed.
February 16th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
The U.S. hasn’t had a sensible Israel-Palestine foreign policy sense Jim Baker was SoS.
February 16th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
If they say that Israel’s actions don’t violate the 4th Geneva Convention, which is the law of the land in Israel, then I believe them.
“The ceded territory was occupied by numerous and warlike tribes of Indians; but the exclusive right of the United States to extinguish their title, and to grant the soil, has never, we believe, been doubted…” Johnson v. M’Intosh Supreme Court of the United States, 1823 (holding that Native Americans hold no property rights over any American land).
Trust in the courts of conquerers to uphold the rights of the conquered is foolishness.
February 16th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Oh yeah… Jim “Fuck the Jews” Baker… Florida 2000… good times.
February 16th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
“Before you start flaming me per #36, let me state that RSH just called for me and my family to be killed.”
well PZ, if you are a terrorist, then it has been US policy to kill you with a hellfire missile, if we see you…
http://guardian.150m.com/palestine/jewish-terrorism.htm
February 17th, 2009 at 1:10 am
The article is a tad light on details. Does this mean that in Israel a valid reason for using eminent domain is ‘because Jews need it’?
February 17th, 2009 at 3:00 am
1 Dunam = 10,000 sq.meters.
1700 Dunam = 17,000,000 sq.meters = 6.56 sq.miles.
This is quite a significant amount of land if we take into account that the whole area of West Bank is 2223 sq. miles.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Correction: Dunam is 1000 sq.m.
that means the total area is 0.656 sq.mile. as stated above.
February 17th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I don’t want to hear anymore about the murderous Arabs or Muslims in the discussion of Arab v Jew. Has anyone ever read the Old Testament? The thing is crawling with God telling the Jews to go wipe out thousands. And, the last I heard, that’s the book that is the basis of Judaism. (And Christianity and Islam.) Wiping your enemies (and their kin) from the face of the Earth seems to be a sacrament among the Abrahamic religions.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Re thepuzzled1
I suspect that Mr. thepuzzled1 is new to this blog so let me fill him in on Mr. Hack. Mr. Hack is a convicted armed bank robber who spent 9 years in the federal birdcage in Leavenworth, Ka. Mr. Hack walked into a bank in San Francisco, Ca. and stuck a gun in the face of a hapless bank teller, telling the latter to hand over the contents of his cash drawer on pain of termination with extreme prejudice. He then exited the bank and was apprehended by police officers as he attempted to board a bus. Mr. Hack has also called for the assassination of police officers but, yellowbelly that he is, when he had the opportunity to carry out his desires as the officers approached him, he meekly surrendered. Mr. Hack has some chicken feathers where his competitive spirit ought to be.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Shorter SLC:
RSH doesn’t have the rocks to kill innocent people while stealing their land, Oh sorry, I meant money.
Remember that for Zionists there’s no need for a “Death to Palestinians today…” slogan an as it is the actual state mandated practice.
February 17th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
SLC still doesn’t get the facts right about my bank robbery – which is no surprise since he’s not interested in facts, only running his mouth with bullshit.
The facts are I robbed the WHOLE bank (not including the vault – no time), not just one teller. Robbing one teller is lame, you don’t get much money.
Second, I was not arrested while attempting to board a bus. I evaded a massive police search of the downtown San Francisco area for 15 minutes (because my escape route took me off the street – initially – within one minute) while they subsequently followed me down Market Street using radio trackers after I altered my escape route in response to the massive police presence (which, in retrospect, was a major mistake).
In fact, one of the arresting officers said, “Hey, you were pretty cool there, buddy.” Since I had completely ignored cops who were standing ten feet from me and continued to walk as if nothing was happening, that was understandable.
Only after I got on the bus did they realize I was on it because the radio tracker pointed to it. They stopped the bus and surrounded it, then came on board with the radio tracker. They STILL couldn’t spot me until they pulled out a smaller, more precise tracker and identified my briefcase as the source of the radio signals. At that point, the jig was up, as they say.
Obviously, since my gun was in the briefcase and I was on a crowded bus surrounded by cop cars, it was not terribly smart of me to go down shooting. My plan didn’t involve “suicide by cop” – although had I continued my operations, that’s probably how it would have ended up.
I met an ex-Navy SEAL in the lockup and he told me, “We could have used you in the Teams.”
However, if SLC wants to commit suicide by cop just to prove how tough a Zionist he is, he is welcome to do so. Preferably today by lunch. He could fly over to Gaza and start waving an Israeli flag and singing the Israeli national anthem. It should take about thirty seconds before he gets the shit kicked out of him.
Meanwhile, it would be nice if SLC would get the facts straight when he’s insulting me.
February 18th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Death to those who call for the death of Zionists. Richard Steven Hack is an ignorant… hack. Zionists are not Nazis, Richard. It would be nice if you knew a bit more about Nazis before you start comparing them to Zionists. Maybe you should read Theodore Herzl before you start making these wacko accusations. Most Zionists are pretty peaceful people. They just want a homeland, to which they are entitled, and to be left alone. Israel would not have possession of the West Bank today if it had been left alone in 1967. Now that it has the land, it really can do what it wants with it. Whether it’s in Israel’s own best interest to expand the settlements is another question, but it certainly isn’t illegal.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Re Richard Steven Hack
Gee, Mr. Hack, the yellowbelly, now proudly states that he threatened to terminate with extreme prejudice a whole bank full of tellers. What a guy!
February 20th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Surely everyone can agree:
“What is robbing a bank compared with founding a bank?”
Bertolt Brecht
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