Ethnic Cleansing – Topic | Settlement Construction – Category – Pictures
PNN – Palestine News Network – 23.11.11 – 20:29

Construction has been underway on the wall surrounding al-Walajeh for several years (Brendan Work, PNN).
by Aaron Rotenberg
The village of al-Walajeh, 4 km northwest of Bethlehem, is in the thorny position of sitting right between Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion settlement block. After years of land confiscation and housing demolitions, the fate the residents of al-Walaja have to look forward to is the complete encircling of their village by the wall.
At the protest in the village last Friday I was able to see how work is coming along. Despite appeals to the Israeli Supreme Court, trees are being uprooted and the way for the route of the barrier is being cleared through the village’s agricultural land. Residents complained of explosives being used to clear the way through the rocky hillside. There’s construction going on across the street from where I live and I know even that little amount of noise causes me no small amount of sorrow. If it were explosives going off near my house–and I knew it was to prepare the way to build a wall to pen me in–I can’t even imagine how I’d feel.
The plan for al-Walajeh allows for one access road and a couple of gates for villagers to get to their fields outside the wall. The reason given by the army for the unique construction of the barrier around the village itself is the usual: to protect Israelis from terrorists. But so far there has never been a terrorist to come from al-Walajeh.
A quick look at the map makes clear what the real plan is–surround al-Walajeh with settlements, with plans to build another one as soon as the wall is complete. To borrow an analogy that someone used on Friday, somebody hopes the village will just be squeezed out like a pimple.
Half of al-Walajeh is actually under the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem municipality (although none of the residents themselves have Jerusalem IDs). A plan to create what will in effect be a ghetto in Jerusalem is pretty shocking. Personally it’s what brought me out to protest this past week.
After a lull during the summer following harsh responses to protests, including many arrests in the village, the army seemed not to be expecting us. After surveying where construction on the wall was happening, we made it down to the Israeli-only bypass road that cuts the village off from around half of its historical land. I assume because there were too many of us to arrest, once the army jeeps came they just made sure we stayed to the side of the road as we marched back to the center of the village.
At very least our presence on the road reminded those driving by that something is amiss here—and that’s something that is often easy to forget in my experience in the settlements, with separate roads and buses, with systems in place to prevent too much intermixing or contact, with plans in place to keep sorry situations like this hidden behind a wall.
Aaron Rotenberg is a PNN reporter based in Tel Aviv.
Source and more at the PNN – Palestine News Network
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- Israeli Jews brainwashed for final ethnic cleansing
Israel’s Jerusalem municipality plans to build more than 50,000 new homes in the city’s occupied eastern sector over two decades:
- 23,628 homes have already been approved, 20,263 in East Jerusalem and 3,365 in the west.
- 13,824 are pending review, 12,819 in East Jerusalem and 1,005 in the west.
- 23,266 housing units are still in planning stages, 19,281 in the east and 3,985 in the west.
Of these, the municipality plans:
- 10,366 homes in northern East Jerusalem, including illegal Israeli settlement Pisgat Zeev and Palestinian town Beit Hanina.
- 5,239 homes in southern East Jerusalem, including Gilo settlement and Palestinian district Beit Safafa.
- 4,886 new units in central eastern Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan and Jerusalem’s Old City.
Read More
Besides this, Israel approved plans to ethnic cleanse 57.000 bedouin from Palestine
- Report B’Tselem
- The Unrecognized – video
Save yourself time. It is only about this : Ethnic Cleansing

November 23, 2011 
































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