For Israel, Khan al-Ahmar residents lack ‘good faith’ displayed by settlers

Palestinian students at the school of Khan Al Ahmar (Flash90)

Sharona Weiss write in 972 Magazine, “An interim injunction that prevented the demolition and eviction of the Jahalin Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar ends on September 12. Israel will then face the weighty choice of whether to reveal the true colors of its decades-long occupation, and whether to forcibly transfer an entire community, simply for the inconvenience it poses to the settlement project.

Khan al-Ahmar is located between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, an area known as E1. For decades, Israel has tried to drive Palestinians out of this area, as part of a broader strategy to form a bloc of settlements that will divide the West Bank, thereby preventing the territorial contiguity necessary for a two-state solution.”…

“Just a week earlier, the Jerusalem District Court ruled to legalize Mitzpe Kramim, an unauthorized Israeli outpost in the West Bank. In an unprecedented legal tactic, the Jerusalem court ruled that the Mitzpe Kramim settlers erected their community “in good faith,” and granted them rights to the property.

Both Mitzpe Kramim and Khan al-Ahmar were built without the necessary permits – Mitzpe Kramim on privately owned Palestinian land, Khan al-Ahmar on so-called state (public) land that was confiscated from Palestinian landowners from Anata in 1975 (the question as to whether the government completed the plot’s registration as state land came up in proceedings). Both communities requested that their civilian structures be legalized retroactively.” (More…)