Ramallah - published by the Palestinian Forum for Israeli Studies - MADAR, Paper 65 of “Israeli Papers” series, titled “Report on “the secret budgets” for financing settlement, and another on “Nitzanei Shalom” industrial region,” which includes two new reports that had been recently published in Israel about the official sponsorship of Israeli institutions of settlement projects and practices in the occupied Palestinian territories, and which unprecedentedly exposes the size and measures of that sponsorship, including direct and indirect ones, even circumventing Israeli law itself.
The first report was prepared by “Molad – the Centre for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy,” about the the actions of the “settlement unit” that works within the “World Zionist Organisation,” whose budget is dependent on public money, whereby the report proves, based on the most recent data and events, that this “unit” has become one and the same as “the private and secret treasury of rightwing settlement,” used by the parties that support the settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1967 – “The Jewish Home” and “Yisrael Biteinu” being at their forefront, in order to move forward settlement projects and expand in the West Bank territories, as well as to solidify the political and ideological base of this settler-colonial right throughout the rest of the state.
The second report found in the paper sheds light on the real implications of the industrial area “Nitzanei Shalom,” (“Peace Buds”) which was founded in 1985 on the Green Line in the northern West Bank, close to the city of Tul-Karem. Many evils conglomerated in it, resulting in an especially poisonous and hateful combination: a vulgar Jewish hegemony combined with sweeping greediness, an ugly exploitation of workers, and environmental damage to air and water, amidst violations of all international, and even Israeli, laws.
The introduction also clarifies that the two reports refer to the role of the Israeli juridical system, led by the supreme court, in normalising the state of occupation. Outwardly, juridical procedures exist in the Palestinian territories that are under Israeli occupation; however, what takes place in reality are acts of stealing and annexation in which the courts are accomplices. Thus, it could be concluded that the Israeli juridical system is an important tool that is used to legitimise the annexation of Palestinian lands.
