Summary
Israeli human rights organisation whose reports Makdisi relies on for family unification, state land and collaborator testimony in Palestine Inside Out (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.42, p.58, p.80).
Details
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According to B’Tselem, 120,000 Palestinian applications for family unification had been pending since 2000 (PDF p.42).
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On state land: “State-lands are public property, belonging to the lawful residents of the West Bank” and Israel, as occupying power, has allocated them exclusively for Jewish settlements (quoted PDF p.58).
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A Palestinian collaborator’s testimony quoted from B’Tselem: since 1967 no one who requested a permit from the Military Government was not offered collaboration by the GSS in return (PDF p.80).
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B’Tselem, in Makdisi part 2: calls the 2005 Jordan Valley entry ban “the de facto annexation of the Jordan Valley” (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.102); supplies the partial list of checkpoint-abuse testimonies from 2003 to May 2007 (PDF p.92); and is quoted on the East Jerusalem Ministry of the Interior, whose Hebrew-only forms leave applicants dependent on clerks’ goodwill or paid translation (PDF p.145). B’Tselem researchers also found, with Israeli journalists and UN-OCHA staff, that as of June 2007 checkpoint soldiers were unaware of the claimed April 2007 easing of the Jordan Valley ban (PDF p.102).
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B’Tselem, in Makdisi part 3: “Over the years, the main tool used by Israel to restrict building by the Palestinian population outside the borders of the municipalities was simply to refrain from planning”; development remains under British 1940s regional plans, and “not a single Palestinian village council has ever been defined as a special planning committee for the purpose of this law”, while every Jewish settlement has one (Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, PDF p.174-175).
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With HaMoked, a joint report on birth registration in Jerusalem: clerks do not inform parents that their child has not been granted an identity number, and only parents who notice themselves apply to register the child (PDF p.164-165).
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On family unification for East Jerusalem residents: requests are either not processed by the Israeli authorities or processed very slowly (PDF p.166).
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On settler violence: “Israeli security forces [make] few attempts to prevent settler violence or arrest offenders”, investigations are prolonged and result in no action, and convicted settlers are “generally given extremely light sentences” (PDF p.187).
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B’Tselem is the source for the account of the 29 October 2007 army demolition of a cave- and tent-dwelling community near Hebron, whose residents’ water containers and feeding troughs were deposited “beyond the Barrier” (PDF p.189).
Related pages
Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, Population registry and family unification, Seam zone