‘Last nail in the coffin’: Israeli settlers push on with fresh West Bank land grab... "Israeli settlers are pushing ahead with a largely unnoticed de facto annexation of large areas of rural land in the occupied West Bank that has already seen the almost total displacement of Bedouin in large areas." 13 Feb 2025

Jameel Shahalda from the Palestinian village of Minya monitors the movement of Israeli settlers from an illegal outpost nearby. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

There are fears that a widely unnoticed displacement of Bedouin has the aim of fragmenting the territory intended for a future Palestinian state

Peter Beaumont and Quique Kierszenbaum in Tko'a

Thu 13 Feb 2025 00.00 EST

Last modified on Thu 13 Feb 2025 03.00 EST

Israeli settlers are pushing ahead with a largely unnoticed de facto annexation of large areas of rural land in the occupied West Bank that has already seen the almost total displacement of Bedouin in large areas.

While settler activity, including violence, has long been well-documented in the section of the West Bank designated by the 1993 Oslo accords as under Israeli security and administrative control – the so-called Area C of the occupied territory, including the south Hebron Hills – settlers have switched their focus to mostly rural Area B, which was designated to be under Palestinian civil control initially.

All three of the Oslo areas – Area A being the major Palestinian cities – were intended under the accords to be transferred to a future Palestinian state.

At a time when the US president, Donald Trump, has talked about the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza, effectively endorsing its ethnic cleansing, a process of displacement is already advancing in Area B as West Bank Palestinians come under pressure from settlers and their far-right political backers in Israel

In one section of Area B in the arid desert hills between Bethlehem and the Dead Sea near the Israeli settlement of Tko’a all evidence of Bedouin who once lived there appears to have been erased, while in a second area those that remain are being harassed by settler violence.

In a landscape of deep wadis and dusty limestone escarpments, Bedouin shepherds until recently grazed flocks on the low-lying plants that appear in the winter months, or on seasonally cultivated forage crops in the flat valley bottoms.

Valleys that once sustained groups of Bedouin... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/13/last-nail-in-the-coffin-israeli-settlers-push-on-with-fresh-west-bank-land-grab

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine ]

NYTimes: In a Polluted Stream, a Pathway to Peace

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/opinion/in-a-polluted-stream-a-pathway-to-peace.html?ref=international

Ruth Gwily

By JEFF WHEELWRIGHT

Published: October 9, 2013

MORRO BAY, Calif. — PEACE talks are under way again in Jerusalem. If the past is any guide, the two sides are stymied over difficult issues like settlements and borders. The negotiators badly need a new approach, and one is right beneath their feet, in the Kidron Valley, the deep ravine that runs from the Old City through the West Bank toward the Dead Sea.  

As it snakes its way through the Judean wilderness, the Kidron comes to Mar Saba, a spectacular monastery slung upon a cliff. Orthodox Christian prayers have been chanted there every day for some 1,400 years. The monastery and its domes and chapels are protected on one side by stone walls and on the other by the deep gorge of the Kidron, or Wadi Nar, as the Arabs call it. If you descend the innumerable steps to the fast-flowing Kidron Stream, a vile smell rises to meet you. The flow is raw sewage from Jerusalem, coursing at a rate of 8 to 10 million gallons a day. 

Jerusalem treats two-thirds of its wastewater at a plant in the western part of the city. The remainder, which emanates mainly from Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem but also from Jewish housing, has been held hostage to the political impasse since 1967. Underground and out of sight near the Old City, the sewage breaks into the open at the separation barrier, where the West Bank begins; picks up additional loads from Bethlehem and the impoverished town of Ubeidiya; passes beneath the monastery; and eventually, though some is diverted by settlers for irrigation, it reaches the Dead Sea. 

In the malodorous water lies a political opportunity. The Kidron Valley traverses an area holy to three world religions. Cleaning up the basin ought to be a lead item in the current talks, a cause instead of a consequence of peace. After all, the pollution is owned by both sides and breaches any possible future boundary between them. Compared with issues like the Palestinians’ right of return, the Jewish settlements and the final status of Jerusalem — not to mention the borders themselves — solving the Kidron’s problem is straightforward. 

More important, if the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government can work together on an uncontroversial civil project, one that improves the quality of life for all residents, they will start to develop a mutual trust...READ MORE