EU report calls for action over Israeli settlement growth

Diplomats in Jerusalem say states should consider law to discourage 'financial transactions in support of settlement activity'

Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 17 January 2012

"...."Successive Israeli governments have pursued a policy of transferring Jewish population into the oPt [occupied Palestinian territory] in violation of the fourth Geneva convention and international humanitarian law," the report says. The EU says East Jerusalem is occupied territory and was illegally annexed.

It says Israel is "actively perpetuating its annexation by systematically undermining the Palestinian presence in the city" by imposing planning regulations in Palestinian neighbourhoods, house demolitions, evictions, archaeological activity in the "historic basin" around the Old City, the revoking of Palestinian residency rights, separate bypass roads for Israelis and Palestinians and the construction of the separation barrier.

The report says Israel uses different methods to gain control of Palestinian land and property, including the recent designation of privately-owned land for a new national park at Mount Scopus. The plan would halt any expansion of Palestinian neighbourhoods.

The difficulties of obtaining permission to build, or obstructions to expansion, force Palestinian families to choose between leaving Jerusalem or building illegally and risking demolition orders, it says....."