Israel’s timing was predicable. With the world’s gaze focused on the horrors in Syria and the Obama administration increasingly diverted by November’s presidential election, it chose this week to declare “legal” three fortified West Bank settlements which had been originally been erected by fanatical Zionists in contravention of their country’s own laws.

The settlements on land seized from Palestinians are called by their occupiers, Bruchin, Rechenim and Sansana. By conniving in their “legalization”, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is effectively approving the first new land grabs in more than 20 years. Until now, successive Israeli governments have argued that settlement expansion was nothing more than “in-filling”. Thus Jerusalem has become almost surrounded by a threatening ring of construction, which were passed off as mere extensions.

From the point of view of the people of the Occupied Territories, this is yet one more cause for despair. These settlements, constructed and supported openly by the Israeli authorities, in complete contravention of international law, are what they call “facts on the ground”. With every new “fact”, Israel reinforces the argument that it will one day present, that it is “unreasonable” or even “inhuman” that people who have made their lives in these settlements for so many years, should be expected to abandon them

read more here: http://arabnews.com/opinion/editorial/article618536.ece

Note by the editor: I have ‘clicked on’ the tag ‘immigration’, because, of course, most of the settlers are actually Immigrant Jews from Europe or the Americas.