VIII. Ramallah District

Al-Janiya and Talmon

The Talmonim settlement bloc, nine kilometers northwest of Ramallah, consists of several adjacent settlements and outposts. The first, or “mother” settlement, Talmon, was established in 1989 and had 2,700 residents as of 2009.[370] The other settlements in the bloc that the government of Israel formally recognizes are Dolev (which had 1,230 residents as of 2008), and Nahliel (374 residents as of 2008).

Six outposts are connected to Talmon; these are not officially recognized and their construction is unlawful, but Israel has expended significant resources to establish them.[371] Talmon “B,” for example, was established in 1999 and had 40 caravans and 2 permanent structures housing 20 families as of 2005. According to a report commissioned by the Israeli government, based on official data, as of 2005 the Ministry of Housing and Construction provided Talmon “B” with NIS 1,290,000 (US$345,000) for infrastructure (including a paved access road) and NIS 180,000 (US $47,000)for public buildings.[372] Similarly, the outpost of Haresha, established in 1997, housed 30 families in 45 caravans and 8 permanent structures in 2005; the Ministry of Housing and Construction had paid NIS 1,560,000 (US$411,000) to construct infrastructure and NIS 100,000 (US$26,000) for the construction of public buildings. Horesh Yaron, established in 1996, housed 10 families in 20 structures; government-financed infrastructure ran to NIS 50,000 (US$13,200). The government approved all these outposts’ connection to the electricity grid.

Settlers from Talmon, which boasts large, limestone-clad homes and landscaping, told Human Rights Watch that the area was an attractive place to live. According to an employee of the settlement administration (mazkirut), Talmon comprises 244 religious-nationalist families, “many of them are young couples, and we have 600 children.”[373] Because Talmon has become a desirable settlement, homes are available for purchase but not for rent—the average cost of a home is around NIS 700,000 (US$184,000)–although two-bedroom caravans (trailer homes) are available for rent for NIS 900 per month (US$240). Healthcare includes an HMO clinic (kupat holim) and an ambulance, which in case of emergency goes to Tel Hashomer hospital in Tel Aviv, a 35-minute drive away.Talmon enjoys various other services and facilities, including a day-care center, a synagogue, a seminary, a mikva (ritual bath), a playground, a library, basketball and soccer fields, and a minimarket.[374]

A municipal employee told Human Rights Watch that Talmon also offers settlers a preschool, five kindergartens, a center for special-needs children, and a boys’ elementary school. A girls’ elementary school is in the adjacent settlement, Dolev, with transportation funded by the local municipality. Nearby outposts and settlements have religious boarding schools for boys, and Nerya, a nearby outpost, has a religious high school for girls. “We also have lots of after-school activities for the children—soccer, basketball, art,” the employee said.[375] “There’s also Bnei Akiva [a religious youth movement].”

The settlement block lies adjacent to several Palestinian villages: Al Janiya (1,163 inhabitants as of 2007), El Mazra'a El Qibliya (4,495 inhabitants as of 2007), and Ein Qiniya (812 inhabitants).[376] These communities depend mainly on agriculture and livestock for living. They used to cultivate land in the area, including for olive, almond and citrus trees, wheat, grazing sheep and other uses.

Since 1967, Israeli authorities have confiscated thousands of dunams of land from these villages.[377] Residents of Al Janiya told Human Rights Watch that they have effectively lost 10,000 dunams (1000 hectares) of land through land confiscation based on the Israeli Civil Administration’s determination that the land was not privately owned and restrictions on movement that prevent them from accessing their lands.[378] Settlement in the area has had other consequences. Before 1967, villagers could travel on a direct road to get to Ramallah, the nearest large commercial center, but the route is no longer available due to settlement land expropriation.

In addition to confiscating Palestinian lands and giving them to settlements, Israeli authorities have also severely hindered the ability of Palestinians to access agricultural lands, particularly where they must pass close to settlements to access them. The IDF has prevented villagers from accessing roughly 733 dunams (73 hectares) of land near or within Talmon and its outposts, and argued that the “military closure” of this area was required to protect settlers from Palestinian attacks, as well as to protect Palestinians from settler attacks.

(Human Rights Watch is not aware of any cases where Israeli authorities have restricted settlers’ ability to access lands they claim as theirs for security reasons, although the Israeli army has issued warnings to settlers against movement on roads for relatively short, limited periods of time due to threats of attack from Palestinian armed groups).

The Israeli authorities appear to be treating the security of settlers very differently from that of Palestinians, whose lands have been confiscated and whose ability to access their remaining lands is limited to brief intervals each year, as discussed below.

In 2006, the Israeli High Court of Justice held that except for concrete cases of real time intelligence of threats on the ground, the IDF military commander should refrain from closing zones in a way that prevents Palestinians from reaching their lands, although it found that such closures could be “proportional” if necessary for the protection of Israeli residents.[379] The court found that the Israeli military’s purported policy of barring Palestinians from their lands for their own protection was disproportionate, and that the proper way to protect them was to restrict those attempting to harm them.[380] (The court did not distinguish between Talmon, a settlement authorized under Israeli law, and its outposts, which are illegal under Israeli law, or take into consideration the illegality of all settlements under international law).

On the basis of that ruling, the IDF began to “coordinate” with the villagers of Al Janiya to allow them access to their lands near the settlements. However, under the “coordination” regime, villagers remain barred from access to their lands for almost the entire year. Villagers told Human Rights Watch in March 2010 that the IDF “coordinates” with them to enable them to access to their lands—a practice the IDF instituted as a result of the court ruling discussed above—only a few weeks in spring and fall, and that it was impossible to cultivate their olive trees during this short period of time. To get the permits, the residents of Al Janiya must contact the Palestinian District Coordinating Office (DCO), which then contacts the Israeli DCO in the settlement of Beit El.[381] According to Mhammed Bedwan,

We have to be accompanied by soldiers, and they don’t give us the permits more than three times a year. Often, this means we can’t reach the land when it most needs to be ploughed. For example, it is best to plough olive trees after the rain in order to produce better olives, but we usually get the permits for June when the land is dry, and then it produces smaller olives.[382]

Bedwan discovered in mid-February 2010 that he was prevented from accessing six dunams (0.6 hectares) of his land, located near the settlement of Talmon (the closest distance between houses in al Janiya and the settlement is 150 meters).[383] He now depends on permits from the military and an IDF escort to access the land, which is available only for a few weeks each year.

Abu Muhammad, another resident of Al Janiya, told Human Rights Watch that Israeli authorities had expropriated 12 dunams (1.2 hectares) of his land, and that settlers had prevented him from making improvements to the rest.

I brought in a bulldozer to dig a well on my land. In 2004 settlers came down, saw it and forced me to take the bulldozer away. We planted olive trees. After all this, the settlers came with a new bulldozer and destroyed all the trees and fired tear gas… I used to make 60-70 “tanake” of olive oil (1080-1260 liters). Now I make 2 liters of olive oil. My nine family members consume 12 tanake per year. Now I’m buying vegetable or soy oil for us.[384]

According to Abu Muhammad, in a village of 1200 people that previously had 2,000 hectares of land, there is now less than one square kilometer that is zoned for building (which is not in Area C), and another 500 hectares that villagers can reach without permits. About 1000 hectares can be reached only via coordination with the military.[385] According to B’Tselem, during the seven days in spring and ten days in fall that coordination is available, the Civil Administration grants permits to Al Janiya residents that are valid only from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 or 4:00 p.m.[386]

The Israeli restrictions are both unnecessarily harsh and discriminatory. For most of the year, the Israeli military in fact prohibits (by refusing to “coordinate” access) Palestinian villagers from accessing their lands in the name of the security of Jewish settlers in Talmon, but has not attempted to alleviate this near-permanent exclusion of Palestinians from their lands by imposing restrictions on the Jewish settlers. Settlers from Talmon told Human Rights Watch that they were not concerned by the security situation. During the second intifada, one man said, the security situation “was bad here, but it’s been quiet now for years.” He added: “It’s safer here than in Jerusalem. The army controls the area completely. Plus, we use the bypass road so we don’t go through any Arab villages.”[387] According to a municipal employee, security had not been a major concern for the past five years. “Every man here who has been through military service also volunteers three hours a month and guards,” she said, “but of course we have the military right outside in case there are any problems. And the road bypasses the villages; there are only maybe one or two [Palestinian] houses overlooking the road.”[388]

The Israeli High Court denied in 2009 a petition by settlers in the Talmon bloc to order the military either to create a bypass road or to allow them to use “fabric of life” roads created to connect separated Palestinian enclaves in order to shorten their travel time to Jerusalem, on the grounds that the proposed alternatives would disproportionately harm Palestinian landowners’ rights, disturb archaeological relics, and impose too heavy a security burden for the military. The court did not rule on the settlers’ claim that the military was discriminating against them by denying them access to the Palestinian “fabric of life” roads.[389]

Settlers from Talmon said that around 80 percent of the settlers commuted to their jobs, mainly in Jerusalem (50 minutes away) and Tel Aviv (35 minutes), on bypass roads.[390] According to Talmon’s website,

Talmon is a communal religious settlement, offering a unique combination between comfort and quality of life, between ideology and contribution to settling the land. Over 200 families live in Talmon and contribute daily to the settlement project and to Zionism, and to strengthening our grip on the land of Israel… The settlement was founded as part of the “showing the PLO who’s boss” operation, which involved the founding of eight new settlements in the midst of the second intifada…[391]

The reason that Palestinians have been unable to access their lands in one area without special “coordination” is that Talmon settlers incorporated the road leading to those lands into the settlement itself, making it a “closed military area” off limits to Palestinians. In 2000, Talmon expanded to reach Tarikh Ein Misraj, a dirt road the residents of Al Janiya had used to access their agricultural lands lying to the east of the village. Once the built-up area of the settlement began to approach the road, the settlers paved and gated it, thus preventing access to the road for the Palestinian residents of the village.[392]Similarly, none of the schools, clinics or roads that Israel has constructed for Talmon settlers is accessible to Palestinians in neighboring communities. Palestinians told Human Rights Watch that settlers had told them that they were prohibited from coming closer than 70 meters from the settler roads. In recent years, villagers told Human Rights Watch, the Israeli military has allowed them to pass through the Talmon gate en route to their lands, but—as with other cases of “coordinated” access to their lands—only twice a year, for about two weeks during the olive harvest and about one week during the planting season, in coordination with the Civil Administration and with Israel Defense Forces escorts.[393]

To the knowledge of Human Rights Watch the Civil Administration has not sought to explain or justify why it is imposing restrictions on the freedom of movement and access to land of members of one ethnic group but not another.

Meanwhile, settlement construction continues in Talmon and other areas near Al Janiya, and the Israeli government appears ready to approve new construction retroactively. A few kilometers away from Al Janiya lies a new outpost of the Talmon settlement, called Givat Habrecha (Water Reservoir Hill). In violation of Israeli (and international) law, settlers have erected sixty houses there, which in June 2009 the Israeli Ministry of Defense proposed to legalize while also building another 240 homes at the site.[394] The proposed plan covers 860 dunams (86 hectares) and stretches across agricultural land belonging to Al Janiya, and will, by incorporating road access points, prevent Palestinian residents from reaching about 1,000 dunams of their olive groves.[395] Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave his approval for consideration of the plan in April 2009. It was then published for objections on April 20, after the formation of the current Israeli government led by Prime Minister Netanyahu.[396] In April, the Civil Administration announced that it had submitted a detailed plan to change the land-use designation for Givat Habreikha in Talmon from an agricultural zone to a residential neighborhood of 300 housing units.[397]

The Israeli NGO Bimkom, comprised of planning professionals, filed an objection to the plan on behalf of the head of the village council and three inhabitants who own land adjacent to the area of the plan. Submissions by the Israeli government during court hearings regarding the petition revealed that planning authorities in the Civil Administration had already approved a smaller plan for the area on 33 dunams (in an area included in the larger plan proposed for the 300 homes). The smaller plan includes a segment of a road in the area (Route 4556) as well as a plot intended for a school, bordering the road. In the absence of objections, the government had already authorized the plan for the settlement school. While the Jordanian planning law, which Israel continues to apply as the occupying power in the West Bank, requires publication of building plans in two local newspapers, the Israeli authorities had published information about the school plan in two Hebrew-language newspapers and in the Nazareth-based Arabic-language Israeli weekly Kul al-Arab, which has limited distribution in the West Bank. In violation of applicable military orders, the announcement was not displayed in the home of the head of the affected village.[398]

In mid-October of 2009, the Supreme Court temporarily enjoined any construction work in the area of the school plan.[399] At the end of December, Al Janiya villagers filed a petition against approving the larger plan to build 300 units in Givat Habrecha, which would retroactively authorize the construction of an illegal outpost and allow its expansion. The state did not object to the villagers’ request for an interim order prohibiting construction, since a temporary building “freeze” (which Israel had instituted in response to US pressure) already applied to the area. But the Supreme Court refused to issue an interim order prohibiting construction, and delayed further consideration of the case.[400] On January 28, 2010, Bimkom documented construction work for the building of 13 new housing units at Givat Habrecha.[401]

Givat Habrecha was mentioned in a 2005 report for the Israeli government by former Ministry of Justice attorney Talia Sasson, who found that it was neither authorized nor approved by the Israeli government and was built without an approved, detailed plan. Some of it is built on privately owned Palestinian land, and the site is far from the main settlement blocs and several miles inside the West Bank.[402]

While Israeli authorities are poised to recognize Talmon’s expansion via the retroactive authorization of Givat Habrecha’s illegal construction, they also impose strict limitations on the ability of Palestinians in Al Janiya and other nearby villages to develop beyond their current borders. The built-up areas of the villages were designated Area B by the Oslo agreements. However, areas immediately outside these villages were classified as Area C.

Limiting Palestinian development to areas that were already built-up in 1995 has consequences in the daily lives of residents of the neighboring villages. Residents of Al Janiya told Human Rights Watch they cannot build houses for their children, some of whom had emigrated as a result. Muhammad Hassan Yusuf owns a house built on half a dunam of land in Al Janiya. Yusuf told Human Rights Watch:

I have five children. Thirty people used to live in my house, but my land borders on land considered Area C. So I could not expand and build houses for my children when they got married. Four of my children, together with their families, have now left the village.[403]

Other resident told Human Rights Watch that while the village of Al Janiya houses about 1200 residents today, there are 3000 other former residents living outside the West Bank who faced difficulties in returning, including lack of room to expand.[404]