Planning in Whose Interest?: Land Use Planning as a Strategy for Judaization

Abstract

Since 1969 Israel has referred to the West Bank officially as Judea and Samaria. In its policies and in its actions Israel considers the West Bank and Gaza as part of the land of Israel. The Israeli policies towards the West Bank and Gaza can be summarized as aiming at the Judaization of the territories, which it cannot afford to annex formally, largely because of the one and one-half million Palestinians living in the area. If Israel were to annex the territories, it would then be faced with two options that it would see as impossible to implement: Israel could give the Palestinians full political rights-but this would demographically affect the Jewish nature of the state which Israel wants to maintain; or, it could deny these rights to the Palestinians, and thus have a clearly legislated form of apartheid. Israel's only option, therefore, is to pursue the policy it has adopted: to annex the land without the population after creating facts of a strong Jewish presence in the occupied territories. The policy of expanding Jewish settlement in the occupied territories has been made clear by Israeli officials from across the political spectrum, and the settlement policy has continued under all Israeli governments since 1967. The Jerusalem Post reported on 11/1/85 for example: