Is Israel’s Occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza About Security?

  American policy makers and the media tell us that Israel in only occupying the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem temporarily until a time when the “terrorist” are subdued and Israel can live in peace next to a Palestinian state. However the factual evidence points to a completely different reason for Israel’s occupation.

              Fact #1--Settlements: For the past thirty years Israel has been actively encouraging the building of settlements for its own citizens in occupied West Bank and Gaza areas that Israel claims to be occupying for security reasons. Note that these settlements are open to Jewish Israeli’s only, and are built on lands seized by colonists and the Israeli military from Palestinians.

              Fact #2--Israeli Only Roads: Israel has been actively encouraging the building of roads in occupied West Banks and Gaza.  These roads are open to Jewish-Israeli’s only, and are often built to strategically cut off Palestinian towns and cities from the neighboring countryside, farms, and water supplies

              Fact #3 –Checkpoints: Israel operates a great number of military checkpoints all over the occupied territories.  Many of these military checkpoints are right in the middle of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.  Therefore the checkpoints are not there for the security of Israeli proper but for the security of Israeli colonial settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.  These checkpoints are designed to break the will of the Palestinian people.  Palestinians have to wait hours in checkpoints just to make a 20-minute trip from their homes to the store while Israeli colonists pass through the checkpoints with no stoppages.  The checkpoints also detain ambulances for hours resulting in the deaths of countless infant children and their mothers during birth.

             Fact #4 –Water:  Israel control the water of the occupied territories this results in water being siphoned off to the Israeli colonists and Israeli citizens living in Israeli proper.

(see “Not Even A Drop The Water Crisis of Palestinian Villages in the Occupied Territories” at www.btselem.org)

  ****Israeli policies in the occupied territories prove that Israel is engaging in an agenda of colonial domination of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem not an agenda of peace. Israel refuses to remove its illegal colonists and settlements preferring to expand them while simultaneously murdering Palestinian civilians, razing their homes, destroying their olive trees, and stealing their land.