When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would not halt settlement construction in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan, he was, in effect, proclaiming his flagrant defiance of the will of the international community. And, for the first time in years, the US is at one with the majority of the world’s governments which see Israeli colonies in occupied Palestinian and Syrian land as the main obstacle to regional peace.

According to the Israeli Peace Now movement’s Settlement Watch, there are at least 121 government-recognised settlements in the West Bank and more than 100 unrecognised outposts. The number of settlers is 285,800 and the number of structures built during 2008 was 1,518, including 261 outposts. Eight hundred were constructed in 2007. During 2008, Israel issued tenders to build 1,184 new housing units in East Jerusalem, compared to 793 in 2007. Some 2,730 housing units received approval, compared to 391 in 2007. Fifty-five per cent of these housing units are built on the eastern side of the apartheid wall, on land Israel indicated might come under Palestinian control, and are located near Palestinian cities, including Ramallah and Bethlehem.

These figures show that instead of reining in the settlers, the former Kadima government encouraged them to multiply and expand at the very same time it was meant to be negotiating peace with the Palestinians.

The current Likud-led coalition of hard rightwing parties is following this aggressive example without speaking of land-for-peace, as Kadima did.

In its January 2009 report, Peace Now revealed that 40 per cent of the land on which the Israelis have built both types of settlements is privately owned Palestinian land, and between 0-2.5 per cent is Jewish owned. Land for which Palestinians did not have Ottoman-era registration papers but which they may have farmed for generations was deemed “state land” and confiscated by Israel.

Expropriation of land in an occupied territory is illegal in international law, as is the transfer by the occupying power of its own citizens into such territory. These facts are well known in this region. Therefore, there is nothing new in the situation, only in the Peace Now figures.

However, there is a new element which observers of the determined Israeli landgrab did not understand until early this year. In an important article in the Israeli liberal daily Haaretz, Uri Blau revealed that over the past four years, the defence ministry carried out a secret survey of settlements. Blau said that one of the reasons for conducting the survey was to be ready to “contend with legal actions brought by Palestinian residents, human rights organisations and leftist movements challenging the legality of construction in the settlements and the use of private lands to establish or expand them”.

The data, stated, Blau, was “political dynamite” and was suppressed by Defence Minister Ehud Barak. It was “dynamite” not because of what it revealed about expropriations - which Peace Now has faithfully tried to document - but because it showed that construction in the “vast majority of settlements - about 75 per cent - has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued”.

The data referred not only to “illegal outposts” but also to key established colonies, such as Ofra (established in 1975, with 2,708 inhabitants), Beit El (established in 1977, with a population of 5,308), Modi’in Illit (established in 1990 and now having a population of 36,282 people), Givat Zeev, located between Jerusalem and Ramallah (established in 1982, with a population of 11,139) and Nokdim (established in 1982 and now home to 851, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman).

Blau points out that since the Ministry of Construction and Housing was primarily responsible for construction, and “since many of the building violations involve infrastructure, roads, public buildings and so on, the official data demonstrates government responsibility for the unrestrained planning and lack of enforcement of regulations in the territories. The extent of building violations also attests to the poor functioning of the Civil Administration [run by the military], the body in charge of permits and supervision of construction in the territories”.

This amazing revelation, along with the Peace Now 40 per cent figure, shows that Israel is not only in violation of international law, but in breach of its own laws, rules and regulations governing town planning and construction. In many cases, unregulated construction took place on Palestinian-owned and registered land.

On July, 6, 2007, Amos Harel, writing in Haaretz, reported that Peace Now revealed that West Bank settlements have been allocated large tracts of land, but only nine per cent of the land placed under settlement jurisdiction had been built on and only 12 per cent was being used. And in spite of the massive reserves of land they possess, 90 per cent of settlements have expanded across their boundaries and about 33 per cent of the territory they do make use of is outside their jurisdiction.

Harel summed up: “Peace Now charged: On one hand, the state earmarks huge tracts for the settlements, out of all proportion to their size, in order to prevent Palestinian construction in those areas. Yet once an area is closed to Palestinians, the settlers begin seizing adjacent Palestinian lands, often privately owned, that lie outside their jurisdiction.”

Harel pointed out that the boundaries of the settlements were revealed only in 2006 after Peace Now and the Movement for Freedom of Information lodged a case in the courts under the Freedom of Information Act.

These Peace Now figures render meaningless Netanyahu’s pledge to the Obama administration to build only in existing, “authorised” settlements. In most, 80 per cent of the lands under their jurisdiction remains unused. Therefore, under Netanyahu’s proposal, settlers can without hindrance build on much of that 80 per cent, doubling and trebling their numbers in the occupied Palestinian territories.

If Washington is serious about limiting Israeli colonisation activities, the US must draw clear boundaries around Israeli built-up areas and less unused land under settlement jurisdiction, and state categorically, that no construction should take place beyond these boundaries. That means no construction for any purpose, including what Netanyahu calls “natural growth”.

“Unnatural” growth is taking place in the West Bank at double the rate in Israel “proper”, within the Green Line ceasefire lines of 1948-49.