In the wake of the Gaza disengagement, enforce a ban on settlements

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Palestinians observed Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip with a mix of contradictory emotions. Paramount, perhaps, was relief. Nearly 9,000 Israeli settlers, who had occupied a third of the land there while confining 1. 3 million Palestinians to the rest, were finally gone... Unlike Israeli settlers, Palestinians were evicted from their own homes and homeland, not from lands illegally seized and settled by their government. Nor are Palestinians treated with kid gloves by the Israeli military. Most receive but minutes notice before demolitions, any resistance is met with lethal force; a few have been buried in the rubble of their own homes. Palestinians have not received compensation for their losses, while Jewish settlers are receiving new homes and $200,000 to $500,000 per family. Palestinian suffering has not been as minutely chronicled by the world's media as has that of Jewish settlers. Most important, the long-term trend of Palestinian dispossession has not been reversed by Gaza disengagement. Earlier this year, Israel announced plans to destroy 88 Palestinian homes in Silwan, just outside the walls of Old Jerusalem, to make way for a Jewish archeological park. This week, Israel unveiled plans for a new Jewish residential development in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, and confirmed that it had ordered new seizures of Palestinian private and public lands in the West Bank. The purpose of the land seizures is to extend Israel's separation barrier around a large Jewish settlement, Maaleh Adumim, and link it to Israel. Doing so would virtually bisect the West Bank, and make a viable Palestinian state there impossible. Haim Ramon, Israeli cabinet minister, has acknowledged that the route of the barrier is partially drawn to ensure the "Jewish character" of Jerusalem. Disengagement has been touted as a bold step for peace. Yet it is increasingly apparent that Gaza withdrawal is but one side of a two-faced strategy. The other side is increasing Jewish settlement of the West Bank, including Jerusalem. There, 430,000 Jewish settlers live in colonies built on land seized from Palestinians -- and they are expanding every day. In October 2004, Dov Weisglass, adviser and confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, admitted in an interview published in Ha'aretz that Gaza disengagement was a way to avoid peace negotiations with Palestinians, consolidate control over the West Bank and foil the creation of a Palestinian state.