Settlements/Hebron – Letter from CEIRPP Chairman

Letter dated 23 February 1984 from the Chairman of the Committee

 on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian

 People to the Secretary-General

In writing to you in my capacity as Chairman of the Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on 18 July 1983 (A/38/306-S/15880), I referred to the measures being taken by the Israeli Government under its implacable policy of establishing Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.  I made particular reference to Hebron, where it was planned that a Jewish settlement would be set up in the very centre of the town, and would be surrounded by long-established Arab quarters.

At that time, I quoted an official statement by Israel's opposition Labour party saying:  "Any attempt to create a mixed city in Hebron against the wishes of the Arab population will cause generations of grief".

It is now my duty to report that, since my communication on this matter, the Jerusalem Post of 26 January 1984 has reported the Israeli Defence Minister, Mr. Moishe Arens, as saying that:  "the Government of Israeli is determined to renew the Jewish presence in Hebron and will help rebuild its old Jewish Quarter". Mr. Arens went on to say that:  "even if the Hebron Arabs did oppose such a presence it would not alter the Government's objectives of renewing the Jewish Quarter in Hebron".

It had previously been reported in the Jerusalem Post on 17 January 1984 that the Government of Israel appears intent on approving a plan to move the market in Hebron in order to reconstruct the Jewish Quarter.  In this connection you may recall that in my letter of 18 July 1983 I said that some 90 per cent of the Arab stalls in the town market had been burned and the acting mayor of the town, Mr. Mustafa Natshe, had been dismissed.

My purpose in bringing this new development to your attention is that despite reports concerning a freeze on settlements in what the Israeli Government terms Judea and Samaria, a corner-stone of yet another new settlement, to be called Ganei Modiin, was laid on 19 January 1984 in the Benjamin region, as the area between Ramallah and Nablus is now called by Israel.  As my source for this information I cite Ma'ariv of 19 January 1984.  Today, that region is inhabited by 4,000 Jews and 155,000 Arabs.  According to Israeli plans, in five years' time there would be 190,000 Jews and 260,000 Arabs in the region.

It was reported in the Jerusalem Post of 18 January 1984 that the only thorough study of Israeli public expenditure in the West Bank has been undertaken by Dr. Meron Benvenisti's West Bank Data Base Project.  His study indicates that total public capital investment in the West Bank since 1967 has been $1.5 billion ($750 million under Labour governments between 1967 and 1973 and $805 million under the Likud since 1977).

As on previous occasions this information is being transferred to you in order that you may be kept aware of the intensification of Israel's activities against the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and to express the concern of the Committee regarding constant violation of Palestinian rights.  Accordingly, I should be grateful if you would be so good as to have the text of this letter circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under item 33 of the preliminary list and of the Security Council.

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* A/39/50.

84-05376 1061s (E)