Thieves of Palestinian Lands

English: Map of West Bank and Gaza Strip (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The lands for the Palestinians are being taken for the pleasure for certain organizations. First, you have the well publicized Jewish settlers, who are trying to grab land from the Palestinians, but you have also the Palestinian Authority who is stealing the land for their own gain, and then we have the Fatah, who's doing the same and not to forget Hamas.

The settlers are part of the right-winged movement in Israel and they believe that the land, now occupied by the Palestinians, is Jewish land, according the Torah (Jewish bible). The PA and Hamas are taking Palestinian lands for other purposes.

The PA is stealing the land to give it to certain figures in the Palestinian Authority and Hamas is stealing the land because they want to use that as paying old bills.

By stealing their people's land and distributing it among their followers, Hamas and the PA are further undermining the Palestinian dream of establishing a proper state based on the principles of democracy, accountability, transparency and the rule of law. The beleaguered Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, has found an original way to solve its financial crisis. The movement is now planning to pay its unpaid civil servants with former Israeli settlement land in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza was abandoned by Israel in 2005 as part of the "disengagement plan" from the Gaza Strip, the land was supposed to provide a solution to the severe housing crisis in the Palestinian-controlled area. Back then, there was much talk about building new housing projects for thousands of Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip.

Instead, all the grandiose and ambitious plans went right down the drain when Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007. Since then, the entire Gaza Strip has been transformed into a base for various Islamist groups. In addition to suppressing and intimidating the local population, these groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other jihadi militias, have used the Gaza Strip to launch terror attacks against Israel and threaten Egypt's national security on the other side of the border.

The Coat of arms of the PA

The Palestinian Authority (PA), which was ousted from the Gaza Strip by Hamas, has since failed to provide any kind of assistance to the 1.8 million Palestinians living there. Today, it is clear that the PA's chances of returning to the Gaza Strip are zero. The Palestinian Authority is, in fact, lucky still to be in power in the West Bank. Were it not for the presence of the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority would have collapsed long ago and Hamas leaders would be sitting today in the office of PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

Mahmoud Abbas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After months of failed negotiations between Abbas and Hamas to solve the crisis of the unpaid civil servants, the Hamas authorities decided to lay their hands on 1000 dunams (247 acres) of land -- part of which once housed the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip -- and distribute them among its employees. The controversial decision, which is being denounced by many Palestinians as "the biggest land theft," was taken by members of the Palestinian Legislative Council during a meeting in Gaza City last week. Ziad al-Thatha, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, explained that the confiscated land would soon be distributed among civil servants who have not received salaries for more than a year. He said that the seized land would also be used to cover the debts of several municipalities in the Gaza Strip.

A mosque within the campus of the Islamic University of Gaza (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another top Hamas official, Salah Bardaweel, defended the decision by arguing that the Palestinian Authority had also previously seized 7000 dunams (1729 acres) in the Gaza Strip for its own interests.

At least they agree on one thing: Confiscating land.

<hr /> [blog_subscription_form] <hr /> <strong>See also:</strong> [display-posts category="Palestinians,Israel,Hamas" posts_per_page="30" orderby="title ASC"] <hr />

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