Al-Haq would like to highlight and condemn moves by the Israeli government, acting through the Israeli military, to upgrade the settlement college of Ariel to the status of a university.
Jewish settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are the most salient expression of Israel’s annexationist agenda and the greatest obstacle to the realisation of the right to self-determination of the Palestinian population. Settlements act as the vehicle for transforming the demographic composition in the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and to prevent the emergence of an independent Palestinian state. To achieve these ends settlements are carefully located to block the development of Palestinian urban areas, to encircle, isolate, and Judaize East Jerusalem, and alongside the Annexation Wall and bypass roads, to form blocs of Jewish only infrastructure which completely subvert any possibility of territorial contiguity for Palestinians. ... More