Crazy Eddie
Veteran Member
Construction which typically results in those communities increasing in either landmass or population or both.How does that need to be proven? Even the ISRAELIS think they're expanding.
Netanyahu actually got reelected partially by promising to continue that expansion.
It's not even debatable. They are expanding.
The "separation wall" is not the legitimate border of Israel and it's highly unlikely it ever will be. Even if it was, most of those settlements are OUTSIDE the wall, and well outside of Israel's internationally recognized borders. When those settlements increase in population, increase in size, increase in infrastructure, or ALL OF THE ABOVE, that is by definition Israeli expansion outside of its borders.
There are two different issues here:
1) Additional construction within West Bank communities.
Israel's never actually done that. They have only expanded the amount of territory they control outside of their internationally recognized border. Which is illegal.2) Expanding the borders.
For what it's worth, it doesn't matter if they are building settlements "inside the separation wall" either. The separation wall is not Israel's internationally recognized border, nor is it a border the Palestinians will accept as that of their soon-to-be-sovereign state. Even the Israelis know that land doesn't belong to them; that is, in fact, the whole reason they started building settlements there.
Every parcel of land currently occupied by the settlements is land the Palestinians no longer have; every square meter of additional land those settlements expand into is land that the Palestinians loose and Israel gains.#1 is normally reported as "expansion" even though the borders do not move and the Palestinians lose no territory.
Which is bullshit. By that standard they could occupy everything from Cairo to Baghdad and you would say that they're not expanding because they haven't redrawn their borders.I only count #2 as expansion