Since the 1967 military occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, Israel has built in these occupied territories civilian colonies, or settlements, and encouraged Israeli citizens and industries to move into them. Presently there are 135 Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and dozens of additional “outposts” – settlements not yet officially recognized by the Israeli government. These house over 562,000 Jewish Israeli residents: 282,000 in the West Bank (excluding Jerusalem), 260,000 in neighborhoods built in Arab Jerusalem or annexed to Jerusalem, and 20,000 in the Golan Heights.
The Israeli civilian construction has been one of the methods in which occupied areas were effectively annexed, partially or in full, into Israel. The on-going construction includes housing developments as well as extensive infrastructure projects such as roads and water systems for the exclusive use of Israeli settlers, on lands confiscated from Palestinians or declared “state lands” in various ways. The Israeli colonizing efforts are illegal by international law that stipulates that an occupying power moving its citizens into an occupied area is in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and any permanent changes made in the occupied land for such settlers is in violation of The Hague Regulations.
In this section of the database, we distinguish between three different forms of corporate involvement in the settlement industry: Israeli companies which are located in the settlements and thus use the resources of Palestinian land and labor in their production; Companies involved in sustaining the settlements and connecting them to Israel; Companies involved in real estate deals and the construction of Israeli infrastructure and settlements on occupied land.
Israeli industrial zones within the occupied territories hold hundreds of companies, ranging from small businesses serving the local Israeli settlers to large factories which export their products worldwide. Several settlements, especially in the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights, produce agricultural goods, such as fruits and flowers, and sell them in Israel and abroad.
Settlement production benefits from low rents, special tax incentives, lax enforcement of environmental and labor protection laws and other governmental supports. Palestinians employed in these industrial zones work under severe restrictions of movement or organization, and with hardly no governmental protections, this many times results in exploitative employment practices and labor rights violations.
The origin of exported settlement products is often intentionally obscured. Companies hold marketing addresses within Israel, or market their products under a label which mixes their products with products from within Israel.
In the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, Israeli housing and infrastructure projects effectively serve two goals: annexing more land and resources to Israel, and cutting off the local residents from the same.
In the West Bank, the jurisdiction area of the settlements takes up approximately 40% of the area while the built-up area covers only 3%. The construction of an Israeli road system, the use of which is forbidden for Palestinian residents, supports the creation of a separate Jewish-Israeli space on top of the fragmented Palestinian space. The roads and the settlements thus become part of the separation system, which also includes fences, walls, gates and checkpoints.
The Israeli construction industry in the West Bank and the Golan Heights includes real estate dealers and realtors, contractors, planners, and suppliers of materials, security and maintenance services to the construction sites.
This section of the database includes companies that provide services to the settlements, with an emphasis on discriminatory services that are provided solely to the Jewish settlements and not to their surrounding Palestinian neighbors, services that help connect the settlements to Israel and normalize their status, and security services dedicated to keeping Palestinians out of the settlements.
