Colonialism
A system in which a state claims
sovereignty over territory and people outside its own boundaries, colonialism is
often used to facilitate economic domination over such territories’ resources,
labour, and often markets. The term also refers to a set of beliefs used to
legitimise or promote this system, especially the belief that the mores of the
coloniser are superior to those of the colonised.
Advocates of colonialism argue that
colonial rule benefits the colonised by developing the economic and political
infrastructure necessary for modernisation and democracy. They point to such
former colonies as the United States of
America, Australia, New
Zealand, Hongkong and Singapore as
examples of post-colonial success.
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Community
Settlements
A settlement type developed in
Israel for the first time in the
1970s. Community settlements were established in strategic locations in order to
promote Jewish presence in the area and prevent Palestinian ‘encroachment’ over
public land. As part of a sophisticated system designed to exclude Palestinians,
Jews received public land in these areas by a complex land allocation system.
Initially, the whole settlement land is assigned through a system known as ‘the
three-party lease’. According to this arrangement, three parties sign the
initial land allocation contract: A) ILA as the public landowners agent; B) The
Jewish Agency; and C) the Jewish settlement as a collective (its legal entity is
a cooperative). In order to lease (normally as at a subsidised price and
sometimes free of charge) an individual plot of land in such a settlement, a
person must be accepted as a member of cooperative that incorporates all
residents of the community. The cooperative (often with participation of the
Jewish Agency) has the power of ‘selection’ and practical veto power over
acceptance. This delegation of state power, the major rationale of which is to
block Palestinian access to land, serves simultaneously to preserve the mainly
middle-class character of these settlements.
‘The Israeli Land
Regime’ by Alexander (Sandy) Kedar.
