What is "Settlement Watch Team?"

Since 1990, Peace Now has taken upon itself to provide reliable and accurate information regarding the expansion activities of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.  Its “Settlement Watch” project was established for that very purpose, its principal objective being to bring to the attention of the Israeli public information regarding what is being done on the eastern side of the Green Line in its name and with its resources.  We believe that it is extremely important for people to be familiar with basic facts as a condition for carrying out informed discussions about the future of the State of Israel’s control in the territories.  The need to create a civilian, impartial source of information which has, at its disposal, the necessary resources and ability to pinpoint, classify and publicize those very facts, has been driven by political realities in Israel.  Since the end of the 1970’s, most of Israel’s governments have made an effort (to which the settlers themselves have contributed to a certain extent) to conceal from the eye of the Israeli public the scope of construction activities in the territories, and the heavy price – economic, security and social – which Israel has had to pay in order to realize the misleading vision of a “Whole Israel.”

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To read The West Bank - Facts and Figures - June 2009 - Click here.