BERLIN, December 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - German President Johannes Rau urged an end to the building of new Israeli settlements, in an interview Friday, December 13.

"We need policies that stop the expansion of the settlements and that end in the withdrawal from [current] settlements," Rau told DeutschlandRadio Berlin, according to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Some in the center-left coalition have raised concerns that the ATCs could be used against Palestinian civilians, it added.

A "roadmap" for peace in the Middle East being drawn up by the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia demands a freeze on settlement activity and the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

Jewish colonial settlements occupy 1.7 percent of the West Bank territory alone, where Palestinians want to create their own state.

These zones make up 41.9 percent of the West Bank's territory according to a survey by rights group B'Tselem. They further splinter the West Bank into segments and isolate major Palestinian towns.

"This is not a coincidence - this is the intended government policy," said B'Tselem executive director Jessica Montell.

The settlements issue has divided the government, and recent polls suggest many Israelis want to shut the settlements down as a concession to Palestinians in a broader Middle East peace deal.

But hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has vehemently ruled out negotiating on settlements with the Palestinians.

The B'Tselem study shows the settlement population doubling since the 1993 Oslo accords that established the Palestinian Authority, reaching some 380,000 people.

"The location of these settlements impedes the creation of territorial continuity of the Palestinian state," said the study's author, Yehezkel Lein. "This makes it impossible to establish a Palestinian state that has anything resembling a viable economy."

The rights group stressed that Israel's offer in 2000 to return nearly all of the territory into Palestinian hands was "meaningless" if the region remained broken down into islands that were not linked by roads.

The group said that some documents show that Israel's future settlement policy may completely divide the West Bank into independent southern and northern sectors by stretching out Jewish settlements further east from the centrally-located Jerusalem.

"Palestinian territories have been effectively annexed," Lein said. "The settlements have also blocked the development of the major West Bank cities of Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron," he added.

The study concludes that Israel was supporting this policy by providing economic incentives for Jews to move into the West Bank while offering no financial assistance to those who wanted to repatriate to Israel.

Given that the settlements are illegal, and in light of the myriad human rights violations that they cause, B'Tselem called on the Israeli government to work to dismantle all of the settlements.

“From a human rights perspective, there is no other conclusion that can be reached,” said Lein.

Until the process of evacuation is undertaken, B'Tselem calls on the Israeli government to take a number of interim steps to minimize the violation of human rights and international law, the group said on their website.