Israeli Territorial Settlements
After the 1967 war, Israel found itself in control of the West Bank, EastJerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government that same year extended its authority over East Jerusalem and expanded the city’s boundaries, populating the new areas with Jewish settlements.
In 1969, a “Basic Law” was adopted by Israel’s Knesset, confirming the de facto annexation. Succeeding governments consistently expanded Israeli settlements inJerusalem and in the post-1967 Occupied Territories and developed policies designed to depopulate Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants and prevent other Palestinians from returning to Jerusalem.The West Bank has been settled with what is now estimated at 250,000 Jewish settlers (not including East Jerusalem). In Gaza, succeeding Israeli governments allowed settlements to be built that brought some 8,000 settlers to the area. Some of these settlers were Jewish immigrants from the United States; many others are Israeli religious nationalists whose orthodox views make them intransigent and unwilling to abandon these settlements in the event of a peace agreement. The bulk of the settlers are, however, “real estate” settlers who came to the Occupied Territories in search of cheap land and an affordable quality of life. These can be removed with due compensation. The main problem lies with the religious, ideologically driven settlers. It is they who pose a challenge to any Israeli government negotiating a “Final Settlement” with the Palestinians.
The construction of settlements inside the “Occupied Territories” violates the Third Geneva Convention and the customary international law applicable to armed conflicts. Thus, they are illegal under international law—but with the support of the United States, Israel has managed to avoid strong international condemnation. The various U.S. administrations have, however, condemned or opposed these settlements.
Consistently, U.S. administrations have held the position that such settlements are an impediment to peace and have also publicly expressed disapproval of settlements and their expansion. This was also the position of the Bush administration.Since 1967, these settlements have cost Israel billions of dollars. That the funds are overwhelmingly Israeli funds that come from the government’s budget does not make this Israeli match of folly of settlements building and expansion any more benign. America’s sin lies in its political incapacity to stop this, not in financing it. In 1990 and again in September, 2003, the U.S. administration threatened to withhold loan guarantees to Israel if it persisted in its policy of settlement expansion, but eventually the loan guarantees were given and settlements continued to expand.
Succeeding Israeli governments since 1967 have been faced with right-wing demands for more settlements, with the center and left-wing arguing against them, but frequently themselves engaging in settlements expansion. Rabin and Barak, the former the martyr of peace and the latter the negotiator in Camp David and Taba, expanded settlement no less, and probably more, than any other Israeli “enemy of the peace process.” Contrary to the perception in the Arab world, the Israelis do not work on the basis of master plans, they exploit opportunities, and more frequently their governments are dragged to wrong policies out of weakness and incapacity to resist the pressure of local lobbies, that of the settlers for example. The only Israeli politician who really had a master plan in the question of settlements was Sharon who wanted to prevent the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state by planting settlements all over the place. But even he came at the end to the conclusion that settlements had to be dismantled if Israel was to reach a modicum of stability and security.
As part of the 1978 Camp David Accords, the Likud government under Menachem Begin agreed to halt settlements.
But when the Palestinians failed to seize the opportunity to negotiate a final settlement based on a “two-state” solution, the settlements grew in number and expanded in population.Some of these settlements had a strategic purpose, and others were probably established to serve as bargaining chips in future negotiations. Only the Jerusalem settlements were deemed non-negotiable, though some in the West Bank also gradually became part of an irreversible fact.
The Israeli body-politic and non-Israeli Zionists see the settlements in Biblical terms as they consider them part of the area the Bible calls “Eretz Israel.” Palestinians see the settlements as a manifestation of the creeping expropriation of their lands.
The international community sees the settlements as a violation of international law, and an impediment to peace with the Palestinians. But the inability to apply pressure that would put an end to them has exacerbated animosity by Arabs and Muslims all over the world against Israel and against the United States for allowing them and for directly and indirectly funding them.
At the 2000 Camp David Summit, and later through the December 23 Clinton Peace Parameters, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to dismantle some of these settlements and to negotiate the status of others, but the
Palestinians deemed his proposals either too vague or unsatisfactory. The loss of that historic opportunity and the policies of the succeeding Likud government under Prime Minister Sharon mooted the issue, and settlement population was increased.
It is hard to see how Israel can hold on to these settlements and yet achieve a “final settlement” with the Palestinians. The settlement map in the West Bank reveals that a prospective Palestinian state would be dotted with Jewish settlements that would partly break up its territorial contiguity. The settlements also ring the Palestinian state, making it a series of territorial enclaves wholly surrounded by Israeli territory.
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