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“Israeli Settlements A Thorn In Efforts Toward Settlement”

by Brian Mitchell

Investor’s Business Daily       April 3, 2002

Vilfredo Pareto had a principle, sometimes called the “80-20 Rule.” The Italian economist reckoned that 20% of the people in a country actually own it and run it. The other 80% just live there.

That might explain Israel’s policy on Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. For decades, Israel has seen settlements as part of the solution to its security problem. Now a growing number of Israelis think they’re a big part of the problem.

A recent poll of Israelis found that 80% would close some or all of them for the sake of peace. The largest block – over 30% – would close all of them.

But 20% wouldn’t give up any. So the settlements are still there and still growing.

“It’s an issue that’s politically dynamite in Israel,” said Frederic Hof of AALC consulting firm in Arlington, Va. “The settlers are politically influential, and they’ve got some significant supporters in Israel.”

Hof was director of field operations for the Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee, chaired by ex-Senator George Mitchell. He was also lead drafter of the panel’s report, released last April.

That report called for an immediate freeze to settlement growth. It said a freeze was needed to build confidence in peace talks and minimize “friction points” where Arabs and Israelis clash.

“Keeping both the peace and these friction points will be very difficult,” the report warned.

Growing Settlements

But the settlements continue to expand, even in the face of violent resistance. Peace Now, a leading Israeli peace group, counts 34 new Jewish settlements in the past year. Israeli officials deny this.

“We’re very, very clear and unequivocal about this: No new settlements are being built,” said Marc Regev, spokesman for the embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. “The policy of the Israeli government is not to grow the settlements. The policy is to allow for ‘natural growth.’”

Natural growth means developing land already slated for development. “Private developers may develop an existing urban area,” Regev said. “It also depends on what you call a ‘settlement.’”

In 2000, the Central Intelligence Agency counted 327 settlements and “civilian land use sites” in the Occupied Territories. That included 29 sites in East Jerusalem.

“We don’t consider that a settlement at all. That’s our capital,” Regev said.

New developments draw new settlers. About a quarter are committed Zionists who come to reclaim the “Land of Israel.” The rest are drawn by various incentives – tax breaks, easy loans, cheap land, bigger houses, and better schools.

Insecure Homes

Israeli settlers are hardly pioneers. Security is a problem, but many live better than they would in Israel proper.

“There’s generally a sense that they’re trading up by moving into a settlement,” said Geoffrey Aronson, editor of a bimonthly settlement report published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

In the past decade, settlements have grown thrice as fast as Israel proper. Aronson estimates the settler population has doubled just since 1993.

That’s when Israel and the Palestinians began the Oslo peace process. Oslo put off the issue of settlements until later. In the meantime, Israel continued taking land for settlers.

“The settlements grew quite rapidly during this era. They even grew rapidly during the short tenure of Ehud Barak,” Hof said. “From the Palestinian point of view, this was an act of palpably bad faith.”

Settlements take land for buildings, buffer zones and access roads. “Compensation is routinely offered and routinely declined,” Hof said.

Settlers also bring soldiers. That was one of the reasons for the settlements from the start.

“They didn’t want to be seen as a foreign army occupying somebody else’s territory,” Aronson said. “In order to make it your own, you gotta put your own civilians there.”

A handful of settlers can make life very difficult for the local Palestinians. When settlers need to move about, soldiers sometimes must close roads to Palestinians. Such duties increase the chances of conflict between the two sides.

“Anywhere you have Israeli settlements, you have these ubiquitous checkpoints,” Hof said. “Depending upon the level of security alerts, these checkpoints become real bottlenecks.”

Palestinians expected Oslo to give them their own state. Instead, they say, the growth of scattered settlements has divided them into isolated “Bantustans.” The name refers to the reservations set aside for blacks in South Africa under apartheid.

Many Palestinians will not now sit idly by while Israel grows up around them. A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion found that two thirds support continuing the intifada.

Many Israelis also see the settlements as a source of trouble. Instead of providing security, they force Israel into the role of oppressor.

“If the last 18 months have proven anything, it is that the settlements do not contribute to security, and are, in fact, one of the weakest links in the country’s defense policy,” writes David Newman, professor of politics at Ben-Gurion University, recently in The Jerusalem Post.

“To the pain and anguish of many, they will have to be evacuated — if we are to reach a political settlement with our Palestinian neighbors.”

Settlements For Peace?

Most Israeli peace plans involve closing down some settlements. Just before last year’s election in Israel, Prime Minister Barak proposed reducing them by about half. Those remaining would have been consolidated, mostly around Jerusalem and east of Tel Aviv.

No other Israeli prime minister had gone as far. But for the Palestinians, it was still not far enough, and Barak was voted out of office before a deal could be reached.

Israel has given up settlements before. To make peace with Egypt, it closed the settlement of Yamit in the Sinai. The official charged with closing Yamit was Ariel Sharon, now prime minister.

Today Sharon’s government says everything is on the table for a final deal. It just won’t talk final deal until the intifada’s over.

“We’re not going to discuss settlements or any other issue until terrorism stops,” Regev said. “That’s just telling terrorists that their murderous blackmail is paying off.”