This House Believes That Israel’s West Bank Settlements are an Obstacle to Peace

The Settlements, constructed on land that is neither recognizably Israel’s nor which Israel has even claimed to annex are illegal, encroaching on the territory of a future Palestinian state.

It is absurd for the international community to demand the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, and yet allow Israel to establish its population on that land in settlements that view themselves and are viewed by Israel as Israeli territory.[1]

Furthermore, their continued expansion is something that each and every Palestinian can see every day. As a result, the continued expansion both:
1. Destroys Palestinian confidence in the ability and willingness of the International community to enforce its own promises, especially after repeated American and European promises to stop their construction.

2.  Convinces Palestinian opinion that the negotiating process is an Israeli game to buy time until they have changed the facts on the ground.

As a consequence of these two factors, the continued expansion of settlements has an impact in driving Palestinians towards violent resistance even beyond the direct impact of the settlement construction by undermining their faith in International Law, and by adding a sense of urgency to their grievances.

[1] MacIntyre, Donald, ‘The Big Question: What are Israeli settlements, and why are they coming under pressure?’, the Independent, 29 May 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-big-question-what-are-israeli-settlements-and-why-are-they-coming-under-pressure-1692515.html

The settlements are a sideshow that provide a convenient excuse for the Palestinians and their foreign friends to ignore the real (and difficult to solve) issues such as Jerusalem and what sort of sovereignty a Palestinian state would have.

For one thing, international law is very unclear on who owns the West Bank. Jordan gave up all claim to it in 1988, but its unclear as to whether their annexation in 1949 was legitimate in the first place.[1] Only Pakistan and Great Britain ever legally recognized Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank. Secondly, the current border of the West Bank are arbitrary, the results of the military conflict of 1948-49 for which they represent the cease-fire line. As a consequence, even if one accepts the principle that there should be a Palestinian state in the West Bank, it does not follow that the final international border should follow the regions border exactly. It might for instance to make sense, as Israelis like Avigador Lieberman have suggested, to trade Arab villages in Israel proper for settlement areas on the West Bank.[2]

The Settlement issue mainly serves the purpose of putting Israel in the wrong, so as to distract from the need on the part of the Palestinians to define what sort of state they are willing to accept. The problem is not territory per se, but what happens to that territory and it’s on that issue that previous efforts to reach peace deals have faltered.

[1] ‘Jordan Renounced Claims to West Bank, 1988’, Palestine Facts, http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_jordan_renounce_claims.php

[2] Carlstrom, Gregg, ‘Lieberman sees common ground with Livni’, Al Jazeera, 25 January 2011, http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/01/25/lieberman-sees-common-ground-livni

Whether deliberate or not, the settlements are changing the “facts on the ground” by changing the political calculus for future Israeli governments.

While most Israeli politicians accept the need to abandon some smaller settlements, the vast majority are unlikely to be evacuated. It was politically divisive to the point of breaking the Likud party in two when Ariel Sharon, a man with more credit than anyone else on the Israeli right pulled out of Gaza in 2005, and there were only a little over 7000 Israeli settlers there. By contrast there are now more than 300,000 settlers in the West Bank, and this number is rising fast.[1] There were less than 200,000 in 2000.[2]

Of these settlers, many are religious and vote for the Haridam (Orthodox) parties like the National Religious Party .[3] Because the party has served in governments of both the Left and the Right in recent years, in practice they and the ultra-nationalist Israel Beitinu tend to hold the balance of power in the Israeli Knesset.

Therefore every time Israel expands settlements, they are reducing their room to manoeuvre in future Peace Negotiations, and forcing themselves to take a harder stance. This means that Peace will either become less likely (because Israel will set more extreme terms) or that Israel will face more internal divisions in order to offer it. In either case, as the settlements expand

[1] Levinson, Chaim, ‘IDF: More than 300, 000 settlers live in West Bank’, Haaretz.com, 27 July 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-more-than-300-000-settlers-live-in-west-bank-1.280778

[2] Wikipedia, ‘Population statistics for Israeli West Bank settlements’, en.wikipedia.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_statistics_for_Israeli_West_Bank_settlements, accessed 20 January 2012

[3] Etkes, Dror, ‘The Ultra-Orthodox Jews in the West Bank’, Peace Now, October 2005, http://peacenow.org.il/eng/content/ultra-orthodox-jews-west-bank

First, it is unclear if this is even true. A 2010 poll showed support for dismantling settlements in exchange for Peace at an all-time high in Israel.[1]

Secondly, even if it is true that settlements complicate the internal Israeli political picture, the impact on the Peace Process is limited to the extent to which one accepts that the West Bank borders are sacrosanct. Beyond that, the difference in political cost between uprooting 180,000 and 300,000 settlers is marginal at best – both are likely impossible concessions for any Israeli government to make except under enormous international pressure in which case the numerical difference is of limited importance.

Far more important is accepting that the assumption that the West Bank boundaries are sacrosanct has done far more harm than good. It gives neither side room to compromise on the issues of vital importance to them. For Israel, providing defence in depth for Tel Aviv which is only sixteen miles from Jerusalem, for the Palestinians, ensuring that their national home is economically viable.

Far better would be to use the existent of the settlements to pressure both sides to accept that some portion of the West Bank will remain with Israel in any settlement, while in exchange, some portion of Israel proper approximately equal in size will be transferred to a future Palestinian entity. Once both sides accept this premise, the number of options for an agreement and for compensations on the issues of dispute increase astronomically.

It is perhaps for this reason that support for this exchange has moved from the fringes to the mainstream of Israel Political thinking with even Tzipi Livni of the Center-Left Kadima now open to it.[2]

[1] Richman, Alvin, ‘Israeli Public’s Support for Dismantling Most Settlements Has Risen to a Five-Year High’, World Public Opinion.org, 15 April 2010, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/659.php

[2] Carlstrom, Gregg, ‘Lieberman sees common ground with Livni’, Al Jazeera, 25 January 2011, http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/01/25/lieberman-sees-common-ground-livni

As important as the existence of the settlements themselves is their continued growth. The very fact that Israel has continued to ostensibly negotiate for the independence of a Palestinian state in the West Bank on one hand while rapidly expanding the population and the size of Israeli settlements can be interpreted as a sign of bad faith.

For one thing, it raises questions of the seriousness with which Israel is attempting to reach an agreement. Even if the programs of Settlement expansion are intended as a temporary policy in lieu of a settlement, the very fact that Israel’s plan B is arguably as popular as peace, and being pursued with far more vigour could lead many Palestinians to conclude that Israel is attempting to run out the clock.

The consequences of this are inauspicious for the Peace Process. As Palestinian faith in the prospect of peaceful negotiations falters, groups like Hamas are likely to find an increasingly receptive audience for their view that only force will compel Israel to negotiate seriously. This in turn will make compromise all the more difficult to achieve.

The settlements at the current time occupy less than 3% of the West Bank,[1] and even if one were to take into account the land needed for their security in any settlement, most have predicted that at most 9-11% of the region would be affected, much less than the area currently controlled by the settlements,[2] and this would be subject to compensation elsewhere.

The vast majority of this growth is taking place existing settlements or adjacent to them, so even large amounts of proportional growth are not shifting the percentages sharply.

Furthermore, a time factor is far from a uniform negative. A large portion of the Palestinian strategy from the mid-1990s onwards has arguably been to drag out negotiations while hoping that a better international climate would lead other countries to exert pressure on Israel for concessions. This strategy has seen their negotiating position deteriorate and undermined support for an agreement within Israel.

By adding a time element, it incentives the Palestinians to think seriously about pressing for an agreement now, rather than looking to fantasy solutions like potential UN recognition that would do nothing to alter the fundamental fact that any possible agreement will have to be made with, and therefore be acceptable to, Israel.

[1] Fleischer, Tzvi, ‘How much land do West Bank settlements take up?’, Australian/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, http://www.aijac.org.au/news/article/how-much-land-do-west-bank-settlements-take-up

[2] CBS News, ‘Group: Israel Controls 42% of West Bank’, 6 July 2010, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/06/world/main6650897.shtml

The settlements themselves are self-perpetuating in a manner that makes them pernicious to the rights and very existence of neighbouring Palestinian communities.

For one thing, a settlement cannot function in isolation. It needs a road for its residents to safely travel to and from work in Israel. Security needs subsequently require that this road be protected from attacks by creating a large military presence along its route, and in many cases moving existing Palestinian settlements. At the very least Palestinian areas are bisected by impassable thoroughfares.[1]

In turn settlements require their fields to be protected by high walls and electric fences to protect them from attack, and the construction crews building them also require protection.

The result is that even a settlement of a few hundred families rapidly requires the takeover of an amount of land out of all proportion to the actual number of settlers involved, and any further expansion compounds the problem.[2]  The security needs of settlements create a situation which makes the livelihood of Palestinians impossible. The existence of the settlements makes these security policies a necessity. As a consequence, the only clear solution is the removal of the settlements.

[1] United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory, ‘The Humanitarian Impact of Israeli Settlement Policies’, January 2012, http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_settlements_FactSheet_January_2012_english.pdf

[2] CBS News, ‘Group: Israel Controls 42% of West Bank’, 6 July 2010, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/06/world/main6650897.shtml

First of all, the security precautions are not a perquisite of settlements in and of themselves, but a consequence of the violent condition of the West Bank. Similar settlements in the Negev do not require anywhere near the degree of investment in security and protection.

Such precautions will almost certainly be removed not only in a final settlement but also in any intermediate ones. Israel has already shown a preparedness of to lift travel restrictions on Palestinians in exchange for reductions in violence.[1]

[1] Hass, Amira, ‘Israel to lift restrictions on Palestinian Jordan Valley travel’, Haaretz.com, 26 April 2007, http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-to-lift-restrictions-on-palestinian-jordan-valley-travel-1.219086

The Settlements, constructed on land that is neither recognizably Israel’s nor which Israel has even claimed to annex are illegal, encroaching on the territory of a future Palestinian state.

It is absurd for the international community to demand the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, and yet allow Israel to establish its population on that land in settlements that view themselves and are viewed by Israel as Israeli territory.[1]

Furthermore, their continued expansion is something that each and every Palestinian can see every day. As a result, the continued expansion both:
1. Destroys Palestinian confidence in the ability and willingness of the International community to enforce its own promises, especially after repeated American and European promises to stop their construction.

2.  Convinces Palestinian opinion that the negotiating process is an Israeli game to buy time until they have changed the facts on the ground.

As a consequence of these two factors, the continued expansion of settlements has an impact in driving Palestinians towards violent resistance even beyond the direct impact of the settlement construction by undermining their faith in International Law, and by adding a sense of urgency to their grievances.

[1] MacIntyre, Donald, ‘The Big Question: What are Israeli settlements, and why are they coming under pressure?’, the Independent, 29 May 2009, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-big-question-what-are-israeli-settlements-and-why-are-they-coming-under-pressure-1692515.html

The settlements are a sideshow that provide a convenient excuse for the Palestinians and their foreign friends to ignore the real (and difficult to solve) issues such as Jerusalem and what sort of sovereignty a Palestinian state would have.

For one thing, international law is very unclear on who owns the West Bank. Jordan gave up all claim to it in 1988, but its unclear as to whether their annexation in 1949 was legitimate in the first place.[1] Only Pakistan and Great Britain ever legally recognized Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank. Secondly, the current border of the West Bank are arbitrary, the results of the military conflict of 1948-49 for which they represent the cease-fire line. As a consequence, even if one accepts the principle that there should be a Palestinian state in the West Bank, it does not follow that the final international border should follow the regions border exactly. It might for instance to make sense, as Israelis like Avigador Lieberman have suggested, to trade Arab villages in Israel proper for settlement areas on the West Bank.[2]

The Settlement issue mainly serves the purpose of putting Israel in the wrong, so as to distract from the need on the part of the Palestinians to define what sort of state they are willing to accept. The problem is not territory per se, but what happens to that territory and it’s on that issue that previous efforts to reach peace deals have faltered.

[1] ‘Jordan Renounced Claims to West Bank, 1988’, Palestine Facts, http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_jordan_renounce_claims.php

[2] Carlstrom, Gregg, ‘Lieberman sees common ground with Livni’, Al Jazeera, 25 January 2011, http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/01/25/lieberman-sees-common-ground-livni

Whether deliberate or not, the settlements are changing the “facts on the ground” by changing the political calculus for future Israeli governments.

While most Israeli politicians accept the need to abandon some smaller settlements, the vast majority are unlikely to be evacuated. It was politically divisive to the point of breaking the Likud party in two when Ariel Sharon, a man with more credit than anyone else on the Israeli right pulled out of Gaza in 2005, and there were only a little over 7000 Israeli settlers there. By contrast there are now more than 300,000 settlers in the West Bank, and this number is rising fast.[1] There were less than 200,000 in 2000.[2]

Of these settlers, many are religious and vote for the Haridam (Orthodox) parties like the National Religious Party .[3] Because the party has served in governments of both the Left and the Right in recent years, in practice they and the ultra-nationalist Israel Beitinu tend to hold the balance of power in the Israeli Knesset.

Therefore every time Israel expands settlements, they are reducing their room to manoeuvre in future Peace Negotiations, and forcing themselves to take a harder stance. This means that Peace will either become less likely (because Israel will set more extreme terms) or that Israel will face more internal divisions in order to offer it. In either case, as the settlements expand

[1] Levinson, Chaim, ‘IDF: More than 300, 000 settlers live in West Bank’, Haaretz.com, 27 July 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-more-than-300-000-settlers-live-in-west-bank-1.280778

[2] Wikipedia, ‘Population statistics for Israeli West Bank settlements’, en.wikipedia.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_statistics_for_Israeli_West_Bank_settlements, accessed 20 January 2012

[3] Etkes, Dror, ‘The Ultra-Orthodox Jews in the West Bank’, Peace Now, October 2005, http://peacenow.org.il/eng/content/ultra-orthodox-jews-west-bank

First, it is unclear if this is even true. A 2010 poll showed support for dismantling settlements in exchange for Peace at an all-time high in Israel.[1]

Secondly, even if it is true that settlements complicate the internal Israeli political picture, the impact on the Peace Process is limited to the extent to which one accepts that the West Bank borders are sacrosanct. Beyond that, the difference in political cost between uprooting 180,000 and 300,000 settlers is marginal at best – both are likely impossible concessions for any Israeli government to make except under enormous international pressure in which case the numerical difference is of limited importance.

Far more important is accepting that the assumption that the West Bank boundaries are sacrosanct has done far more harm than good. It gives neither side room to compromise on the issues of vital importance to them. For Israel, providing defence in depth for Tel Aviv which is only sixteen miles from Jerusalem, for the Palestinians, ensuring that their national home is economically viable.

Far better would be to use the existent of the settlements to pressure both sides to accept that some portion of the West Bank will remain with Israel in any settlement, while in exchange, some portion of Israel proper approximately equal in size will be transferred to a future Palestinian entity. Once both sides accept this premise, the number of options for an agreement and for compensations on the issues of dispute increase astronomically.

It is perhaps for this reason that support for this exchange has moved from the fringes to the mainstream of Israel Political thinking with even Tzipi Livni of the Center-Left Kadima now open to it.[2]

[1] Richman, Alvin, ‘Israeli Public’s Support for Dismantling Most Settlements Has Risen to a Five-Year High’, World Public Opinion.org, 15 April 2010, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/659.php

[2] Carlstrom, Gregg, ‘Lieberman sees common ground with Livni’, Al Jazeera, 25 January 2011, http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2011/01/25/lieberman-sees-common-ground-livni

As important as the existence of the settlements themselves is their continued growth. The very fact that Israel has continued to ostensibly negotiate for the independence of a Palestinian state in the West Bank on one hand while rapidly expanding the population and the size of Israeli settlements can be interpreted as a sign of bad faith.

For one thing, it raises questions of the seriousness with which Israel is attempting to reach an agreement. Even if the programs of Settlement expansion are intended as a temporary policy in lieu of a settlement, the very fact that Israel’s plan B is arguably as popular as peace, and being pursued with far more vigour could lead many Palestinians to conclude that Israel is attempting to run out the clock.

The consequences of this are inauspicious for the Peace Process. As Palestinian faith in the prospect of peaceful negotiations falters, groups like Hamas are likely to find an increasingly receptive audience for their view that only force will compel Israel to negotiate seriously. This in turn will make compromise all the more difficult to achieve.

The settlements at the current time occupy less than 3% of the West Bank,[1] and even if one were to take into account the land needed for their security in any settlement, most have predicted that at most 9-11% of the region would be affected, much less than the area currently controlled by the settlements,[2] and this would be subject to compensation elsewhere.

The vast majority of this growth is taking place existing settlements or adjacent to them, so even large amounts of proportional growth are not shifting the percentages sharply.

Furthermore, a time factor is far from a uniform negative. A large portion of the Palestinian strategy from the mid-1990s onwards has arguably been to drag out negotiations while hoping that a better international climate would lead other countries to exert pressure on Israel for concessions. This strategy has seen their negotiating position deteriorate and undermined support for an agreement within Israel.

By adding a time element, it incentives the Palestinians to think seriously about pressing for an agreement now, rather than looking to fantasy solutions like potential UN recognition that would do nothing to alter the fundamental fact that any possible agreement will have to be made with, and therefore be acceptable to, Israel.

[1] Fleischer, Tzvi, ‘How much land do West Bank settlements take up?’, Australian/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, http://www.aijac.org.au/news/article/how-much-land-do-west-bank-settlements-take-up

[2] CBS News, ‘Group: Israel Controls 42% of West Bank’, 6 July 2010, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/06/world/main6650897.shtml

The settlements themselves are self-perpetuating in a manner that makes them pernicious to the rights and very existence of neighbouring Palestinian communities.

For one thing, a settlement cannot function in isolation. It needs a road for its residents to safely travel to and from work in Israel. Security needs subsequently require that this road be protected from attacks by creating a large military presence along its route, and in many cases moving existing Palestinian settlements. At the very least Palestinian areas are bisected by impassable thoroughfares.[1]

In turn settlements require their fields to be protected by high walls and electric fences to protect them from attack, and the construction crews building them also require protection.

The result is that even a settlement of a few hundred families rapidly requires the takeover of an amount of land out of all proportion to the actual number of settlers involved, and any further expansion compounds the problem.[2]  The security needs of settlements create a situation which makes the livelihood of Palestinians impossible. The existence of the settlements makes these security policies a necessity. As a consequence, the only clear solution is the removal of the settlements.

[1] United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory, ‘The Humanitarian Impact of Israeli Settlement Policies’, January 2012, http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_settlements_FactSheet_January_2012_english.pdf

[2] CBS News, ‘Group: Israel Controls 42% of West Bank’, 6 July 2010, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/06/world/main6650897.shtml

First of all, the security precautions are not a perquisite of settlements in and of themselves, but a consequence of the violent condition of the West Bank. Similar settlements in the Negev do not require anywhere near the degree of investment in security and protection.

Such precautions will almost certainly be removed not only in a final settlement but also in any intermediate ones. Israel has already shown a preparedness of to lift travel restrictions on Palestinians in exchange for reductions in violence.[1]

[1] Hass, Amira, ‘Israel to lift restrictions on Palestinian Jordan Valley travel’, Haaretz.com, 26 April 2007, http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-to-lift-restrictions-on-palestinian-jordan-valley-travel-1.219086

Settlement construction, and in fact the whole settlement of Jews in the West Bank has to be viewed in the wider context of the Middle East conflict as a whole.

Jews lived in the West Bank for thousands of years before the creation of Israel, and it was only after the 1948 war when Jews were fully ethnically cleansed from the region. While a Diaspora took place among the Arabs of Israel it was neither as deliberate nor as thorough – a large Arab population remained. No Jews remained in the West Bank under Jordanian rule.

As such many of these settlements are not artificial constructions but built on the ruins of pre-1948 Jewish communities.

Furthermore, the same 1967 War that brought on the Israeli conquest of the West Bank was also followed by a new round of pogroms against the nearly 800,000 Jews living in Arab countries more than 95% of which were driven into exile in Israel.[1] Israel has not responded by expelling or compensating them at the expense of their own Arabs, as they would be morally justified in doing, but rather has settled them on empty land in the West Bank. Any claim that the Palestinians have an inherent right to property which they do not explicitly own must also take into account Israel’s need to compensate these refugees.

[1] Aharoni, Ada, ‘The Forced Migration of Jews From Arab Countries and Peace’, August 2002, Historical Society of Jews from Egypt, http://www.hsje.org/forcedmigration.htm

The Palestinians themselves did not enjoy self-rule after 1948 and the blame for the expulsions should not be placed on them but on the Jordanian authorities, and they are the ones who should be obligated to provide compensation if any is due. And the Palestinians played no role in the expulsion of Jews from states like Iraq and Egypt and therefore to impose compensation at their expense is deeply unfair.

Furthermore, while many of the settlement may have been built near the sites of abandoned Jewish communities, most have expanded far beyond those locations and the need to provide security for them has led to the confiscation of historically Arab land.

The fundamental fact is that the West Bank, whatever its status, is not an economically viable entity on its own. It produces few goods, while Gaza produces next to none, and independence without a major influx of capital will not change this situation.

The best source for a supply of capitol in the region lies in Israel, which has an enormous demand for a low-wage work-force. Millions of Palestinians worked in Israel until after 2000, and with travel into Israel proper restricted, settlement construction and cultivation provide economic development opportunities for the region and create jobs for Palestinians.[1] This is an important prospect when the unemployment figures for the Palestinians are at nearly 30%.[2]

Furthermore the very need for such labor is likely to further incentivise Israel to loosen restrictions on Palestinian workers in the West Bank and Gaza.

[1] Hass, Amira, ‘Israel to lift restrictions on Palestinian Jordan Valley travel’, Haaretz.com, 26 April 2007, http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-to-lift-restrictions-on-palestinian-jordan-valley-travel-1.219086

[2] ‘Palestinian unemployment shows gradual decline’, Jmcc, 21 February 2010, http://www.jmcc.org/news.aspx?id=370

It is ironic that when the agricultural basis of the Palestinian economy is being strangled by settlement construction and the seizure of groves involved, that Palestinians should be grateful for the job opportunities provided in low-wage service positions in the Israeli settlements.[1]

Furthermore, even if one accepts the economic premises of the government’s argument, one is left with the fact that Israel’s policies are creating a climate of economic dependence that will ensure that any future Palestinian entity is economically and therefore  politically dependent on Israel. 

The Palestinian movement is as much a resistance against colonial exploitation as it is a revolt against a legal denial of independence, and it is unlikely their grievances will be settled when similar arrangements have left Israeli Arabs more alienated from the Jewish state than ever before.[2]

[1] Alwazir, Atyaf, ‘Uprooting Olive Trees in Palestine’, American.edu, November 2002, http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/olive-tree.htm

[2] Telhami, Shibley, ‘The 2011 Public Opinion Poll of Jewish and Arab Citizens of Israel’, Brookings, 1 December 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/1201_israel_poll_telhami.aspx 

Before the discussion of the Palestinians as the innocent victims of Israeli oppression can be established, it should be noted that the Palestinian leadership were full participants in rejecting the 1948 partition plan and the war that followed. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem rejected any form of compromise, and urged the removal of the region’s Jewish population, while massacres of Jewish settlers at Palestinian hands and the complete elimination of the Jewish presence in the areas of Palestine that the Israelis did not secure in 1948 speaks to a certain degree of popular enthusiasm.[1]

Following 1948, Israeli law provided for compensation or the return of land for any exiled Palestinians who returned to Israel proper and took an oath to the state.

This does not justify the actions of Israel in their entirety, but the tragedy of the Palestinian people is partially of their own making, and if one accepts the principles of the right of return, then the creation of Israeli settlements furthers this on the Israeli side.

Furthermore, it calls into question what, if any legal claim the Palestinians can have to any land on the basis of a UN partition plan they rejected, and on the basis of principles and practices they themselves have subverted.

[1] Dershowitz, Alan, ‘Has Israel’s Victimization of the Palestinians Been the Primary Cause of the Arab-Israeli Conflict?’, The Case for Israel, Chapter 10, 2003, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UG4_QXdpFQUC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

It is absurd to argue that because someone is hypocritical that they lose their rights. The fact is that the Palestinians today are not guilty of the crimes of their ancestors anymore than the Israelis are.

Rather than being evaluated based on history, they should be evaluated based on what is justified now. And settlements make both sides less secure, and render peace less and less likely.

The West Bank is not some sort of recognized entity with legally or internationally recognized boundaries. Its borders were the 1948 cease-fire line between Israeli and Jordanian forces, and Jordan’s annexation of the region, and hence the borders were only recognized by two countries – the United Kingdom and Pakistan.[1]

This is important, because the entire challenge to the legality of the settlements, i.e. Why they are unacceptable in Hebron but not in the Negev, is due to the belief that Israel is somehow annexing Palestinian territory. While some of the West Bank was intended to be part of a Palestinian state in 1948, and some will be incorporated into a new one in the future, Israel is under no responsibility to the international community or any comprehension of International law to recognize boundaries that have no legal force and do not legally exist.

[1] ‘Jordan Renounced Claims to West Bank, 1988’, Palestine Facts, http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1967to1991_jordan_renounce_claims.php

If de facto boundaries exist for a long enough time they gain legal force. The border between North and South Korea is a legal armistice line, rather than an official international boundary, but anyone attempting to make that argument upon crossing it would be likely to receive a cool reception.

The boundaries of the West Bank were de facto recognized, first when Israel and Jordan agreed to abide by them for twenty years after 1948, second when Jordan ceded all claim to the territories, and third implicitly by Israel itself which has made no claim to annex the territory, even in areas where settlements are located. They have not bothered with this sort of diplomatic care when it comes to the Golan Heights which they annexed.[1]

As a consequence it can be implied that at least Israel believes that its claims to the West Bank are questionable, and would like to ensure them through negotiation and this makes the claim that they don’t know exactly what they are doing in the West Bank and that it’s a de facto violation of International Law something less than plausible..

[1] Wikipedia, ‘Golan Heights’, en.wikipedia.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights, accessed 20 January 2012