The Settlements

In 1978 Yoel Tzur was one of the original settlers in Beit El, near the Palestinian city of Ramallah. He has
a number of children, but his wife and youngest son were killed in a drive-by shooting by Palestinians in
1996. But Yoel Tzur has an unshakeable vision. "All the prophets prophesied that the people will return to
the land of Israel....It is a divine promise. We believe it will come true."

Beit El is a small Jewish settlement in the West Bank, where more than two million Palestinians live. But
for Yoel Tzur the West Bank is the Judea and Samaria of the Bible and it was now liberated. "After 1967,"
he says, "....Jews returned to the land of Israel. This process cannot be stopped." As for the Palestinians
living in the area, he believes some solution will be found--"population exchanges or compensation."
(New York Times, 4/6/98)

1967 is the key year in the history of settlements like Beit El. In that year, Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian
armies massed on Israel's borders. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser declared, "Our basic
objective will be to destroy Israel."

Instead, in what has become known as the Six-Day War, Israel defeated the Arab countries and took over
Egypt's Sinai Peninsula (since returned in a later peace agreement), the Gaza Strip (also in Egypt), the
Golan Heights of Syria, and East Jerusalem and the West Bank (of the Jordan River), which had been
under Jordanian control.

Successive Israeli governments then encouraged settlements in what had been Arab land and where
Palestinians had lived for centuries. They offered significant incentives to settlers, including sharp
reductions in mortgage rates and tax breaks. Israelis like Yoel Tzur, however, moved into a settlement for
religious, not economic, reasons. Like many other settlers, he believes that God gave the land to the
Jewish people. But according to a 2002 study by the Israeli group Peace Now, 80 percent of the settlers
moved to settlements for the better quality of life made possible by government financial incentives and
the lower cost of living in settlements.

Successive Israeli governments have also seen political and military reasons for the settlements. They
create "facts on the ground." The physical presence of Israelis and the towns they built, Israeli leaders
thought, would prevent Palestinians from establishing their own state and deter invasions from Jordan or
Iraq. The settlements, they thought, would make the country more secure.

The table below shows how the numbers of Israelis have increased in the occupied Palestinian territories:

West Bank and Gaza East Jerusalem

1972 1,500 6,900
1992 110,000 141,000
2001 214,000 170,400

Today, more than 400,000 Israelis live in the above areas amid a population of 3,500,000
Palestinians.According to estimates made in 2001, the Israeli government spends at least $1 billion yearly
to subsidize, develop, and defend
its settlements. The U.S. finances this policy indirectly through the approximately $4 billion in support it
provides to Israel each year.

But where Israelis have seen flourishing settlements, Palestinians have seen their land confiscated. They
have been forced to live under the control of the Israeli military. Their communities have been squeezed
into small areas served by poor roads and an inadequate water supply (Israeli settlements use a
disproportionate amount of the available water). Their applications to build new roads, new schools, water
pipelines, improved homes--have all been denied.

Nothing has radicalized Palestinians more than the growing West Bank and Gaza settlements. During the
second "Intifada" (Palestinian uprising) that began in 2000, organized Palestinian guerrillas began
attacking settlers on the roads near settlements and occasionally even in their homes. The Israeli
settlements have also contributed to Palestinian anger at the United States. This is because the U.S.
grants Israel yearly $2 billion in security assistance and approximately $1 billion in economic aid that help
make the settlements possible.

According to David Grossman, an Israeli writer, "The majority of Israelis take comfort today in believing
that the horrifying deeds committed by Palestinian terrorists [means] that all the guilt for the current state
of affairs rests on Palestinian shoulders....Of course, the Israeli occupation is not the entire
story....Palestinians contributed their share to the march of blood and folly....And we must not forget that
the Six-Day War was not a war that Israel wanted. Yet despite this, the historical story that Israel chooses
to tell itself is astoundingly obtuse and superficial.

"The story that now reigns nearly unchallenged in the media and political discourse obliterates more than
33 years of roadblocks, thousands of prisoners, deportations and killings of innocent people. It's as if
there were never long months of closures to cities and villages, as if there had been no humiliations, no
incessant harassment, no searches of houses, no bulldozing of hundreds of homes, no uprooting of
vineyards and olive groves, no filling up of wells and, especially, no construction of tens of thousands of
housing units in settlements and large-scale confiscation of land, in violation of international law." (New
York Times, 10/1/02)

According to international law (Article 49 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention), which Israel signed,
"The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it
occupies."

Israel's position has been that legally the territories are not "occupied" because the West Bank was taken
from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, and neither of those countries had internationally recognized
sovereignty over these areas. Therefore the West Bank and Gaza are "disputed territories," whose future
must be settled by negotiations. Israel also claims that the words "deportation" and "transfer" were used
in the Geneva Convention to refer to Nazi practices and have no relevance to Israelis who move
voluntarily to places in the "disputed territories."

A number of United Nations resolutions going back to 1967 also point to the illegality of the settlements. A
1980 resolution, for example, declares Israel's policies and practices in the territories to "have no legal
validity." Israel's answer is the same as that for the Geneva Convention.

For more than a year, Israel has been building what is projected to be a 200-mile fence to separate it from
Palestinians. The Israelie say the fence is a temporary security measure. But it has already had serious
consequences. The fence surrounds three sides of the Palestinian town of Qalqilya, where it has wiped
out Palestinian farmland, groves of olive and fruit trees, and greenhouses.

The fence, which will have guard towers, will appropriate about 10 percent of the West Bank. It is to
encompass most of the Israeli settlements in the territories but also takes in many Palestinian towns and
villages that are close to the settlements. Estimates are that this will add another 150,000 Palestinians to
the Israeli population who will not be citizens. More than 200,000 non-Israeli citizens already live in East
Jerusalem. Grossman writes, "Does anyone seriously believe they will not turn to terrorism? When that
happens, they will be inside the fence, not outside it, and they will have unobstructed passage to Israel's
city centers. Or will Israel confine them behind yet another second fence?" (New York Times, 7/12/02)
No Israeli official is more responsible for the nation's settlement policies than Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
As the minister in charge of the occupied territories in two Israeli governments, he was a driving force in
creating settlements. But on May 25, 2003, he announced Israel's official support--with some
reservations-- for the "road map" peace plan, which requires Israel to freeze settlement activities and will
eventually mean the withdrawal of many settlers.

A member of the prime minister's party, Likud, asked him what the settlement freeze meant for Jewish
families in the West Bank and Gaza. Sharon's answer: "There is no restriction here, and you can build for
your children and grandchildren, and I hope for your great-grandchildren as well." At the same Likud
meeting Sharon also said, "Ruling three and a half million Palestinians cannot go on indefinitely. You may
not like the word, but what's happening is occupation. Holding 3.5 million Palestinians is a bad thing for
Israel, for the Palestinians and for the Israeli economy." How the prime minister intends to resolve what
appear to be contradictory statements remains to be seen.

One settler in a community south of Jerusalem was upset by Sharon's statement. "I was very, very
surprised by the prime minister, and angry. I don't feel like one who occupies area. It's our area, our
homeland." (New York Times, 6/1/03)

In an earlier interview with the writer Avishai Margalit, another settler said, "We are here because every
Israeli government told us that here is where we should be. We are obedient citizens, and if we are told to
leave, we'll leave. All we ask is to be offered a respectable solution." Margalit added, "I believe most of
the settlers--who are driven neither by nostalgia nor ideology--would agree with them. A 'respectable'
solution can and should be offered to all the settlers. As for the settlers who reject such a solution, they
will fiercely resist and threaten a civil war." (New York Review, 8/22/01)