Settlement--scores, almost one hundred years ago, in areas of the Land of Israel populated by Arabs and sometimes solely by Arabs--was it moral or immoral: Permitted or forbidden? One of the two. If it was moral then settlement near Nablus is moral. . . . There is no third way. For Menachem Begin, who spoke these words in an address before the Israeli Knesset in May 1982, Jewish settlement throughout the "Land of Israel" was and remains an expression of the enduring vitality of Zionism and its moral vision. For Begin and many Israelis, there is no vital distinction between the Jewish settlements before the state was created in 1948 and those Israel has established in violation of international law in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem after the 1967 war. All Israeli governments, Labor and Likud, pursued settlements after 1967 in order to consolidate Israeli control over the occupied territories and prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state. The Zionist experience of state building in Palestine in the first half of this century led Israelis leaders to believe that civilian Jewish settlements were the building blocks upon which sovereignty was created and which defined its territorial limits. These leaders viewed security, sovereignty, and settlement as inextricably linked. For them, security achieved by settlement was an existential concept rather than a military imperative. As Moshe Dayan explained, Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are essential "not because they can ensure security better than the army, but because without them we cannot keep the army in those territories. Without them the IDF would be a foreign army ruling a foreign population."

During the first decade of occupation after the 1967 war, Labor-led governments established the infrastructure and institutions for the creation and expansion of permanent Israeli settlement in the territories. Labor's approach was incremental, but after 1977, Begin's Likud government embraced settlements as its raison d'être and the key to the Likud's political renaissance. Aside from the ideological imperative to settle the land, Begin viewed settlements as his opportunity to create a political constituency rooted in the settlements of the West Bank just as Labor had done with its kibbutz and moshav settlements in pre-state Israel.

In July 1977 Begin refused President Jimmy Carter's request to freeze settlement activity. At the time, there were about 50,000 Israelis living in annexed East Jerusalem, but only 7,000 settlers in 45 civilian outposts in the West Bank and Gaza.

In September 1977 Begin's minister of agriculture, Ariel Sharon, unveiled "A vision of Israel at Century's End," calling for the settlement of 2 million Jews in the occupied territories. The Likud plan proposed settling Jews in areas of Arab habitation and for numerous settlement points as well as large urban concentrations in three principle areas:
-- a north-south axis running from the Golan through the Jordan Valley and down the east coast of Sinai;
-- a widened corridor around Jerusalem; and
-- the populated western slopes of the Samarian heartland of the West Bank.

This last wedge of Jewish settlement was of prime concern to Likud strategists, particularly Sharon, who was intent upon establishing Israeli settlements to separate the large blocs of Arab population on either side of the Green Line north of Tel Aviv.

Settlements under Likud were designed to bring about a "demographic transformation" of the territories and a Jewish majority there. The co-chairman of the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Department, Mattityahu Drobless, noted that the Likud plan "will enable us to bring about the dispersion of the [Jewish] population from the densely populated urban strip of the coastal plain eastward to the presently empty [of Jews] areas of Judea and Samaria."

Likud's intention to preempt the possibility of a territorial division of the land and to strike at the basis of potential Palestinian sovereignty by destroying the continuity of Palestinian-controlled territory was stated clearly by Drobless more than twenty years ago. "The disposition of the settlements must be carried out not only around the settlements of the minorities [Arabs], but also in between them. . . .." When negotiators met during 2000 at Camp David to reach a permanent agreement on a border, they had to deal with an area in which Palestinian cities, town, and villages were often surrounded and separated by Israeli settlements and roads.

The Government of Israel has used legal ruses to confiscate Palestinian land for settlements. It has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the development and expansion of settlements in occupied territories. Settlement construction fluctuates between 2,000 and 5,000 housing units each year. By the end of 1985, the settler population in the West Bank and Gaza stood at 42,000, a 100 percent increase since 1982. By 1990, it stood at 76,000. In addition, 120,000 Israelis had settled in East Jerusalem, 10,000 more were in the Golan Heights, and 3,000 lived in Gaza.

Settlements and the Oslo Agreements

The 1993 and 1995 Oslo Agreements did not expressly prohibit expansion of settlements and deferred negotiation of borders and settlements until final status talks to be held by 1996. However, they preserved the "integrity and status" of the West Bank and Gaza during the interim period. Nevertheless, settlement construction continued and the population in the West Bank and Gaza doubled again. As of February 2002, there are 400,000 Israelis living in occupied territory. In the West Bank, there are 206,000 Israeli settlers and 2 million Palestinians, although settlements, adjacent confiscated land, settlement roads and other land controlled by the IDF cover 59 percent of the area. In the Gaza Strip, 7,000 settlers control 20 percent of this 140 square mile area amidst about 1.1 million Palestinians. There are 170,000 settlers in East Jerusalem and 16,000 in the Golan Heights. Many Israeli settlements in the West Bank are strategically located to command access to the main aquifer underlying the West Bank and Israel. Settlers consume six times more water per capita than Palestinians.

American Policy Toward Settlements

Until the early 1980's, the U.S., like all other states except Israel, viewed Israeli settlements as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. After President Reagan declared that settlements were not "illegal," in contrast to previous U.S. policy, the U.S. took no legal position on settlements, although all subsequent administrations have opposed settlements as an obstacle to peace. No U.S. administration has been able to persuade Israel to halt or significantly slow settlement growth.

In December 2000, President Clinton proposed borders for a Palestinian state encompassing 94-96 percent of the West Bank that would have required abandonment of scores of settlements, but allowed the retention of large bloc settlements near the Green Line in exchange for swaps of Israeli land to the new Palestinian state. Clinton's proposals became moot after the elections of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President George W. Bush. The Bush administration has made no proposals for resolving the problem.

Policy of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has devoted his career to expanding settlements, has built 25 new settlement outposts since his election in January 2001. The Mitchell Plan, which is designed to bring about a cease-fire in the current uprising and a return to negotiations, calls for a "freeze" on settlements. Sharon has nominally accepted a freeze, but has reserved the right to continue "natural growth," a formula that Israel has used in the past to mask settlement expansion. Sharon has accepted the concept of a Palestinian state, but only in 42 percent of the West Bank and Gaza, the area that is now under Palestinian administrative control. Sharono has said that Israel will not abandon any settlements.

Settlements vs. Peace

Today, there is no prospect for a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza without abandonment of most Israeli settlements. Palestinian negotiators have indicated that if there were agreement in principle that the borders of the Palestinian state are defined by the 1967 Green Line, including East Jerusalem, they would be willing to discuss border adjustments. Such an arrangement might cede to Israel large, heavily populated settlements located near the Green Line in return for Palestinian annexation of equivalent areas of land on the Israeli side of the line.

In 1980 Professor Jacob Talmon of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a renowned Israeli authority on Zionism and nationalism, wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Begin calling for an end to Israel's policies of occupation and settlement. Foreshadowing the current violent confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis, Talmon said, "The combination of subjection, national oppression and social inferiority is a time bomb" for the future of Israel. He urged Begin: "Let us not compel the Arabs to feel that they have been humiliated until they believe that hope is gone and they must die for Palestine."

Talmon's warning was prophetic. If the settlements remain, as Sharon intends, blocking the creation of a viable Palestinian state, the outcome will be chronic civil war. Today, majorities in both societies support the concept of two states. Palestinians are unlikely to abandon their struggle for a sovereign state of their own, and no Israeli government is likely to attempt to "transfer" Palestinians, although one party in Sharon's coalition advocates this. Israeli demographers predict that the fast-growing Arab population in Israel and the territories will exceed the Jewish population by 2020. Thus, if Israel is determined to preserve both a Jewish state as well as its settlements in the territories, it must continue to use military force to repress and dominate a hostile Palestinian populace that within this century will outnumber the Jews. Such an outcome would perpetuate violence, deny security for Israel, prevent justice for Palestinians, and corrupt and destroy Israel's character as a democratic state.