Israel’s West Bank Settlements—An Obstacle to Peace
First, the story: In 1978, a group of young aides on Capitol Hill were invited to Israel on a two week visit to meet with top academic and political figures and tour the country. We represented our members – Senators Kennedy, Cranston, Church, Danforth, Heinz, Baucus, DeConcini and Congressman Ben Rosenthal of New York. We met with, and were briefed by, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, future Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, and Defense Minister and future president Ezer Weizman, among others. It was a heady trip for a group of 30-somethings!
By the time we got to our last meeting with Prime Minister Begin, we were escorted into the cabinet room and upon entering each had his photo taken with the Prime Minister. One of the topics we spent a bit of time asking about was the Israeli settlements being built, primarily in the West Bank. How many were there going to be, where were they, how many people, what was the plan for the future, what would be the relationship with the Palestinians, etc.? The Prime Minister began to get irritated by these young Americans and we saw his staff beginning to shift nervously in their seats.
The next morning at breakfast one of Begin’s aides showed up to join us and remarked that “they had trouble in the darkroom and none of our photos had turned out.” That prompted one of our group who represented the member of Congress from New York City, to snap his fingers and joke “Damn, there goes my race for Mayor of New York!”
What led to that we will never know, but a group of staff aides to pro-Israel members of Congress asking about Israeli settlements clearly did not go down well.
Since that period decades ago, the continuing buildup of these settlements in the West Bank has seriously increased the difficulty of creating a peaceful resolution in the Middle East. Settlements have also been declared illegal or contrary to international law by every nation except Israel. The only time the U.S. has changed that position was a few years under Donald Trump. President Biden has reiterated that the settlements are “inconsistent with international law.”
The West Bank right now, with the crisis in Gaza, has certainly taken a back seat. The horrendous and brutal terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7th shocked the world, and Israel’s continued military response has created a humanitarian crisis and led to the deaths of over 30,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The carnage and the world’s reaction to the daily bombardments has resulted in Israel going from victim to aggressor. There are no winners here.
Nevertheless, the West Bank has not escaped the conflict or the confrontation. The reports of violence, discrimination and recriminations, and the rising threat levels are making headlines too. If there is ever going to be a two-state solution in the Middle East there is no doubt that it will involve the land and people of the West Bank.
There are currently about 144 Israeli established settlements, and twelve in East Jerusalem, plus about another 100 not officially sanctioned. These include about 450,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and 220,000 in East Jerusalem. Just this month after a violent confrontation at one of the settlements Israel has announced that they will build 3,300 new homes for Israeli settlers.
The growth has been astounding. Consider this:
Soon after our trip in 1978, there were about 17,400 Israeli settlers.
By 1983, there were 99,765 settlers.
A decade later, 1993, that figure climbed to 264,400 Israeli settlers.
By 2010, there were 512,769 and the total figure now is about 750,000. (Lately, East Jerusalem has accounted for about 200,000+ of the total)
All this to say, it is time for the international community to focus more closely on the situation and the demographics in the West Bank. The State Department estimates that the population of Palestinians in the West Bank is just over 3 million, many of them poor and unemployed or under employed. They deserve citizenship and jobs and self-determination.
I am sure that none of us on that trip in 1978 who traveled throughout the West Bank to Bethlehem, or Hebron, or Nablus, or the Dead Sea, would come close to recognizing it today. Everything has changed but, when it comes to a lasting peace, everything has stayed the same, or deteriorated. And, sadly, the events of the past five months will harden the attitudes and stoke more violence. The only hope is that new leaders will emerge on both sides to say “enough”; it is time for peace negotiations again, involving all parties, getting beyond the history of the hatred and it is time to create a democratic and demilitarized Palestinian state that can live side by side with Israel. People want to live their lives, raise their children, pursue normalcy in their communities and build on a peace agreement with lasting power. That doesn’t seem too much for anyone to ask.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law_and_Israeli_settlements
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