Why the Settlement Moratorium Should Continue

"Israel's settlement moratorium has made a difference on the ground and improved the atmosphere for talks. And our position on this issue is well known.  We believe that the moratorium should be extended."   President Obama to the UN General Assembly, last week

By the time you read this column, on, or after, September 26, we should know whether the 10-month moratorium on new Israeli construction in the West Bank (except East Jerusalem), set to expire today, has been extended, in line with President Obama's explicit and public request at the UN.

Alternatively: A face-saving compromise deal might be worked out.  Or, in the worst-case scenario, the just-renewed peace talks might soon begin to founder in the wake of resurgent Israeli settlement expansion.

As I write on September 22, erev Sukkot, however, there is no way of knowing.

But, regardless of developments over the next few days, it is worthwhile considering Prime Minister Netanyahu's recent justification for restarting settlement construction amid Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.  In a press briefing on September 21, Netanyahu reasoned as follows:

"Peace talks have been going on for 17 years, even when there was construction in the West Bank."

The Prime Minister's statement was historically accurate, of course. 

But the Prime Minister wasn't only reciting a fact.  He was also trying to convince the world that settlement expansion is innocuous, and represents no obstacle to peace. 

A review of the 17 years cited by Netanyahu can help us determine whether that's indeed the case.

Seventeen years ago, the late Yitzhak Rabin and Yassir Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles (the "DOP", the first of several Oslo-process agreements) on the White House lawn.  Regrettably, new settlement construction was not prohibited under the DOP's provisions.

Why?  First, since the DOP limited the upcoming interim phase to five years, the settlement issue, it was argued, would soon enough be resolved by an end-of-conflict agreement.

On top of that, Israeli sources explained at the time, the stability of Rabin's government required the support of the ultra-orthodox Shas party, whose constituency was dead-set against Israeli concessions.  And since much of the general Israeli public was skeptical about (if not downright hostile to) negotiations with the terrorist-turned-partner Arafat, Rabin was advised to skirt the more delicate issues, settlements included, until greater trust could be built up.

After all, the reasoning went, Rabin, who was doubling as Defense Minister and was therefore the ultimate authority over the occupied West Bank, would, in practice, keep settlement construction in check.

When the DOP was signed in 1993, there were 111,600 Israeli settlers in the West Bank (not including East Jerusalem), in addition to 152,800 in East Jerusalem, beyond the Green Line (total 264,400).  By Rabin's November 1995 assassination, there were roughly 133,200 settlers in the West Bank and 157,300 in East Jerusalem (290,500 in all).

Fast-forward to 1999, and the election of Prime Minister Ehud Barak.  Although it was hoped that Barak would reverse the pro-settlement policy of his predecessor, Netanyahu, his term in office actually saw an upswing in Israeli housing starts in the West Bank.  Although Barak's coalition promised "no new settlements", it also maintained a commitment to, "ongoing development needs of existing settlement communities" (what would later be called ‘natural growth').

Challenged on this issue by the international community and the Israeli left, Barak aides explained that the Prime Minister's peace policies needed the support of the pro-settler National Religious Party and of the center-right Shas and Yisrael B'Aliya parties, all members of his short-lived coalition.

Besides, Barak argued, the interim period (now extended by two years) was about to end, a peace deal would soon be reached, and there was absolutely no point wasting his limited domestic political capital on the contentious settlements issue.

When Barak took office in 1999, there were 177,411 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, in addition to 170,123 in East Jerusalem (347,534 in all).  By the end of Barak's abbreviated term, there were at least 192,976 Israeli West Bank settlers, in addition to 172,250 in East Jerusalem (365,226).

In 2001, Ariel Sharon replaced Barak, the Intifada intensified, and final-status talks were ultimately shelved in favor of Sharon's unilateralism.  But after Ehud Olmert succeeded Sharon, following the latter's stroke, diplomacy came out of the deep freeze.  The Annapolis Conference of November 2007 offered fresh hope for agreement.

By that time, though, 14 years after the DOP, there were already 282,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, 2.5 times the amount in Rabin's day, in addition to 189,708 in East Jerusalem (471,708 in total).  Peace talks took place under a growing fear that the settlements had become so widespread that it might no longer be possible to draw two-state borders, or dismantle the many settlements that couldn't remain in place once an agreement was signed.

Nevertheless, even during the negotiations led by Olmert and Tzipi Livni, Israel continued to expand settlements (though Olmert did try to limit construction to the settlement blocs that are likely to be incorporated into Israel in a final deal, in exchange for equivalent territory west of the Green Line).

By July 2009, just a few months after Olmert left the Prime Minister's office, there were an estimated 304,569 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, outside of East Jerusalem, nearly three times as many as there had been 16 years before.

(All statistics based on data from Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics and the Israel Defense Forces Civil Administration, and available here, here and here.)

In his justification of settlement construction, Mr. Netanyahu is basing himself on 17 years of destructive precedent.  In the 17 years referred to so approvingly by Netanyahu, we have seen the following, time after time:

• An Israeli government that indicates that it is too beset by domestic political constraints to put a complete halt to settlement expansion over the Green Line.
• An Israeli Prime Minister who insists that wrangling over settlements would only be a distraction that would sap Israeli public support for peace talks.
• A ratcheting up of the settler population, making the difficulty of implementing a peace deal (if one can be agreed upon) that much greater.

How sad it is to note that, had Israel frozen settlement construction 17 years ago, it would have needed to evacuate only 20,000 settlers under a peace deal based on the generally accepted Clinton parameters and Geneva Initiative.  Now, 17 years later, thanks to the "settlements are not the problem" argument, an estimated 80,000 will one day have to be moved back to sovereign Israel.

Although most experts believe that such a mass evacuation - though painful - can still be accomplished, no one can say for sure what number would no longer be feasible.

Ron Skolnik
Executive Director
Meretz USA