WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS DURING THE OSLO PERIOD
Arthur Bierman

In a previous article, Charlotte Smokler presented a brief history of West Bank settlements for the period June 1967 to September 1993. This article continues the story up to February 2001.

When the Oslo accords were signed by Arafat and Rabin on September 13, 1993, about 111,000 Jewish settlers were residing in 120 West Bank settlements. When the Oslo peace process ended in failure seven and a half years later, almost 200,000 Jewish settlers were living in 123 West Bank settlements. A few comments are in order.

(A) Despite claims to the contrary, this increase in the number of settlements and settlers did not violate the letter of the Oslo accords. Thus Article V of the Oslo Declaration of Principles had specified that the most controversial issues - i.e. "Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, relations and cooperation with other neighbors..." would not be dealt with until the onset of the "permanent status negotiations" which were supposed to terminate the peace process five years hence. This provision was reinforced by Article XXXI.7 of the Interim Agreement of September 28, 1995 which stated that "neither side shall initiate or take any steps that will change the status of the West bank and Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations." This article was generally interpreted as prohibiting Israel from unilaterally annexing any part of these territories, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) from unilaterally proclaiming Palestinian statehood. (1)

(B) It must be immediately admitted, however, that while this settlement expansion was not prohibited by Oslo, it could well be seen as violating Oslo's spirit — and was in fact perceived as such by most Palestinians as well as by many Israelis. (See, for example, Markovsky, reference (2)). Even Barak recently acknowledged that "Palestinians simply saw, on a daily basis, that more and more of 'their' land was being plundered and becoming 'Israeli.' " (3)

(C) This particular violation of Oslo's spirit must, however, be placed into the following larger context: Between 1993 and 2001 both sides violated, not just the spirit but several significant provisions of the Oslo agreement. These included, on the Israeli side, delays as well as an actual refusal to withdraw from certain West Bank areas, and on the Palestinian side the dissemination of anti-Israeli as well as anti-Semitic propaganda in schools. media and mosques, the creation of armed militias, the refusal to eradicate such hostile elements as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the use of violence to advance Arafat's political agenda. For a more detailed discussion of these issues, I refer the reader to Israel's WHITE PAPER of November 20, 2000 (4) and to David Makovsky's FOREIGN AFFAIRS article, (see reference (2) below). The WHITE PAPER contains a detailed presentation of Palestinian violations, and the latter a reasonably even handed discussion of Israeli and Palestinian violations.

(D) Ehud Barak, Israel's prime minister during the last two years of Oslo, defended his decision to permit a significant increase in settler housing (and hence also of the settler population) by arguing that those dwellings built on territory ultimately transferred to the Palestinian Authority would have benefited the Palestinians, while those built on territory ultimately annexed by Israel would not have harmed the new Palestinian state. But Barak also admitted that his permissive policy had been intended to "mollify the Israeli right ......as he pushed forward toward peace" and an ultimate withdrawal from the territories. (5)

We are now ready to discuss the fate of settlements during Oslo's permanent status negotiations which began in the spring of 2000 and ended in failure at the end of January 2001. During these discussions both sides agreed to a two-state solution, with one of the contentious issues being the precise borders between Israel and the anticipated Palestinian state. Since the Palestinians clearly intended to exclude all Jewish settlers from their state to be, and since it was also unlikely that any settlers would risk living in Palestine, the border decision determined also the solution to the settlement problem. How then did these particular negotiations proceed?

Barak's initial July offer proposed a Palestinian state consisting of the whole Gaza Strip and about 80% of the West Bank. However, as the negotiations proceeded, in Camp David for two weeks and then in Washington D.C., New York, Jerusalem, and finally in Taba, Barak kept improving his offer. Let us therefore just consider the final Israeli proposal, made in Taba at the end of January 2001. Basing himself upon Clinton's December 23rd "bridging proposal" (6), Barak offered Arafat all of Gaza and 95% of the West Bank, plus a land swap of Israeli territory amounting to about 2% of the West Bank. These borders would have required Israel to abandon 87 West Bank settlements inhabited by about 35% of all Jewish settlers. (7) The remaining 36 settlements located on two blocks of land adjacent to the Green Line, would have been annexed by Israel.

Such borders would have created a Palestinian state consisting of two solid territories, Gaza and the West Bank, with the two entities connected by a highway under joint Israeli-Palestinian supervision. It must be stressed, in the face of persistent contrary claims, that such a Palestinian state on the West Bank would not have been cantonized, but would have formed an unbroken, contiguous land mass between the Jordan river and Israel's Green Line border. Given peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine and the realization of promised international financial assistance, both countries could well have looked forward to a period of substantial economic growth.

Barak's offered borders were however rejected by the Palestinian delegation which insisted on obtaining 98% of the West Bank, all of Gaza as well as a slice of Israeli territory amounting to 2% of the West Bank. As the reader can see, this proposal was sufficiently close to Barak's that further good faith negotiations might well have closed the gap . However, the really serious disagreements concerned the fate of East Jerusalem and, most irreconcilably, the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Unable to reach an agreement on these difficult issues, the two sides adjourned and a few days later Sharon replaced Barak as Israel's prime minister.

Given the current state of belligerence between the two communities, no further progress on the settlement question can be expected for some time to come.

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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS:

The settling of the West Bank by Jewish residents went through three distinct stages:

The first stage, from 1967 to 1977 resulted in the creation of almost 30 relatively small communities in a strip of land along the River Jordan and also on some territory in the Hebron hills, the Etzion Bloc, with a population of about 4500 Israelis. The Jordan valley settlements were intended to secure Israel against a surprise attack from the east, i.e. Jordan, Iraq, perhaps even Syria, and their land, amounting to about 12,000 acres, was taken from private Arab owners on the grounds of "essential and urgent military needs." (8) The Etzion Bloc settlements were built on land which had belonged to four Jewish Kibbutzim during the British Mandate era. After months of bitter fighting, these isolated settlements had been captured by the Arab Legion on May 13, 1948, their inhabitants killed or imprisoned and the land appropriated by the Jordanian government.

The second stage was inaugurated in 1974 by a number of religious Israelis who formed a new political organization, Gush Emunim, the Bloc of the Faithful, which advocated the Jewish settlement of all of the West Bank on theological grounds. This group proceeded to establish settlements in the central mountain ridge, where the bulk of the Arab population was concentrated. After some years, this effort was supported by the Likud government (1977-1984) and resulted in a significant increase in the number of settlements and settlers. Thus, in 1977 there had been 31 West Bank settlements with a population of 4,400 residents; in 1984, these numbers had risen to 102 settlements with 35,300 residents. These new settlements were built primarily upon so called "state land" which had been acquired by the Israeli government by a number of mechanisms, almost all involving the effective transfer of Arab land into Jewish hand. (9)

The third stage began in the early 1980's, and continued throughout the decade and the next. It emphasized the building of new settlements in the neighborhood of the Green Line, thus enabling ordinary israeli citizens to commute from their new West Bank residences to their jobs inside Israel. These new settlers were not driven by strong ideological or religious motives but were encouraged to move to their new homes by many financial governmental inducements. As a consequence of these efforts, the number of West bank settlements increased from 102 in 1984 to 123 in 2000, with the number of settlers increasing during that same period from 35,300 to 191,600. The land for these new settlements was acquired by certifying some as "state land", expropriating other land for "public needs" and purchasing some from private Arab owners.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this sustained transfer of Arab land into Jewish hands fueled Palestinian hostility towards the occupation authorities. Certainly many Israelis, Amoz Oz, Peace Now and B'tzelem among them, drew that conclusion, viewed Israel's settlement policy as both unjust and a violation, if not of the letter then of the spirit, of the 4th Geneva Convention, and advocated a total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Barak's Taba offer on borders, had it been accepted by the PA, would have gone a long way towards restoring this land to the Palestinian community.

At this point in time, what with the ongoing violence and a cessation of meaningful negotiations, any significant changes in Israel's settlement policy seem unlikely.

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Endnotes:

1) See Interin Agreement

(2) David Makovsky, "Middle East Peace Through Partition", FOREIGN AFFAIRS, March /April 2001, p. 34

(3)Benny Morris, "Camp David and After: An Exchange; An Interview with Ehud Barak." THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, June 13. 2002, p. 43

(4) "Palestinian Authority and PLO Non-compliance with signed agreements and commitments." Israeli "White Paper", November 20, 2000.

(5) Benny Morris, op. cit. p. 43

(6) In the last few weeks of his administration,Clinton tried to rescue the faltering peace process by offering a "bridging proposal" which, in his opinion, offered each side the best possible deal acceptable to the other. See Clinton Proposal

(7) See "Deconstructing The Taba Talks ", FOUNDATION FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE, March/April 2001,#4p.5

(8)" Land Grab - Israel's Settlement policy in the West Bank", May 2002, pp.24-25; B'Tzelem,

(9) Some of the land had been Jordanian state land between 1948 and 1967; some agricultural land had belonged to Arab residents but had not been used as such for at least 10 consecutive years, some had not been used for farming for at least 3 years; and some was more than one half hour walk from the nearest village. In the period 1980-84, 200,000 acres of West Bank land were declared "stand land". See B'Tzelem, op. cit. pp.27-31