This article sets out to outline some of the constants and
variables in Israel's concept of Jewish settlement on Palestinian
territory and its implementation mechanisms since the turn of the
last century. It will also look at settlement planning policies and
give an overview of the current situation of Israeli settlement in
the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories. Circumstances on the
Israeli, Arab and international scenes may have changed, yet with
some necessary adjustments, the settlement pattern has remained the
same throughout the years.
The Concept and Inception of Israeli Settlement
The Zionist colonial settlement process had its inception at the
end of the 19th century with the advent of organized waves of
Jewish immigrants to Palestine. They established rural settlements
there as the instruments for the Zionist revival of the Jewish
people in Palestine. The Zionists claimed they inherited religious
and historical ties to the place, although the Zionist movement
itself was ostensibly a secular and not a religious movement. This
linkage between the three elements - religion, ethnicity and place
- remains a constant in Zionist thought, seeking means for the
consolidation of the Zionist presence through the Judaization of
the land and the supplanting of the original inhabitants. Zionist
settlement in Palestine, practically and conceptually, is an
example of a colonialism movement although it differs from other
such movements in its causes and motives. It led to the catastrophe
that has befallen another people in Palestine.
Before the onset of Jewish settlement, Palestinian towns were
inhabited by Jewish minorities, as was the case with other Arab or
Western countries. This changed with the emergence of Zionist
settlement and the drive toward the building of agricultural
colonies - based on the notion that agricultural settlement is the
means of controlling the widest land area possible. Towards this
end, concepts and mechanisms of organized cooperatives were
developed: kibbutz, moshav, moshava. These terms differ from the
usual designations used in human geography literature for physical
rural and urban settlements.
Semantics are used to create an ethical and legal atmosphere for
the Zionist presence in the Land, and help give local and
international prominence to its project. This is seen, for example,
in the use of certain terms like "pioneers," for the new
colonialists or founders; "ascent" (aliyah), for immigration to
Israel; "descent" (yeridah), for emigration from Israel;
"liberation of the land," for a land transaction with the Arabs,
who are termed "foreigners." This terminology persists to this day
as a motivating factor and an ethical/moral inducement for
settlement in the Palestinian territories, so much so that the word
for settlement in Hebrew "hitnachalut"comes from the root of the
word "heritage/inheritance" and "heirs," which is a positive
concept; even its translation "settler" or "mityashev" in Hebrew is
a positive concept. The terminology used and the names given to
places as part of the settlement project seek to divest it with an
aura of morality and to identify it as a positive phenomenon that
is incumbent upon the Jewish people to defend. These sustain the
Zionist collective memory, emphasizing the right of the Jews to the
Land. It is true that a controversy exists today within Israeli
society regarding the right to settle Palestinian territory.
However, these disagreements revolve around methods of giving
legitimacy and imparting morality to the settlements established
before and after the creation of Israel within its own borders,
settlements that have led to Jewish instead of Palestinian presence
there.
The various stages of Jewish settlement development in Mandatory
Palestine (where the number of settlements reached approximately
1,073 sites, including towns, villages, kibbutzim, moshavim,
moshavot), follow a reverse paradigm. The process of self-promotion
and international promotion consists of three components: reality,
legality and right/morality. Jewish settlement begins with the
construction of the reality that will implement Zionist ideology
and will lead to a control over resources (land, water, and
economy), and the military defense of the settlements. Following
the creation of the fact on the ground, starts the search for
regional and international legality. Once this has been acquired in
accordance with international conventions, the advancement of
right/morality begins in order to furnish an incentive for the
perpetuation of settlement. This paradigm, which characterizes the
settlement process, has not changed; otherwise how can legality be
extended to settlements in East Jerusalem that are now called
"neighborhoods"?
Currently, Israel has placed on its negotiating agenda territorial
solutions to ensure that more than 80 percent of the settlements in
the occupied territories remain within Israel's internationally
recognized borders. This implies the adjustment of Israel's borders
to include areas outside its 1949 borders, which the Arab
countries, including the Palestinians, have recognized. The
Israelis have already started talking about the "immorality" of the
"transfer" of Jewish settlers from the Palestinian territories,
despite the fact that they had no right to be there in the first
place. Under the directives of the various Israeli governments and
the Jewish Agency, they aimed to assure the revival of the Jewish
people in what they call "the historical Land of Israel." It is
this legality that the international community has extended to what
has been won through the language of force and hegemony, its
inherent immorality notwithstanding; this is what still sustains
the process of Jewish settlement building and expansion in
Palestinian territory.
Jewish settlement today is still evolving and expanding according
to a pre-state mindset and vision. The process of settlement
building in the Galilee, the Negev and the Arab Triangle aims at
intensifying the Judaization of these areas where the Palestinian
minority lives.
Undoubtedly, Israeli obsession with security, the desire for land
control, and restricting Palestinian development, are the prime
motives for the building of settlements: "Wherever there is a
Jewish settlement, there is Jewish sovereignty." To carry out this
project, Israel has adopted a threefold strategy:
* that no independent Arab/Palestinian state be established west of
the Jordan River in Mandatory Palestine;
* that no continuous Palestinian presence exist in the territories
without its being dissected by a Jewish presence;
* that no majority of Arab/Palestinian population concentration be
allowed within an extensive land area in Mandatory Palestine.
This strategy is further based on the elements of security,
geography-space, and demography, and applies on all three levels:
regional, territorial and local. Thus, Israel has built settlements
in the Jordan Valley (the Ghor), to separate the West Bank from
Jordan; and in the south of the Gaza Strip, to separate it from
Egypt. Additionally, settlements have been built all along the
Green Line to form a belt or fence obstructing any possible
continuity between the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians in Israel and
those in the West Bank. The latter plan was implemented through the
building of 13 settlements along the Green Line called the Stars
Plan (Tochnit Ha-Kokhavim). Currently, a settlement project is in
the offing in "the Hebron periphery," where eight settlements are
projected in order to block any connection between Gaza and the
north of the Negev with a concentration of Palestinian residents,
on the one hand, and with the West Bank, on the other. This
separation between the borders of the state and the clusters of
Palestinian population impedes the establishment of a Palestinian
state, with control over its natural resources and connected with
its neighboring Arab countries.
Spatial Planning Policies
The Israeli authorities have devised planning policies designed to
control the land and to facilitate the building of Jewish
settlements in the occupied territories. These policies are in
essence based on the concept of fragmentation. Settlement blocs are
built along roads that criss-cross the length and breadth of the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip, dissecting them into sub-units, thus
creating a disjointed Palestinian space. As an example, the West
Bank was divided into three areas: the north, the center and the
south, all separated from the Gaza Strip. This cantonization of the
West Bank and its division into areas A, B, and C, leaving Area C,
which includes most of the Jewish settlements, under Israeli
control during the interim period is nothing but the implementation
of this policy of a disconnected Arab/Palestinian presence. So too
is the expansion of settlements around Jerusalem, like Ma'aleh
Adumim, Givat Ze'ev, Kokhav Ya'acov, etc., and the plan to annex
them to the city, which Barak is reported to have called for during
the Camp David II negotiations.
The building of Jewish settlements is not the only policy leading
to the fragmentation of Palestinian land or space. Israel also
achieves this through the confiscation of Palestinian land, which
then automatically comes under Israeli administrative control, as
well as through the blocking of Palestinian development by means of
restrictive planning in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This
results in a shared space, with a dual Palestinian and Israeli
presence on Palestinian land.
Regarding the demographic component, Israel attempts to attract
Jews from all over the world to immigrate to Israel and proceeds to
settle them in areas with a Palestinian majority. This policy
shifts the demographic balance in Israel's favor in any given area
of Palestine. It is best exemplified by what is occurring in Arab
East Jerusalem, where the Israeli authorities have been trying to
uphold the equation of a 30-percent Palestinian and a 70-percent
Israeli presence in the city. This equation governs all planning
and building policies in the city, as well as the provision of
services to the Palestinian residents there. The present settlement
activities in Ras al-Amud, Jabal al-Masharef, Jabal Abu Ghneim/Har
Homa, Sheikh Jarrah and the Old City seek, in effect, the
fragmentation of Palestinian continuity that will stand in the way
of any eventual autonomy or independence on the part of the
Palestinian people.
This fragmentation strategy has been achieved by the Israeli
authorities - and before then by the Jewish Agency - through the
use of "partisan planning" that relied on two principles:
encirclement and then penetration. That is, the first step in the
process is the establishment of settlements or the consolidation of
a Jewish presence around a Palestinian and Arab presence. At this
stage, confrontation between the two parties is still weak. Once
this Jewish presence has been consolidated, begins the second step
- the penetration of Palestinian/Arab space in order to fragment it
and control its resources. This planning procedure is carried out
on all levels: regional, territorial and city, the best example
being the city of Jerusalem.
Thus the evolution of Jewish settlement in the Palestinian
territories forms an extension, both physically and conceptually,
of the process that marked the establishment of settlements in
Palestine during the last century. This constant adapts itself to
changing circumstances, but does not constitute a basic departure
from the original conception that uses the obsession with security
as the justification for the establishment and expansion of these
settlements.
The Present Reality - Jewish Settlements
in the Palestinian Territories
Jewish settlement building in the Palestinian territories came in
the wake of the 1967 occupation of these lands. It began with the
"revival" of Jewish presence in the Old City in the Moghrabi
Quarter, al-Sharq and al-Midan after their demolition and emptying
of their Palestinian residents. Settlements were later built near
the Syrian border on the Golan Heights, in the Jordan Valley, in
the south of Gaza and in the north of Sinai, with the purpose of
splitting the Arab countries and the Palestinians by means of
settlement belts. Most of the areas where these settlements were
built were sparsely populated by Arabs who had fled or had been
expelled during the 1967 war and after.
The process of penetration of Palestinian presence by Jewish
settlement started in 1974 with the right-wing religious Gush
Emunim movement, backed by the Israeli government and the Jewish
Agency. Settlements were then built close to Palestinian cities and
villages - Beit El near Ramallah, Kiryat Arba near Hebron, and Elon
Moreh near Nablus. Since the mid-1970s, settlement expansion began
near the Green Line through the building of the settlements of
Immanuel, Ariel, Beit Arieh, etc., which lie within the sub-urban
space of metropolitan Tel Aviv. In parallel, a sub-urbanization
process was embarked upon in the Jerusalem environs through the
establishment of middle-class settlements, such as Ma'aleh Adumim,
that forms the second belt surrounding Jerusalem. The first belt is
made up of settlements that lie within the expanded 1967 municipal
boundaries of Jerusalem, like French Hill, Gilo, Ramot, and
Talpiyot. Settlements like Betar, Illit and Efratah were also built
for Jewish religious groups. These were thickened and expanded with
the coming to power in 1977 of the Likud, which gave priority to
settlements in areas inhabited by Palestinians. The following table
shows the growth in the number of the settler population in
Palestinian territories in selected years and their projected
number according to the grand Israeli plan for 2020. There are at
present 180,000 Jewish settlers (excluding East Jerusalem), making
up approximately 3 percent of the population of Israel.
Table 1. The number of Jewish settlers in the Palestinian
territories occupied in 1967, excluding East Jerusalem
Year Number of Settlers Growth Ratio
1976 3,176 -
1981 16,119 407
1986 51,100 217
1996 147,000 187
1997 160,200 9
1998 171,600 7
2020 310,000 81
Sources: The Israel Statistical Yearbook, 1999, No. 49;
Settlers in 1998: Peace Now Statistics;
and Forecasts for the Year 2020; Grand Territorial Plan for Israel, No. 35.
Jewish settlers living in the Palestinian territories can be
divided into three categories. The first are those groups of
"pioneers," the founders of settlements who see themselves as
continuing the Zionist movement's aim to Judaize the country. These
settlers receive the backing of the Israeli government and the
Jewish Agency and comprise both religious and secular Jews. The
second category is that of settlers who live in Jerusalem and its
environs for purely religious motives - the Haredim
(ultra-Orthodox) - or for national-religious reasons, like the
followers of the National Religious Party (Mafdal). The third
category includes those settlers who went to live in the occupied
territories initially for economic reasons, lured by the Israeli
government's incentives and financial backing, such as reduced land
and housing prices, and receiving benefits as priority development
areas. No data or estimates exist regarding the size or number of
each group.
Over 200 settlement sites have been established in the occupied
Palestinian territories, with around 159 urban/civilian settlements
(according to General Shlomo Banai, head of the army planning
division, July 1998). These settlements (excluding those of East
Jerusalem) are built on developed lands on a surface area of
78,789.5 dunums or 1.36 percent of Palestinian lands, according to
Israeli Peace Now data. On the other hand, these settlements
control vast tracts of Palestinian territory that is still under
Israeli occupation and that constitutes 70 percent of Palestinian
lands.
The following table shows the distribution of these settlements
according to population and size at the end of 1998.
Table 2. Distribution of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip according to size
Number of persons Number of urban Percentage
in a settlement settlements
Fewer than 100 19 11.9
100-500 88 55.4
500-1,000 23 14.5
1,000-2,000 13 8.2
2,000-5,000 8 5.0
5,000-10,000 4 2.5
More than 10,000 4 2.5
This table indicates that in 82 percent of the settlements the
number of settlers does not exceed 1,000. The distribution of large
settlements is to be found in the sub-urban areas of metropolitan
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The rest of the settlements are small, but
exist for the purpose of controlling Palestinian space, land and
natural resources. The consolidation of the presence of outlying
settlements in sensitive areas remains an Israeli strategic
constant in the occupied Palestinian territories. Today, the Jordan
Valley settlements rely on agriculture, while the other settlements
deal with services, industry and management. The economic base of
these settlements may have shifted, but this new form of settlement
strives for the same aims that prompted the establishment of the
first agricultural settlements in the last century.
Conclusion
The above discussion has shown that the Zionist settlement project
continues through the construction and extension of settlements in
the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories. The purpose is to change
the reality there and subsequently to ask for international
legitimacy for this new reality, though it arose forcibly and in
violation of all international rules and laws.
The concept of settlement as a physical expression through which is
realized the revival of the Jewish people in a Jewish state in
Palestine remains a constant of Zionist ideology. So too does the
pursuit for the control of natural resources through the
establishment of settlements, despite the change in their size,
site, economic bases and population characteristics. That is why a
continued consolidation of Jewish settlement in the Palestinian
territories and East Jerusalem will form a barrier and an
intractable obstacle to a political settlement between Israelis and
Palestinians. If Israel seeks regional stability, it should stop
settlement activity and should instigate a change in the settlement
mentality, both on the popular and decision-making levels. It
should turn away from an expansionist mindset and a fixation with
security that, at the end of the day, not only come at the expense
of the Palestinian people, but ultimately threaten their own
security. Instead, Israel should foster a mentality of peace and
recognize the right of Palestinians to independence and to a life
of dignity and justice.
