Settlements and Peace: Incentives and Obstacles.

 

by Raphael Israeli

 

One of the tenets of the current conventional wisdom has been that “the settlements are obstacles to peace”, as if without settlements on the West Bank and Gaza peace would have descended on earth. We know that prior to the 1967 War there were no Israeli settlements, except for the Israeli towns and villages within Israel, and those too were never recognized by the Arabs, who claimed that they also were “occupied territory”. The great blessing of the present settlements in the West Bank and Gaza is that they displaced their predecessors, the old established settlements in Israel proper, from the epithet of “occupied”, except  in the eyes of   the Hamas, the PLO and other Arab parties, who continue to teach that both are occupied territory. Thus, the present international psychosis about “imminent peace if settlement activity is ceased”, sounds as hollow as, but less funny than a bad joke.

 

In other words, with or without settlements, the negative attitudes of the Arabs towards Israel have never depended on the fortunes of Jewish settlement on any parts of the land. For under any circumstances, and within any boundaries, it was always Jewish rooting  in the land  which signaled to the Arabs permanence, hence it generated total rejection. No better proof than that is the present state of affairs, where the “moderate” PA still teaches its children that Israeli cities like Haifa and Tel-Aviv are Palestinian cities, while the Hamas altogether proclaims the total uprooting of the Jewish state from  the “Arab land” of Palestine,  a waqf  (holy endowment ) in their eyes, on both sides of the late “green line” which only in Israeli eyes used to separate between Israel and Palestinian land.

 

In 2000, during the second Camp David, Arafat had been offered by Ehud Barak an almost total withdrawal of Israel from 95% of the territories, in return for his commitment to the finality of the dispute, but he refused because in his eyes, such a withdrawal would not have put an end to Israel’s rootedness in the land, even if the almost totality of Palestinian territory were to be restored to him. In Gaza, Israel went further by evacuating completely the Israeli settlements, not only ceasing construction in them, and the result was not the promised peace once those settlements were uprooted, but more war and death against the Israeli villages and towns around Gaza. This meant that, far from considering the boundaries of Israel Proper immune to Arab fire, if it only retreated from those “peace threatening” settlements, the latter were considered a legitimate prey for more attacks. 

 

Now we know that one of the most powerful levers, which acted upon President Sadat to venture into Israel in 1977 and sign peace with it, was his real fear that had he  procrastinated  any longer, the Israeli settlements in the Sinai, which comprised the townships of Ophira and Yamit and a score of other successful farming settlements, and housed several thousand  Israelis, might grow into cities which no one would be able to uproot if they were allowed to develop into counting  in the tens of thousands of inhabitants. He understood that what happened to Ashkelon and Jaffa after 1948, could also apply to the Sinai if enough years were permitted to elapse, accompanied  by a strong settlement movement  which would signify a road of no return.  Conversely, when Sadat committed himself to peace, he could still ensure, after a mere 15 years of  Israeli settlement,  that the process was still reversible.

 

The Palestinians and the Syrians have failed to learn that lesson. They thought that they had nothing to lose by waiting, because their territories were “inalienable” and they had nothing to lose by procrastinating in the peace process.  The fact that in both cases they lost territories as a result of their aggression in 1967, did not impress them at all, because they were convinced that when they regain their strength their vacant “occupied territory” was awaiting them to retake possession  of it. Under that thinking, not only did they become obtuse to the possible cost of aggression, which might have otherwise deterred them from another war in case they should loose it again, but they were encouraged to try repeatedly, assured that no risk of loss was involved. Therefore no deterrence was ever built into this strategy, while if Israel signaled that those who launch war can be made to pay the price of loosing territory as a result, and those who fail  to embrace a  peace settlement can forfeit parts of their territory, her deterrence might be reactivated.

 

Just like at the end of World War !!, when the boundaries of aggressive Germany were  curtailed and those of her victims were expanded at her expense,  in order to ensure peace, so must Israel signal her desire to retain permanently parts of those territories, not merely as a punishment to the aggressors, but mainly as a deterrence to the aggressor and as a price for their aggression and for the cost of war they precipitated on Israel. Until a peace is reached, only an intensive settlement activity by Israel can act as a strong enough incentive for the Arabs  to hurry to peace before  the land becomes irretrievable. So, just like in Sadat’s case, where Israeli settlements were one of his most powerful  incentives to come to terms, so they will operate in the Palestinian and Syrian cases.

 

Based on the Gaza   precedent, every evacuated Israeli settlement, which was a model of productivity and creativity, was turned into rubble and became an artillery base to harass Israel Proper, after it was taken over by the Palestinians. This showed that the Arabs did not struggle for the land, which had been improved and upgraded by the Israeli farmers, in order to put it to use for peaceful and human development, but just in order to  deny it to the Jews and gnaw deeper into the process of uprooting  and delegitimizing them in the land. It is then evident that a miscalculated and hasty retreat from the West Bank and the Golan, would turn our country  into a war zone,   while no resettlement of the evacuated land would be put  to anyone’s benefit. Only if the Arabs stand to lose when they attack, would they be likely to avoid aggression; and only when some of their lost lands become unredeemable, would they rush to settle peacefully before it is too late.

 

 

Raphael Israeli teaches Middle East at Hebrew University, Jerusalem.