An Israeli soldier stands by as a Caterpillar bulldozer clears the ground next to the settlement Carmel, south of the West Bank city of Hebron. (Mamoun Wazwaz, Maan Images)

Since President Obama announced his intention to pursue resolution of the Palestinian/Israel conflict - including the establishment of an independent Palestinian state - tension has been brewing between the U.S. and Israel on the issue of settlement construction. It is widely accepted that the existence and continued construction of Israeli-only settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is forestalling the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. President Obama and others in his administration have issued repeated calls for Israel to meet its obligations under previous agreements to stop all settlement activity, including "natural growth". Israeli officials have so far refused.

1. What is the Obama administration's position on Israeli settlement activity?

2. How have Israeli officials responded to U.S. calls for an end to settlement activity?

3. What is "natural growth?"

4. What benefits does Israel provide to settlers?

5. What are unauthorized outposts?

6. What have past agreements said about settlements?

7. Do Israeli settlements violate international law?

8. What is the impact of the settlements on a two-state solution?

---

1. What is the Obama administration's position on Israeli settlement activity?

President Barack Obama: "Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward." Meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, May 18, 2009

"...each party has obligations under the road map. On the Israeli side those obligations include stopping settlements... And in my conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu I was very clear about the need to stop the settlements..." Meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, May 28, 2009

"The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop." Speech at the American University of Cairo, June 4, 2009

Vice President Joseph Biden: "Israel has to work towards a two-state solution. You're not going to like my saying this, but not build more settlements, dismantle existing outposts, and allow the Palestinians freedom of movement based on their first actions... This is a 'show me' deal - not based on faith - show me." Speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference, May 5, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "... the President was very clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu was here. He wants to see a stop to settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions... And we intend to press that point." Meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Ali Aboul Gheit, May 27, 2009

---

2. How have Israeli officials responded to U.S. calls for an end to settlement activity?

Israel has rejected American calls for it to honor past agreements and stop all settlement activity. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that Israel will continue to allow "natural growth" construction in existing settlements. And while Defense Minister Ehud Barak proposed that Israel evacuate 22 unauthorized settlement outposts, Interior Minister Eli Yishai has announced plans to allocate ministry reserve funds to support settlement expansion throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

On August 18, in what has been interpreted as a goodwill gesture to President Obama, Israeli officials announced a "waiting period" or alleged moratorium on new building in the settlements. The waiting period, however, falls far short of Israel's obligation to implement a comprehensive and immediate freeze on all settlement activities as stipulated in the 2001 Mitchell Report and the 2003 Road Map.

Many analysts, in fact, see the gesture as nothing more than a smokescreen aimed at masking continued settlement expansion. According to Dror Etkes, of the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, there is no sign of a slowdown in actual settlement construction. In an interview with the Associated Press, Etkes said that "In practice, on the ground, construction is continuing, and the pace is even picking up." According to Israel's Peace Now, 1000 housing units are currently under construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And just one day after Israeli officials leaked news of this so-called limited settlement freeze, Ha'aretz's business supplement, The Marker, reported that the Israeli government is expected to invite bids for 450 new housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Ze'ev.

---

3. What is "natural growth?"

Gershom Gorenberg, author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, calls the insistence on natural growth a "very deliberate distraction." "Construction in settlements," he says "is not aimed only at accommodating children of settlers. It's aimed at drawing more Israelis across the Green Line boundary between Israel and the West Bank." Population figures confirm Gorenberg's contention.

While the average population growth rate inside Israel is 1.8 percent, in the settlements it is 5.5 percent, and during the Oslo period fluctuated between 7 and 9 percent. This phenomenon is due to higher birth rates and Israeli government efforts to promote migration to the settlements. In 2007, the last year for which official figures are available, Israelis moving for the first time into the Occupied Territories accounted for 37 percent of the growth in the settler population (not including Occupied East Jerusalem).

Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, recently said, "Washington has a strong enough memory of what Netanyahu did with natural growth last time he was prime minister, which is basically drive a settlement truck through that loophole."

---

4. What benefits does Israel provide to settlers?

Israel promotes migration to the settlements in a variety of ways. It labels most of the settlements as "national priority areas", giving settlers access to substantial economic assistance. This assistance includes, "generous loans for the purchase of apartments, part of which is converted to a grant; significant price reductions in leasing land; incentives for teachers, exemption from tuition fees in kindergartens, and free transportation to school; grants for investors, infrastructure for industrial zones, etc.; incentives for social workers; and [until 2003] reductions in income tax for individuals and companies."

Israel also provides local and regional governments with funding much greater than that disbursed inside Israel. In 2000, local governments of settlements received 65% more funding per capita than local governments inside Israel received. Regional settler governments received 165% more funding than their counterparts in Israel.

Finally, the Israeli government funds the entire budget of the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Division. This allows the WZO to promote and assist migration to settlements in ways that government ministries cannot.

---

5. What are unauthorized outposts?

While all settlement activity in Occupied Palestinian Territory is prohibited by international law, "outposts" are settlements that are established without Israeli government approval. There are currently at least 110 such outposts. (PLO Negotiation Affairs Department - Negotiations Support Unit, "Summary of Israeli Road Map Violations since Annapolis.") They are often comprised of mobile homes, huts and shacks that are both easily removed and easily replaced. For example, the Ma'oz Esther outpost has been repeatedly removed by the Israeli army and then subsequently rebuilt by settlers. The Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now dismisses such removals as "P.R. in light of the Washington meeting between Netanyahu and Obama" and an attempt "to create a false facade of outpost evacuation."

Such claims carry particular weight in the aftermath of the Israeli government's 2005 Sasson Report. The report found that despite outposts being illegal under Israeli law, over the years numerous Israeli government ministries provided funds and material to construct and maintain the outposts.

---

6. What have past agreements said about settlements?

Oslo Accords (1993)

The Oslo Accords left discussion of settlements to final status negotiations which were to begin no later than 1996 and to be completed by 1998. The Accords called for "a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338." UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 war, emphasizes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and calls for the "termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State." By basing the solution to the conflict on UNSC Resolution 242, the Oslo Accords implicitly call for the removal of the settlements.

Israeli Settlement Activity Post-Oslo

In 1992, the year before the Oslo Accords, there were 246,400 settlers living in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. During the Oslo years from 1993 to 2000, the Israeli settler population expanded by 71 percent. The Israeli government built 21,999 new housing units and the population grew to 371,904.

Roadmap to Peace (2003)

In 2003, President George W. Bush released the Roadmap to Peace, a document accepted by both the Israelis and Palestinians. Phase one of the roadmap outlines two actions Israel must take regarding settlements: "[Government of Israel] immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001" and "Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)."

Did Israel Comply?

From 2003 to 2007, Israel built 8,820 new housing units in settlements. And despite removing its settlers from Gaza in 2005, in 2007, Israel still had 133 official settlements, 102 unauthorized settlement outposts and 468,500 settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Annapolis Conference (2007)

On November 27, 2007, President Bush released the "joint understanding" document that the Israelis and Palestinians agreed to at the Annapolis Conference. It stated in part that, "The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map... The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty". Therefore Israel remained obligated to freeze all settlement expansion and remove outposts.

Did Israel Comply?

From December 2007 until May 2009, Israel began construction on 962 new housing units, in addition to the 3,229 units already under construction at the time that the joint understanding was issued. In March 2009, Peace Now revealed that Israel has drawn up plans to build 73,302 settlement housing units in 24 different settlements. There are now 133 official settlements, 110 outposts, and a settler population of 485,200 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (PLO Negotiation Affairs Department - Negotiations Support Unit, "Summary of Israeli Road Map Violations since Annapolis").

---

7. Do Israeli settlements violate international law?

Israel's settlements exist in clear violation of international law. They violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which bars an occupying power from moving its citizens into the occupied region. They also violate The Hague Regulations, which forbid the occupier from making permanent changes in the occupied territory unless it is a military necessity.

The United Nations Security Council has passed several resolutions labeling Israel's settlements as violations of international law. As well, in 2004, the International Court of Justice passed a unanimous ruling that the settlements violated international law.

---

8. What is the impact of the settlements on a two-state solution?

Israeli settlements pose a serious obstacle to the international consensus for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Currently, settlement-related infrastructure (including settler-only roads, army bases, the separation wall, closed military zones, checkpoints, etc.) consumes 38% of the West Bank. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) notes that, "The West Bank has been dissected into dozens of enclaves by the settlements and related infrastructure."

Without removing the settlements, a contiguous and viable Palestinian state is not possible. President Bush recognized this, stating in April 2008 that, "I assured the president [Abbas] that a Palestinian state's a high priority for me and my administration: a viable state, a state that doesn't look like Swiss cheese, a state that provides hope."