Even a cursory look at Israeli settlement policy demonstrates that Israel was not even committed to the very basic promises of Oslo. During the Oslo years, settlements doubled, irrespective of Likud or Labor control. There is a myth out there that Sharon is pulling out of the settlements and somehow reversing not only his personal lifetime agenda, but the direction of Israeli policy for 60 years. This is not the case. While there may well be some level of disengagement from Gaza (although no prospect of long-term life improvement for Gazans), the main settlement project has always been in the resource-rich West Bank. This project is very much still alive.

There are 145 “official” settlements in the West Bank—municipal entities recognized by the Israeli Ministry of Interior. From these communities, over 100 “outposts” have been created. Settlers and political supporters have justified these outposts, as “natural growth,” yet many are hundreds of meters from “legal” settlements (according to Israeli not international law). There are 12 settlements in Palestinian East Jerusalem, such as Gilo and the French Hill. Around 250,000 settlers live in East Jerusalem and 380,000 settlers in the rest of the West Bank. It must be noted, however, that even amongst Israelis prepared to negotiate on the West Bank, many do not see Jerusalem as up for negotiation.

While the Israeli government declares that the so-called outposts are strictly illegal, outposts are used as pawns and bargaining tools in the political game. Commentators on all sides have noted how successive Israeli governments have tactically ignored or even encouraged the growth of outposts and “dummy” settlements. Outposts rarely serve as settlers primary homes. Settlers often camp at the outpost during the day and return to their larger settlement homes at night. Any destruction of an outpost is loudly trumpeted on international television screens, with scenes of screaming settlers (being dragged not shot as any Palestinian obstructing the army would be). Palestinians are expected to respond with a “concession” to the destruction of any outpost, yet, if it were truly recognized as illegal, it should be done without any corresponding “compromise” from the other side.

As the tables above show, building in the settlements flourished throughout Oslo and continues to do so. One of the key terms in promising to freeze settlements is the clause which defines “natural growth.” The Israeli government claims that its building during the Oslo years has not defied peace agreements because it is simply allowing for the “natural growth” of already existing settler communities. Yet it is well known that many settler houses remain empty, even as the building continues.

Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are not about a need for Israeli housing, but about establishing Israeli control. Settlement policy is an intricate part of the Israeli strategic plan, aptly named the “Matrix of Control” by Israeli human rights activist Jeff Halper. Settlements are used to surround and confiscate agricultural land and water resources essential for Palestinian survival. The ring of settlements spreading out from Jerusalem is used to expand the borders of “Greater Jerusalem” (See Jerusalem). Once classified as Jerusalem, it is easier to sell to world policy makers as an integral part of Israel as opposed to a Palestinian entity. The same is true of the development of settlements in the zone between the 1967 border line and the new apartheid wall, which, at times, cuts many kilometers into the West Bank. As settlements are concentrated into this space, it is less likely that any international power will force Israeli to negotiate handing over these areas.

Bruchin, one of the largest outposts near the Palestinian village of Brukin in northern West Bank. About 27 settler families live here. © PLO Negotiations Affairs Department

In April 2004, Sharon made a visit to Washington and came out with support that even Israelis were surprised by. George Bush publicly backed what had long been seen as the unwritten policy of the “honest broker” of Oslo that talk of full withdrawal to 1967 borders was not being pushed for from the United States of America. His reference to “existing major Israeli population centers” instead of settlements, showed the deliberate flouting of international law, which says that all settlements in the territory occupied in 1967 are illegal.

World media portrayed this as a dramatic shift in long-term US policy, and indeed, it was in terms of public rhetoric. Previously, the official line had always been that issues such as settlements and refugees were to be dealt with only at “final status negotiations,” and therefore the US would make no comment on the details. However, for Palestinians on the ground who have dealt with American made Israeli weaponry for decades, saw Clinton throw the blame onto Arafat for refusing to accept a “bantustanized” Palestinian state at Camp David and watched the US veto any UN condemnation of Israel, this was no change in policy.

Part of the Gaza Disengagement Plan, into which the United States and Europe will be pouring millions of dollars of aid, is accelerating development of new Israeli housing and towns in the Galilee and the Negev. Israel uses the same terminology of “settlements” for Judaizing the parts of the 1948 occupied areas of Israel which are still lived on by Arab Palestinians today. The Galilee has many Arab residents and the Negev is the traditional home of many Bedouin. Over decades, Israel has continued to confiscate land from Palestinians who succeeded in remaining and aid from disengagement will specifically go to dispossessing Palestinians living inside the 1948 borders.

A final point to be noted in regard to the settlements is the fact that settlers have consistently escaped punishment when attacking and even killing Palestinians. Palestinian crops have been destroyed and many farmers are too frightened to go to their land in areas close to settlements. Settlers are mainly armed, and while supposedly subject to the law, both Palestinian, Israeli, and international human rights groups have documented cases in which settlers have escaped punishment and Israeli authorities have done little to prevent (and sometimes have been shown to actively allow) such activity.

Settler violence against Palestinians, their homes, and properties is not just limited to religious extremists in Hebron, it is on the streets of Jerusalem and the olive groves of the West Bank and Gaza. Attacks are even joined by senior members of the Israeli elite. In 2003, Tourism Minister (and rabbi) Beni Elon was part of a gang of settlers that went to two Palestinian homes in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem, in the dead of night, trashed the houses and attacked the occupants. 80 armed religious settlers were involved in the assault on these two Palestinian homes. Five Palestinians were hospitalized and the buildings were trashed, even a baby was caught in the violence. Mr. Elon was accompanying the religious Zionist settler organization Hamat Shalem and he does not deny it. Where were the police? They arrived but no arrests were made. Mr. Elon and his friends just walked away.

And the Police and Border Police … let the settlers (these “so called” religious men) go with no arrests, despite the injuries they'd inflicted. No arrests, no handcuffs ... the police just let them trickle out of the houses with their skullcaps neatly in place and their sleeping bags stowed neatly in their backpacks. Each one's hand-gun neatly out of sight, though witnesses later told how every single one was armed …. Since one of them was a Cabinet Minister (Minister of Tourism Benny Elon), one must suppose they felt protected by the law and even above it. (Eyewitness report on www.icahd.org)

While the full details of events were brushed aside, both Israeli dailies Ha’aretz and the Jerusalem Post carried the story of Elon’s participation and he makes no denial of his presence.

Assaults by settlers take many forms from Palestinian farmers being shot in olive groves, burning of cars and destroying rooftop water tanks, to the burning down of the olive groves themselves. In some cases, the results are fatal. Btselem (an Israeli human rights organization) reports that between 1987 and 2002, 138 Palestinians were killed by Israeli citizens, including 25 under the age of seventeen. Baruch Goldstein’s 1994 killing of 29 Palestinians in the mosque in Hebron, was the bloodiest event, but it was not an isolated one.

It goes without saying that any attack by a Palestinian on an Israeli is punished with utmost severity by Israeli courts. Yet in contrast, when Israelis attack Palestinians, the authorities “employ an undeclared policy of leniency and compromise by the perpetrators” (Btselem).