MIDDLE EAST: Senior Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar says Jewish settlements remain an obstacle to peace

Record ID: 575055

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Senior Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar says Jewish settlements remain an obstacle to peace
  • Date: 24th September 2010
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (RECENT) (REUTERS) AKIVA ELDAR, CHIEF POLITICAL COLUMNIST FOR HAARETZ NEWSPAPER TAKING BOOK FORM SHELF ELDAR LOOKING AT MAP OF REGION (SOUNDBITE) (English) AKIVA ELDAR, CHIEF POLITICAL COLUMNIST FOR HAARETZ NEWSPAPER, SAYING: "Ariel Sharon, as Minister of Agriculture, back in '77 and the Chairman of the Settlements Committee had a vision of creating irreversible facts on the ground. He was talking about one million settlers in ten years in '77, and he told me in a discussion when he took me to the territories to show me the area, and the idea was to just distribute settlements and cut roads everywhere, to make sure nobody in the future would be able to draw a line."
  • Embargoed: 9th October 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA59U1XMTPVP2LVF2SWHT0AM2J6
  • Story Text: Senior Israeli journalist says successive Likud governments use settlement building as a means of colonising the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
    Since the end of the Six Day War in 1967, successive Israeli governments have supported the building and expansion of settlements within the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Whether for strategic, economic or ideological reasons, Israel has built more than 100 settlements throughout the occupied West Bank.
    Immediately after the defeat of Egypt, Jordan and Syria in 1967, Israel was in possession of the Golan Heights, Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Sinai Peninsula. For the next ten years, successive Labour governments looked to create a buffer zone around Israel; The solution was the creation of mainly rural settlements within the occupied areas.
    By the advent of the first right wing Likud government in 1977, under the leadership of Menachem Begin, Israel's policy towards settlements changed from the creation of rural enclaves to the rapid colonisation within the occupied regions.
    "Ariel Sharon, as Minister of Agriculture, back in '77 and the Chairman of the Settlements Committee had a vision of creating irreversible facts on the ground. He was talking about one million settlers in ten years in '77, and he told me in a discussion when he took me to the territories to show me the area, and the idea was to just distribute settlements and cut roads everywhere, to make sure nobody in the future would be able to draw a line," said Akiva Eldar, Chief Political Columnist for the Haaretz newspaper.
    Through an active policy of economic incentives, tax reduction and increased infrastructure, Israeli right-wing governments looked to expand the settlements from rural villages to large towns. During the 1980's planning regulations were eased within the occupied areas, allowing the creation of suburban centres such as Maale Adumim and Ariel in the West Bank.
    "Sharon realised that ideology is not enough, you don't need dreamers, you need doers, you need to bring people who will actually keep working in Israel and create a kind of bedroom communities both secular, not only orthodox and tempt people with cheap land, with commuting services, paved roads, highways. So, Ariel which is twenty kilometres from the Green Line will be a suburb of a Jewish city inside of Israel , give them all kind of bonuses, cut taxes a little bit lower and also convince them that they are the post pioneers, they are the new pioneers, the modern pioneers," Eldar added.
    During the latter part of the 1980's and the 1990's, Israeli governments announced freezes to all new settlement activity within the occupied West Bank, building within established communities however continued unabated under the term 'natural growth'. Even under pro-peace administrations such as Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, settlement expansion continued. Settlements such as Maale Adumim and Ariel became established towns with populations of tens of thousands.
    Some 300,000 Israelis now live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank. Another 200,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem, also captured in 1967, or in areas of the West Bank that Israel annexed to Jerusalem after the war.
    In 2004, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Sharon announced a plan to keep large settlements in any future peace deal, naming them as the Etzion bloc, Hebron, Kiryat Arba, Givat Zeev, Ariel and Maale Adumim. Since then, no Israeli leader has deviated publicly from that proposal, which raises the likelihood that smaller settlements would be abandoned.
    "If you look at the Clinton parameters or the Geneva Agreement, what you see there is that around 200,000 settlers out of 300,000 will be annexed to Israel, which will actually improve their position, and the other will have to be compensated, now the problem is that two thirds of the others are the hard-core ideological settlers which will fight," Eldar said of the settlers living within the occupied West Bank.
    The World Court deems settlements as illegal under international law, including the Geneva Conventions, a ruling Israel disputes. The United States and European Union have commonly viewed the settlements as obstacles to peace and urged their cessation.
    The latest attempt at U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which resumed in Washington on September 2, face a major test at the end of this month when Israel's 10-month partial moratorium on new construction in occupied territory is set to end.
    Israel's latest Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said recently, Israel could not extend the moratorium on housing construction in West Bank settlements but indicated he would limit the scope of future building.
    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to quit the peace talks with Israel if it resumes new construction in occupied territory once the 10-month moratorium Netanyahu imposed under U.S. pressure expires at the end of September.
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