Jewish West Bank settlements a bad mistake

“But the message of settler activity to the Palestinians is very much like the message of terrorism to the Israelis: We want you to leave, or we want you to accept a radically subordinate position in your own country.”

Legal: The settlements are arguably illegal since they contravene Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which precludes an occupying power from settling its own citizens in territory taken by military force. According to Israeli journalist Tom Segev, this interpretation was confirmed by the Israeli Foreign Minister's own legal counsel, Theodor Meron, as early as September 1967.

The settlements also violate the legal sovereign right of the Palestinians to determine the population of their own territory.

Moral and ethical: The extensive confiscation of private Palestinian land to build settlements involves a second dispossession for the Palestinians, many of whom had previously fled or been forced to leave their original homes inside Israel in 1948.

Further, the settlers regard themselves as the true owners of the territories, and make no attempt to seek the good will of the local population, or to recognise Palestinian national or political rights.

A significant minority of settler extremists engage in vigilante behaviour involving verbal and physical abuse of the Palestinian civilian population. This includes the destruction and theft of olive trees and other property, and some instances of violent assault and murder.

Most prominent were the Gush Emunim underground in the early 1980s who murdered a number of Palestinian civilians, and the Kiryat Arba resident Baruch Goldstein who slaughtered 29 Muslim worshippers in Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994.

According to the respected Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, from late September 2000 to the end of 2004, settlers killed 34 Palestinians in the Territories. In some of these cases, the Israelis acted in life-threatening situations. In many cases, however, they did not act in self-defence.

Economic: The settlements are economically disastrous since they divert resources badly needed by Jews (including many poor Jews) living inside the borders of sovereign Israel. Settlers are provided with a range of financial incentives including a 7 per cent income tax break, large housing grants, subsidised mortgages, free schooling from age three, and grants for business industry, agriculture and tourism.

Funds are also directed through political parties such as the National Religious Party, and private cultural and religious organisations. Buying or building a home in the settlements is much cheaper than purchasing a home inside Israel.

According to a 2003 report by Haaretz and a more recent study by Israeli Ynetnews, the annual expense is about 2.5 billion shekels amounting to 50 billion since 1967. The government spends about ten times more money on settlers (an average of 8,600 shekels per year) than on the other 97 per cent of Israeli citizens living inside the borders of Israel.

Prior to the withdrawal from Gaza, the government was even spending an estimated quarter of a million dollars per family to protect residents of the two isolated settlements in the middle of the Gaza Strip.