Friday, December 4, 2015

No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel - Draiman


No Jew has the right to yield the rights of the Jewish People in Israel -
David Ben Gurion
(David Ben-Gurion was the first Prime Minister of Israel and widely hailed as the State's main founder).
“No Jew is entitled to give up the right of establishing [i.e. settling] the Jewish Nation in all of the Land of Israel. No Jewish body has such power. Not even all the Jews alive today [i.e. the entire Jewish People] have the power to cede any part of the country or homeland whatsoever. This is a right vouchsafed or reserved for the Jewish Nation throughout all generations. This right cannot be lost or expropriated under any condition or circumstance. Even if at some particular time, there are those who declare that they are relinquishing this right, they have no power nor competence to deprive coming generations of this right. The Jewish nation is neither bound nor governed by such a waiver or renunciation. Our right to the whole of this country is valid, in force and endures forever. And until the Final Redemption has come, we will not budge from this historic right.”
BEN-GURION’S DECLARATION ON THE EXCLUSIVE AND
INALIENABLE JEWISH RIGHT TO THE WHOLE OF
THE LAND OF ISRAEL:
at the Basle Session of the 20th Zionist Congress at Zurich (1937)

"No country in the world exists today by virtue of its 'right'.
All countries exist today by virtue of their ability to defend themselves against those who seek their destruction."
“Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope”
“The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese--and no one says a word about refugees.

But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. How about the million Jewish refugees terrorized and expelled, from Arab countries (who lived there for over 2500 years) who lost over 120,000 sq. km. – 75,000 sq. mi. of land, homes, businesses and personalassets valued in the trillions of dollars. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace and sacrifice its security by conceding land for peace which makes the situation worse.

Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real most honorable in this world.”
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Monday, November 16, 2015

THE SAN REMO CONFERENCE of April 1920 - The Arab-Israeli Conflict - Draiman



THE SAN REMO CONFERENCE of April 1920
in relation to
McMAHON, SYKES-PICOT, THE BALFOUR DECLARATION, AND THE BRITISH MANDATE



Article 6 of the Mandate, charged Britain with the duty to facilitate Jewish immigration and close settlement by Jews in the territory which then included Transjordan, as called for in the Balfour declaration, that had already been adopted by the other Allied Powers as international law. As a trustee, Britain had a fiduciary duty to act in good faith in carrying out the duties imposed by the Mandate.

Furthermore, as the San Remo resolution was an international law and treaty which has never been abrogated or modified, it was and continues to be legally binding between the several parties who signed it.

It is therefore obvious that the legitimacy of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and the Jewish state all derive from the same international agreement at San Remo in April 1920.




The 1915 McMahon-Hussein Agreement
In 1915 Sir Henry McMahon made promises on behalf of the British government, via Sherif Hussein of Mecca, about allocation of territory to the Arab people. Although Hussein understood from the promises that Palestine would be given to the Arabs, the British later claimed that land definitions were only approximate and that a map drawn at the time excluded Palestine from territory to be given to the Arab people. However in a subsequent change of policy in recognition of the McMahon correspondence, and in violation of its mandate and international law and treaties, Britain separated 78% of territory which was to be part of the Jewish National Home and reallocated all the territory east of the Jordan River to the Arabs, namely Transjordan (since renamed Jordan) from Palestine west of the Jordan.

In his book “State and economics in the Middle East: a society in transition” (Routledge, 2003), Alfred Bonné included a letter from Sir Henry McMahon to The Times of London dated July 23,1937 in which he wrote, "I feel it my duty to state, and I do so definitely and emphatically, that it was not intended by me in giving this pledge to King Hussein to include Palestine in the area in which Arab independence was promised. I also had every reason to believe at the time that the fact that Palestine was not included in my pledge was well understood by King Hussein."

Bonné considered the letter to be of such importance that he published it in full as copied below
mcmahon.jpg
The May 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement
This secret agreement between Britain, France and Russia was concluded by British diplomat, Sir Mark Sykes and French diplomat Georges Picot. In seeking to divide the entire Middle East into areas of influence for each of the imperial powers but leaving the Holy Lands to be jointly administered by the three powers, it clashed materially with the McMahon Agreement. It was intended to hand Syria, Mesopotamia, Lebanon and Cilicia (in south-eastern Asia Minor) to the French and Palestine, Jordan and areas around the Persian Gulf and Baghdad including Arabia and the Jordan Valley to the British.

Although intended to be secret, the Arabs learned about the agreement from communists who found a copy in the Russian government’s archives.

During the 1919 Paris meeting; which was, The Supreme Allied Powers Conference; on January 3, 1919 King Faisal and Chaim Weizmann entered and signed an Agreement, whereby Faisal representing the Arabs agreed that Palestine would be the National Home of The Jewish people.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration
The Balfour Declaration is contained in the following letter from Lord Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary, to Lord Rothschild, president of the British Zionist Federation,

Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour

The declaration was accepted by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922 as part of international law and embodied in the mandate that gave Great Britain as trustee administrative control of Palestine as described in more detail below.

THE SAN REMO CONFERENCE  APRIL 1920
After ruling vast areas of Eastern Europe, South-western Asia, and North Africa for centuries, the Ottoman Empire lost all its Middle East territories during World War One. The Treaty of Sèvres of August 10, 1920 abolished the Ottoman Empire and obliged Turkey to renounce all rights over Arab Asia and North Africa. It was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.

The status of the Ottoman Empire’s former possessions was determined at a conference in San Remo, Italy on April 24-25, 1920 attended by Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan and as an observer, the United States. Syria and Lebanon were mandated to France while Mesopotamia (Iraq) and the southern portion of the territory (Palestine) were mandated to Britain, with the charge to implement the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

While the Balfour Declaration was in itself not a legally enforceable document, it did become legally enforceable by being entrenched in international law when it was incorporated in its entirety in a resolution passed by the Conference on April 25. Significantly, the only change made to the wording of the Balfour Declaration was to strengthen Britain’s obligation to implement the Balfour Declaration. Lord Curzon described the San Remo resolution as “the Magna Carta of the Zionists”.

Though borders were not yet precisely defined for the Arabs, the conference gave Palestine a legal identity as part of the Jewish National Home with its historical ties. Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister at the time used the expression "from Dan to Beersheba" that was often used in subsequent documents.

The conference's decisions signed by the Supreme Allied Powers; were confirmed unanimously by all fifty-one member countries of the League of Nations on July 24, 1922 and they were further endorsed by a joint resolution of the United States Congress in the same year,

The San Remo resolution received a further US endorsement in the Anglo-American Treaty on Palestine, signed by the US and Britain on December 3, 1924, that incorporated the text of the Mandate for Palestine. The treaty protected the rights of Americans living in Palestine under the Mandate and more significantly it also made those rights and provisions part of United States treaty law which are protected  under the US constitution. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty on February 20, 1925 followed by President Calvin Coolidge on March 2, 1925 and by Great Britain on March 18, 1925.

Britain was specifically charged with giving effect to the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine that was called for in the 1917 Balfour Declaration that had already been adopted by the other Allied Powers. It is therefore obvious that the legitimacy of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and a Jewish state in Palestine as defined before the creation of Transjordan, all derive from the same binding international agreement at San Remo in 1920, that has never been abrogated.

Commemoration of the San Remo conference  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijS8mFP4I1A

In April 2010, a ceremony attended by politicians and others from Europe, the U.S. and Canada was held in San Remo at the house where the signing of the San Remo declaration took place in April 1920. At the conclusion of the commemoration, the following statement was released:

"Reaffirming the importance of the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920 - which included the Balfour Declaration in its entirety - in shaping the map of the modern Middle East, as agreed upon by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers (Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States acting as an observer), and later incorporated and approved unanimously by the League of Nations; the Resolution remains irrevocable, legally binding and valid to this day.

"Emphasizing that the San Remo Resolution of  April 1920 recognized the exclusive national Jewish rights to the Land of Israel under international law, on the strength of the historical connection of the Jewish people to the territory previously known as Palestine.

"Recalling that such a seminal event as the San Remo Conference of 1920 has been forgotten or ignored by the community of nations, and that the rights it conferred upon the Jewish people have been unlawfully dismissed, curtailed and denied.

"Asserting that a just and lasting peace, leading to the acceptance of secure and recognized borders between all States in the region, can only be achieved by recognizing the long established rights of the Jewish people under international law."

THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER PALESTINE
jordan.jpg
As stated above, the San Remo Conference decided to place Palestine under British Mandatory rule making Britain as trustee responsible for giving effect to the Balfour declaration that had been adopted by the other Allied Powers as international law. The resulting "Mandate for Palestine," was an historical League of Nations document that laid down the Jewish legal right to settle anywhere in Palestine and the 1920 San Remo Resolution together with Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations became the basic documents on which the Mandate for Palestine was established.

The Mandate’s declaration of July 24, 1922 states unambiguously that Britain became responsible as trustee for putting the Balfour Declaration, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, into effect and it confirmed that recognition had thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country. This was put into affect to provide the Jewish people to become a majority and subsequently assume control of its sovereignty.

It is highly relevant that at that time the West Bank also known as Judea and Samaria and substantial parts of what today is Jordan were included as a Jewish Homeland. However, on September 16, 1922, the British violated the treaty and divided the Mandate territory in Palestine, west of the Jordan River and Transjordan, east of the Jordan River, in accordance with the McMahon Correspondence of 1915 which was not approved by the British cabinet. Transjordan became exempt from the Mandate provisions concerning the Jewish National Home, forbidding Jews from residing there, effectively removing about 78% of the original territory of the area in which a Jewish National home was to be established in terms of the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1920 San Remo resolution as well as the British Mandate for Palestine.

This action violated not only Article 5 of the Mandate which required the Mandatory to be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall not be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power but also article 20 of the Covenant of the League of Nations in which the Members of the League solemnly undertook that they would not enter into any engagements inconsistent with the terms thereof.

Article 6 of the Mandate stated that the Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.

Nevertheless in blatant violation of article 6, in a 1939 White Paper Britain changed its position so as to limit Jewish immigration from Europe, a move that was regarded by Zionists as betrayal of the terms of the mandate, especially in light of the increasing persecution of Jews in Europe; this caused the deaths of great amount of Jews. In response, 
Zionists organized Aliyah Bet, a program of illegal immigration into Palestine.

CONCLUSION

The frequently voiced complaint that the state being offered to the Palestinian Arabs comprises only 22 percent of Palestine is obviously invalid. The truth is exactly the reverse. From the above history it is obvious that the territory on both sides of the Jordan was legally designated for the Jewish homeland by the 1920 San Remo Conference, mandated to Britain as trustee, endorsed by the League of Nations in 1922, affirmed in the Anglo-American Convention on Palestine in 1925 and confirmed in 1945 by article 80 of the UN. Yet, approximately 80% of this territory was excised from the territory in May 1923 when, in violation of the mandate and the 1920 San Remo resolution,  Britain gave autonomy to the new Arab state of Transjordan (now known as Jordan) under as-Sharif Abdullah bin al-Husayn. Jordan received its independence in 1946.

Furthermore, as the 1920 San Remo resolution has never been abrogated, it was and continues to be legally binding between the several parties who signed it.
It is therefore obvious that the legitimacy of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and a Jewish state in Palestine all derive from the same international agreement at San Remo in 1920.

In essence, when Israel entered the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967 it did not occupy territory to which any other party had title. While Jerusalem and the West Bank, (Judea and Samaria), were illegally occupied by Jordan in 1948 they remained in effect part of the Jewish National Home that had been created at San Remo in 1920 and in the 1967 6-Day War Israel, in effect, recovered territory that legally belonged to it. To quote Judge Schwebel, a former President of the ICJ, “As between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967, on the one hand, and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively, in 1948 and 1967, on the other, Israel has the better title in the territory of what was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem.
http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id248.html 

Commemoration of the San Remo conference  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijS8mFP4I1A
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Chapter 23: The Settlements in Judea and Samaria - Israel - The Arab-Israeli Conflict - Draiman



Chapter 23: The Settlements

MYTH

“Israeli settlements are illegal.”

FACT

Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria—the West Bank—since ancient times. The only time Jews have been prohibited from living in the territories in recent decades was during Jordan’s rule from 1948 to 1967.
Numerous legal authorities dispute the charge that settlements are “illegal.” Stephen Schwebel, formerly President of the International Court of Justice, notes that a country acting in self-defense may seize and occupy territory when necessary to protect itself. Schwebel also observes that a state may require, as a condition for its withdrawal, security measures designed to ensure its citizens are not menaced again from that territory. 1
According to Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration, Resolution 242 gives Israel a legal right to be in the West Bank. The resolution, Rostow noted, “Israel is entitled to administer the territories” it won in 1967 until ‘‘a just and lasting peace in the Middle East’’ is achieved. 2 Though critical of Israeli policy, the United States does not consider settlements illegal.


MYTH

“Settlements are an obstacle to peace.”

FACT

Settlements have never been an obstacle to peace.
  • From 1949–67, when Jews were forbidden to live on the West Bank, the Arabs refused to make peace with Israel.
  • From 1967–77, the Labor Party established only a few strategic settlements in the territories, yet the Arabs were unwilling to negotiate peace with Israel.
  • In 1977, months after a Likud government committed to greater settlement activity took power, Egyptian President Sadat went to Jerusalem and later signed a peace treaty with Israel. Incidentally, Israeli settlements existed in the Sinai and those were removed as part of the agreement with Egypt.
  • One year later, Israel froze settlement building for three months, hoping the gesture would entice other Arabs to join the Camp David peace process, but none would.
  • In 1994, Jordan signed a peace agreement with Israel and settlements were not an issue; if anything, the number of Jews living in the territories was growing.
  • Between June 1992 and June 1996, under Labor-led governments, the Jewish population in the territories grew by approximately 50 percent. This rapid growth did not prevent the Palestinians from signing the Oslo accords in September 1993 or the Oslo 2 agreement in September 1995.
  • In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to dismantle dozens of settlements, but the Palestinians still would not agree to end the conflict.
  • In August 2005, Israel evacuated all of the settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in Northern Samaria, but terror attacks continued.
  • In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to withdraw from approximately 94 percent of the West Bank, but the deal was rejected.
  • In 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze settlement construction for 10 months and the Palestinians refused to engage in negotiations until the period was nearly over. After agreeing to talk, they walked out when Netanyahu refused to prolong the freeze.
Settlement activity may be a stimulus to peace because it forced the Palestinians and other Arabs to reconsider the view that time is on their side. References are frequently made in Arabic writings to how long it took to expel the Crusaders and how it might take a similar length of time to do the same to the Zionists. The growth in the Jewish population in the territories forced the Arabs to question this tenet. “The Palestinians now realize,” said Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freij, “that time is now on the side of Israel, which can build settlements and create facts, and that the only way out of this dilemma is face-to-face negotiations.” 3
Even though settlements are not an obstacle to peace, many Israelis still have concerns about the expansion of settlements. Some consider them provocative, others worry that the settlers are particularly vulnerable, and note they have been targets of repeated Palestinian terrorist attacks. To defend them, large numbers of soldiers are deployed who would otherwise be training and preparing for a possible future conflict with an Arab army. Some Israelis also object to the amount of money that goes to communities beyond the Green Line, and special subsidies that have been provided to make housing there more affordable. Still others feel the settlers are providing a first line of defense and developing land that rightfully belongs to Israel.
The disposition of settlements is a matter for the final status negotiations. The question of where the final border will be between Israel and a Palestinian entity will likely be influenced by the distribution of these Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria (the border with Gaza was unofficially defined following Israel’s withdrawal). Israel wants to incorporate as many settlers as possible within its borders while the Palestinians want to expel all Jews from the territory they control.
If Israel withdraws toward the 1949 armistice line unilaterally, or as part of a political settlement, many settlers will face one or more options: remain in the territories (the disengagement from Gaza suggests this may not be possible), expulsion from their homes, or voluntary resettlement in Israel (with financial compensation).
The impediment to peace is not the existence of Jewish communities in the disputed territories, it is the Palestinians’ unwillingness to accept a state next to Israel instead of one replacing Israel.


MYTH

“The Geneva Convention prohibits the construction of Jewish settlements in occupied territories.”

FACT

The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the forcible transfer of people of one state to the territory of another state that it has occupied as a result of a war. The intention was to insure that local populations who came under occupation would not be forced to move. This is in no way relevant to the settlement issue. Jews are not being forced to go to the West Bank; on the contrary, they are voluntarily moving back to places where they, or their ancestors, once lived before being expelled by others.
In addition, those territories never legally belonged to either Jordan or Egypt, and certainly not to the Palestinians, who were never the sovereign authority in any part of Palestine. “The Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there,” according to Professor Eugene Rostow, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. 4
As a matter of policy, moreover, Israel does not requisition private land for the establishment of settlements. Housing construction is allowed on private land only after determining that no private rights will be violated. The settlements also do not displace Arabs living in the territories. The media sometimes gives the impression that for every Jew who moves to the West Bank, several hundred Palestinians are forced to leave. The truth is that the vast majority of settlements have been built in uninhabited areas and even the handful established in or near Arab towns did not force any Palestinians to leave.


MYTH

“The size of the Jewish population in the West Bank precludes any territorial compromise.”

FACT

Altogether, built-up settlement area is less than two percent of the disputed territories. An estimated 70 percent of the settlers live in what are in effect suburbs of major Israeli cities such as Jerusalem. These are areas that virtually the entire Jewish population believes Israel must retain to ensure its security, and presidents Clinton and Bush anticipated would remain under permanent Israeli sovereignty. 5
Strategic concerns have led both Labor and Likud governments to establish settlements. The objective is to secure a Jewish majority in key strategic regions of the West Bank, such as the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor, the scene of heavy fighting in several Arab-Israeli wars. Still, when Arab-Israeli peace talks began in late 1991, more than 80 percent of the West Bank contained no settlements or only sparsely populated ones. 6
Today, approximately 300,000 Jews live in 122 communities in the West Bank. The overwhelming majority of these settlements have fewer than 1,000 citizens, 40 percent have fewer than 500 and several have only a few dozen residents. Contrary to Palestinian-inspired hysteria about settlement expansion, the truth is only five settlements have been built since 1990. 7 Analysts have noted that 70–80 percent of the Jews could be brought within Israel’s borders with minor modifications of the “Green Line.”
Ironically, while Palestinians complain about settlements, an estimated 35,000 work in them and support a population of more than 200,000. 8


MYTH

“At Camp David, Begin promised to halt the construction of settlements for five years.”

FACT

The five-year period agreed to at Camp David was the time allotted to Palestinian self-government in the territories. The Israeli moratorium on West Bank settlements agreed to by Prime Minister Menachem Beginwas only for three months.
Israel’s position on the matter received support from an unexpected source: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who said: “We agreed to put a freeze on the establishment of settlements for the coming three months, the time necessary in our estimation for signing the peace treaty.” 9
The Palestinians rejected the Camp David Accords and therefore the provisions related to them were never implemented. Had they accepted the terms offered by Begin, it is very likely the self-governing authority would have developed long before now into an independent Palestinian state.
“If settlement-building is now concentrated in areas that the Palestinians themselves acknowledge will remain part of Israel in any future peace agreement, why the obsessive focus on settlements as an ‘obstacle to peace?’ ”
— Yossi Klein Halevi 10


MYTH

“Israel must dismantle all the settlements or peace is impossible.”

FACT

When serious negotiations begin over the final status of the West Bank, battle lines will be drawn over which settlements should be incorporated into Israel, and which must be evacuated. In August 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon acknowledged that “not all the settlements that are today in Judea and Samaria will remain Israeli” while leaked Palestinian negotiating documents indicate the Palestinians are prepared to accept that some settlements will be incorporated into Israel. 11
In Gaza, Israel’s intent was to withdraw completely, and no settlements were viewed as vital to Israel for economic, security, or demographic reasons. The situation in the West Bank is completely different because Jews have strong historic and religious connections to the area stretching back centuries. Moreover, the West Bank is an area with strategic significance because of its proximity to Israel’s heartland and the fact that roughly one-quarter of Israel’s water resources are located there.
The disengagement from Gaza involved only 21 settlements and approximately 8,500 Jews; more than 100 settlements with a population of roughly 300,000 are located in Judea and Samaria. Any new evacuation from the West Bank will involve another gut-wrenching decision that most settlers and their supporters will oppose with even greater ferocity than the Gaza disengagement. Most Israelis, however, favor withdrawing from all but the largest communities.
Over two-thirds of the Jews in the West Bank live in five settlement “blocs” that are all near the 1967 border. Most Israelis believe these blocs should become part of Israel when final borders are drawn. The table below lists the “consensus” settlements:


Bloc

No. of
Communities

Population

Approximate. Area (sq. miles)

Ma’ale Adumim
6
40,210
28
Modiin Illit
4
51,773
2
Ariel
15
41,720
47
Gush Etzion
18
54,939
10
Givat Ze’ev
5
12,916
3
Total
48
201,558
90
 
As the table shows, these are large communities with thousands of residents. Evacuating them would be the equivalent of dismantling major American cities such as Annapolis, Maryland, Olympia, Washington, or Carson City, Nevada.
Ma’ale Adumim is a suburb of Israel’s capital, barely three miles outside Jerusalem’s city limits, a ten-minute drive away. Ma’ale Adumim is not a recently constructed outpost on a hilltop; it is a 35-year-old community that is popular because it is clean, safe, and close to where many residents work. It is also the third-largest Jewish city in the territories, with a population of 34,324. Approximately 6,000 people live in surrounding settlements that are included in the Ma’ale bloc. Israel has long planned to fill in the empty gap between Jerusalem and this bedroom community (referred to as the E1 project). The corridor is approximately 3,250 acres and does not have any inhabitants, so no Palestinians would be displaced. According to the Clinton plan, Ma’ale was to be part of Israel.
The Gush Etzion Bloc consists of 18 communities with a population of nearly 55,000 just 10 minutes from Jerusalem. Jews lived in this area prior to 1948, but the Jordanian Legion destroyed the settlements and killed 240 women and children during Israel’sWar of Independence. After Israel recaptured the area in 1967, descendants of those early settlers reestablished the community. The largest of the settlements is the city of Betar Illit with nearly 35,000 residents.
The Givat Ze’ev bloc includes five communities just northwest ofJerusalem. Givat Ze’ev, with a population of just under 11,000, is the largest.
Modiin Illit is a bloc with four communities. The city of Modiin Illit is the largest in all the disputed territories, with nearly 46,000 people situated just over the Green Line, about 23 miles northwest ofJerusalem and the same distance east of Tel Aviv.
Ariel is now the heart of the third most populous bloc of settlements. The city is located just 25 miles east ofTel Aviv and 31 miles north of Jerusalem. Ariel and the surrounding communities expand Israel’s narrow waist (which was just 9 miles wide prior to 1967) and ensure that Israel has a land route to the Jordan Valley in case Israel needs to fight a land war to the east. It is more controversial than the other consensus settlements because it is the furthest from the 1949 Armistice Line, extending approximately 12 miles into the West Bank. Nevertheless, Barak’s proposal at Camp David included Ariel among the settlement blocs to be annexed to Israel; the Clinton plan also envisioned incorporating Ariel within the new borders of Israel.
“Clearly, in the permanent agreement we will have to give up some of the Jewish settlements.”
— Prime Minister Ariel Sharon 12
Most peace plans, including Clinton’s, assumed that Israel would annex sufficient territory to incorporate 75–80% of the Jews currently living in the West Bank. Using the figures in the table above, however, it appears that Israel would fall short of that demographic goal even if these five blocs were annexed. The total population of these communities is approximately 202,000, which is roughly 66% of the estimated 304,000 Jews living in Judea and Samaria. The expectation, however, is that roughly one-third of the Jews living in other settlements will move into these blocs, which would bring the total close to 80%, but still require Israel to evacuate more than 60,000 people.
At Camp David, Israel insisted that 80 percent of the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria would be in settlement blocs under Israeli sovereignty. President Clinton agreed and proposed that Israel annex 4–6 percent of the West Bank for three settlement blocs to accomplish this demographic objective and swap some territory within Israel in exchange.
 
Recognizing the demographics of the area, President Bushacknowledged the inevitability of some Israeli towns in theWest Bank being annexed to Israel in his 2004 letter to Prime Minister Sharon. In his meeting a year later withPalestinian Authority President Abbas, however, he seemed to hedge his support by saying that any such decision would have to be mutually agreed to by Israelis and Palestinians. Nevertheless, the future border is likely to approximate the route of the security fence, given the Israeli prerequisite (with U.S. approval) of incorporating most settlers within Israel.
Ultimately, Israel may decide to unilaterally disengage from the West Bank and determine which settlements it will incorporate within the borders it delineates. Israel would prefer, however, to negotiate a peace treaty with the Palestinians that would specify which Jewish communities will remain intact within the mutually agreed border of Israel, and which will need to be evacuated. Israel will undoubtedly insist that some or all of the “consensus” blocs become part of Israel.


MYTH

“If Israel annexes the settlement blocs, a Palestinian state will not be contiguous.” 

FACT

As the map to the right indicates, it is possible to create a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank even if Israel incorporates the major settlement blocs. The total area of these communities is only about 1.5 percent of the West Bank. A kidney-shaped state linked to the Gaza Strip by a secure passage would be contiguous. Some argue that the E1 project linking Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem would cutoff east Jerusalem, but even that is not necessarily true as Israel has proposed constructing a four-lane underpass to guarantee free passage between the West Bank and the Arab sections of Jerusalem.
Sources:
1 American Journal of International Law, (April, 1970), pp. 345–46.
2 New Republic, (October 21, 1991), p. 14.
3 Washington Post, (November 1, 1991).
4 Eugene Rostow, “Bricks and Stones: Settling for Leverage,” The New Republic, (April 23, 1990).
5 Haaretz, (September 13, 2001); President George W. Bush’s Letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, (April 14, 2004).
6 Jerusalem Post, (October 22, 1991).
7 Tovah Lazaroff, “Frontlines: Is settlement growth booming?” Jerusalem Post, (December 30, 2010).
8 Avi Issacharoff, “PA lightens ban on working in settlements to ease Palestinian unemployment,” Haaretz, (December 28, 2010).
9 Middle East News Agency, (September 20, 1978).
10 Los Angeles Times, (June 20, 2001).
11 Greg Myre, “Middle East: Sharon Sees More West Bank Pullouts,” New York Times, (August 30, 2005).
12 Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Address to the Likud Central Committee, (January 5, 2004).
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