Diplomatic and Legal Aspects of the Settlement Issue

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Institute for Contemporary Affairs

JERUSALEM ISSUE BRIEF Vol. 2, No. 16 19 January 2003

Diplomatic and Legal Aspects of the Settlement Issue
Jeffrey Helmreich

One may legitimately support or challenge Israeli settlements in the disputed territories, but they are not illegal, and they have neither the size, the population, nor the placement to seriously impact upon the future status of the disputed territories and their Palestinian population centers. The outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada in the fall of 2000 began to erode the orthodoxy that settlements were driving Palestinian anger and blocking peace. New York Times foreign affairs analyst Thomas L. Friedman wrote in October 2000: "This war is sick but it has exposed some basic truths." In particular, Friedman wrote, "To think that the Palestinians are only enraged about settlements is also fatuous nonsense. Talk to the 15-year-olds. Their grievance is not just with Israeli settlements, but with Israel. Most Palestinians simply do not accept that the Jews have any authentic right to be here. For this reason, any Palestinian state that comes into being should never be permitted to have any heavy weapons, because if the Palestinian had them today, their extremists would be using them on Tel Aviv."

In recent months, however, the settlements have re-emerged as an explanation for the failure of nearly every ceasefire and diplomatic effort to quell the conflict. The Mitchell Report in 2001 and recent remarks by visiting U.S.senators have raised the question of settlements (though not directly blaming them for the conflict), and the UN General Assembly concluded its 2002 session with over 15 agenda items condemning "illegal" Israeli settlements. Settlements have also become a focal point in the Quartet'sDecember 2002 "road map."

In fact, since their establishment nearly three decades ago, settlements have been the cause celebre of critics seeking to attribute the persistenceof the conflict to Israeli policy. The criticism falls into two categories: moral/political arguments that settlements are "obstacles to peace," and legal claims that settlements are illegitimate or a violation of international norms. The pervasiveness of these claims masks the fact that, upon closer scrutiny, they are false, and they hide the true source of grievances and ideological fervor that fuel this conflict.

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