Israel Leads the Contest with Palestinians for “Staying Power”

When asked about his legacy as president, George W. Bush recently remark−ed, “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll be dead when they finally figure it out. I’ll be long gone before somebody finally figures out the true merit and meaning of the Bush administration.”

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has revealed a greater interest in defining by year’s end his own historical contribution, an intention no doubt fueled by his July 30 decision to resign from leadership of the Kadima party, and thus the premiership. Notwithstanding this choice, forced upon him by allegations of corruption, the complexities of Israeli politics may enable Olmert to remain prime minister until after Bush’s successor enters the White House in January 2009. Despite his abysmal standing in the polls--only 6 percent of Israelis consider him worthy to be prime minister--Olmert’s remaining months in power offer him a last opportunity to reverse the policies of occupation and settlement over which he has presided.

Olmert has spoken far more forthrightly and eloquently than his predecessors of the unbearable cost to Israel of continuing occupation and settlement--if only beyond the still-unfinished separation barrier. He has also begun what will certainly be a tortuous diplomatic and military path towards establishing a common language with Hamas, the victor in the last Palestinian elections and the de facto government in Gaza. 

Yet Olmert has acted in a manner contrary to his laudable rhetoric and his contacts with Hamas. Rather than break with the policies of his predecessors, he has promoted the consolidation of the instruments of occupation, settlement, and overlordship of Palestinians that will arguably be his most lasting legacy.  

The parallel negotiating tracks established after the November 2007 Anna−polis meeting--one between Olmert and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the other between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and lead negotiator Ahmad Qur’ei--have been “serious and professional” according to participants. Olmert has said that he does not “see a practical possibility of achieving understandings on the issue of Jerusalem by the end of the year,” but that on borders and refugees “the differences aren’t dramatic.” Aluf Benn, in Ha’aretz, reported details of a proposal conveyed by Olmert to Abbas, according to which “Israel would keep 7 percent of the West Bank, while the Pale−stinians would receive territory equivalent to 5.5 percent of West Bank. . . . The land to be annexed to Israel would include the large settlement blocs, and the border would be similar to the present route of the separation fence. Israel would keep Ma’ale Adumim, Gush Etzion (including Efrat), the settlements surrounding Jerusalem and some land in the northern West Bank adjacent to Israel (includ−ing the Ariel −‘finger’).” Interestingly, Israel’s annexation of agreed upon parts of the West Bank would take place immediately upon signature of the agreement--“Olmert’s proposal states that once a border is agreed upon, Israel would be able to build freely in the settlement blocs to be annexed [more than 55 settlements with a population of more than 400,000]”--while the transfer of “swap−ped” territory to Palestine, as well as settlement evacuation in the remainder of the West Bank [including approximately 70 settlements with a population of 70,000] would have no timetable and would have to await completion of “a series of internal [Palestinian] reforms,” including the restoration of Fateh’s rule in the Gaza Strip.

There are also reports of efforts to reach a bilateral U.S.-Israel understanding on the security principles that would govern an eventual Israeli-Palestinian agreement. If agreed to by Washington, the terms being discussed would signal American support for a permanent Israeli military presence throughout the West Bank and along its borders.

Even if the most forthcoming outcome of the Annapolis process materializes by the end of Olmert’s term, the implementation of an agreement that promises an end to occupation and settlement and the establishment of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state will remain distant and uncertain.

Not so the other, more activist dimension of Olmert’s West Bank agenda. Here Olmert’s legacy is ominous and unambiguous--more settlements, more settlers and infrastructure to serve them, and the growing marginalization of Palestinian authority over the territory and people under its nominal administration.

It would be incomplete and misleading to focus on this record--the facts on the ground--without reference to Olmert’s diplomatic engagement and his apparently genuine belief that it is in Israel’s interest to remove some settlements; the same however, holds true for a blinkered attention to the uncertain, and so-far-unproductive diplomatic efforts begun at Annapolis.

How, then, can Olmert’s continuing contribution to the sustainability and expansion of settlements be reconciled with his unprecedented critique of the settlement ethos? 

The Old/New Politics of Settlement

Israelis--including its preeminent ruling institutions--the political elite, the military, and governing bodies including the Land Authority and the courts--have always viewed the occupation through the prism of what Presi−dent Shimon Peres recently described as “the competition here over staying power,” whose roots hark back to the formative years of Zionist colonization in Palestine. Israelis continue to embrace this struggle as the defining aspect of relations with Palestinians. Competition for dominance and control--with settlements as the main currency--is the overriding context in which all policies are conceived and executed. 

In the first decades of Israeli rule of the territories captured in June 1967, Israel enjoyed a national consensus in support of settlement. Critics of the policy were isolated and on the political margins. During this era, it would have been inconceivable for any Israeli prime minister to suggest, as Olmert has, that if the “two state solution collapses, the State of Israel is finished.” Until recently Olmert himself considered such views blasphemous. The settlers were “our boys,” continuing the time-honored Zionist tradition of marking the borders of Jewish sovereignty. By 1974, the limitations that Israel’s Labor Party sought to impose on this national enterprise were crumbling. The Likud’s election in May 1977 removed them entirely. Under Menachem Begin’s stewardship and throughout the 1980s, with enthusiastic support from backbenchers like Olmert, settlement “throughout the Land of Israel” was lauded as an expression of the best of Zionism and an appropriate “Zionist response” to Palestinian opposition to Jewish settlement anywhere in Palestine. 

The first intifada, which began in December 1987, marked the beginning of Israel’s popular and political disenchantment with the settlement enterprise. Yet during the Oslo years, settlement expansion and the “peace process” proceeded in tandem, settlements having been explicitly excluded from the diplomatic agenda. Neither Labor’s Yitzhak Rabin or Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu uttered a word in support of Palestinian statehood, and discussion of settlement evacuation was absent from mainstream Israeli debate.

As prime minister at the turn of the century, Ehud Barak preceded Olmert in his alienation from the settlement movement as represented by the national-religious right. So too did public opinion. Israelis no longer view settlers, especially those claiming land east of the separation barrier, as “our boys” returning to the homeland, but as anachronistic artifacts from a bygone era, claiming lands that very few Israelis venture to visit. (A recent poll by Peace Now reports that 73 percent of Israelis have not traveled to a West Bank settlement in the last five years, and among those who have, 20 percent did so as part of their military service.) Overwhelm−ing public support for Ariel Sharon’s evacuation of settlers and the IDF from the Gaza Strip in 2005 demonstrated the failure of settlers to “settle in the hearts” of the Israeli public.

Yet even as the settlement movement lost its pride of place among Israelis, and politicians became more critical of settlers still wedded to the brutal confrontation with Palestinians over control of the West Bank heartland and East Jerusalem, the competition for staying power and domination, rather than partnership in a shared destiny, continues to drive Israeli policy. Olmert represents not only the growing recognition among Israelis of Israel’s interest in retreating from the West Bank and supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state, but also the prevailing view supporting the zero-sum contest for control of the land. This duality is the key to the conundrum that characterizes Olmert’s record, and helps to explain the contradiction between Olmert’s impassioned but unrealized rhetoric acknowledging the costs of occupation and settlement and his real achievements in their favor. 

At a time when Israel’s political elite no longer views settlers as sainted emissaries of Greater Israel, four dynamic decades of settlement expansion have created new centers of power in support of settlement on both sides of the separation barrier that Israeli politicians, including Olmert, no matter what their personal views, find easier to accommodate than confront. 

“Does anyone really believe that Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Shaul Mofaz et al are capable of relocating (or expelling, depending on one’s point of view) 250,000 people?,” asked Eitan Haber, formerly a close aide toYitzhak Rabin. “Is there anyone in Israel today capable of giving that order and surviving politically? Israel will continue to spin out of control, until something major, something dramatic, something huge and something unprecedented happens. Something that will bring the tailspin to a sudden end in the tempestuous waters.”

Settlement towns such as Ariel, Alfe Menashe, and Ma’ale Adumim today boast tens of thousands of secular, middle-class residents, who see themsleves as Israelis in pursuit of the good life, not settlers. They, like politicians and government ministries, view their communities as part of Israel, and see nothing unusual in claiming (more than) their proportionate share of the national budget. 

Settlements of exploding ultra-orthodox communities beyond the Green Line--Mod’in Ilit and Beitar Ilit are the fastest growing settlements--have created a newly powerful political lobby for settlement expansion at least as important as the “religious Zionist” settlers who spearhead efforts east of the separation barrier and secular Israelis seeking to improve their “quality of life.” These non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox have been won over to settlement in the West Bank not because of any love for Greater Israel but as a politically palatable solution to the housing needs of their poor but rapidly growing community.

“In early April,” reported Ma’ariv columnist Shalom Yerushalmi, “Communication Minister Ariel Atias from Shas came in to see the prime minister. ‘Listen to me now,’ he threatened. ‘Unless you approve 286 new housing units in Beitar Ilit, all of our Knesset members will just get up and leave the plenum when the next no-confidence vote comes up. I’m telling you this just between the two of us, no media and no brouhaha.’ Two days later he phoned Shas leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, to say that the Prime Minister’s Office okayed the added construction in the West Bank settlement. . . . Finally, after the expansion in Beitar Ilit was once again postponed to facilitate a smoother visit by Rice, some of the land for the 286 new units was allocated and re-zoned for construction.” 

The concept of “settlement blocs” as applied to areas west of the separation barrier is meant to sanitize and remove from the negotiating agenda numerous settlements, all of which are illegal according to international law. By acknowledging the “reality” of these blocs in April 2004, President Bush established a diplomatic foundation for Olmert to justify their eventual annexation by Israel. 

The YESHA Council, the representative institution for the 280,000 Israelis living in the West Bank, carries political and economic as well as ideological weight that politicians of all parties would rather cooperate with than confront. The route of the separation barrier is a reflection of their power. So too are Olmert’s recent decisions to approve new construction in Beitar Ilit and elsewhere, and to refrain from forced evacuation of settlement outposts championed by YESHA leaders.

There are, however, tensions within the settlement movement itself--for example between the “outpost lobby” and the YESHA Council--over the most effective means to expand settlements and to extend “Jewish” control over the land. The YESHA leadership came of age in an era where respect for the IDF and collaboration with state institutions like the army were usually the rule. In contrast, many of the young people manning new settlement outposts disdain the army and do not recognize the authority of the state. Moreover to them, “every caravan is Masada”--an attitude that precludes compromise. Zeev Hever, for example, is a veteran member of the Jewish terror cells of the 1980s who worked closely with Ariel Sharon to settle the West Bank. According to Ha’aretz, Hever “is being persecuted by the right wing, which is more extreme than he is. The man who invented the diversionary tactics that enabled the construction of the supposedly legal state-funded settlements is now regarded as too moderate and is being harassed for his willingness to give up two outposts in order to hang on to a hundred others.” Hever is reportedly considering leaving the settlement of Kiryat Arba (for the settlement of Ofra) because of threats made against him by even more radical settlers. Yet despite their internal conflicts, settlers remain united in their determination not to permit Israel’s political or judicial establishment, or its security forces to restrict their settlement agenda. They have largely succeeded.

Relations between the IDF--charged with defending the broadest prerogatives of settlers--and the “hilltop youth” manning the 100 or so new settlement outposts established in the last 12 years, are at times confrontational. The removal of a bus being used by settlers as a mobile home in an unauthorized settlement outpost lead to confrontations in late July that an IDF official described as having “crossed all the red lines.” It was reported that in one instance a settler held a knife to the throat of a soldier and stole his helmet before fleeing. Ma’ariv quoted an IDF officer acknowledging that “the settlers intend to show that they have power on the ground with the goal of blocking any legal mission, such as the evacuation of outposts. We will have to rethink the matter and respond accordingly.”

Israel’s High Court of Justice has also been mobilized in support of the contest for staying power. The court actively supports the advancement of settlement and occupation, as it did when it defied the views of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the separation barrier and asserted the rights of settlers. While the Court has occasionally ordered the IDF to make marginal, if locally significant changes in the barrier’s route to mitigate harm to Palestinians, these instructions have been all but ignored by Olmert. Justices grant any settler who fancies a house or piece of land preferred standing to refute the claims of Palestinian owners. Earlier this year, the court validated the exclusion of Palestinians from a road built “for public purposes” on land expropriated from them. Even when its rulings appear to constrain settlement--the Elon Moreh case, which was meant to forbid the taking of private Palestinian land for civilian settlement, is the most prominent example--the settlement machine has conjured administrative and legal fictions that have nullified its impact when it has not simply ignored the court’s views, often with the latter’s passive complicity. So, in the wake of the court’s Elon Moreh decision in 1979, the “state lands” rationale became the “legal” method of choice for land theft for settlement . . . and private land continued to be taken in any caset. Most recently, in August the court-ordered date for the evacuation of the outpost settlement of Migron, built on private Palestinian land, passed without action by the Defense Ministry headed by Ehud Barak to enforce the judgment. Instead, settlers were offered the chance to remain--and expand--until new housing in a new settlement is constructed--an offer they refused.

“Barak has not made a single decision that was geared to tighten law enforcement in the West Bank,” observed Yediot Aharonot columnist Nahum Barnea. “Forget about a decision--no one has heard him speak. Barak’s support for the rule of law is very enthusiastic, very convincing, but it never crosses the Green Line. No less interesting than Barak’s attitude towards the High Court is the Court’s attitude towards Barak. Time and time again the defense minister has asked to put off honoring his commitment to evacuate unauthorized settlement outposts, and every time that extension has been given. He promises to evacuate the settlements consensually despite the fact that in the case of Migron, at least, a settlement that has become firmly established, all the talk about a consensual evacuation is nothing more than a ruse--and the judges swallow their own spit and accede.” 

In East Jerusalem, the high court ordered settlers to be removed from a seven-storey building constructed without a permit that they are illegally occupying in the East Jerusalem village of Silwan. In response, city administrators are working “to kosher” the structure. In the settlement of Ofra, settlers took the unusual step of working on the Sabbath (actually they hired non-Jews to do the work) to rush completion and population of houses built on private Palestinian land that the Court had ruled the settlers could not occupy. As the settler-newswire Arutz 7 observed, “The houses are now occupied by Jews, causing a legal anomaly--as the High Court ordered the occupancy to be ‘halted’.”   

Olmert declares that “only dreamers still believe in the Whole Land of Israel,” and worries, according to Ha’aretz, that support among the American elite for the idea of a state of all its citizens “poses a very dangerous process that endangers our existence as a Jewish state.” Meanwhile, Olmert supports policies that will bring such a day closer. The settler population of the West Bank rose by 15,000 during 2007, an annual increase of 5.5 per cent, a rate three times the national rate of growth. Olmert claims that Israel is “closer than ever to firm understandings that can serve as a basis for agreements” with the Palestinians (and Syrians). . . . If he is right, then in the short time left to him, it would be better to leave a legacy that ends occupation and settlement rather than one that perpetuates it.