U.S. opposition to settlement construction has undergone a substantial, continuous erosion in the period since the election of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in July 1992. This pattern has been consistent, notwithstanding the introduction of “settlement penalties” that have resulted in the deduction of $437.5 million and $216.8 million from U.S. loan guarantees in autumn 1993 and 1994, respectively.

No longer are settlements an “obstacle to peace”–the formula established during the 1980s by successive Republican administrations. This formulation itself represented a diminution of a policy established during the Carter administration, which also defined settlements as “illegal.”