Israeli Settlements

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On the 17th of April 2012, Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicating the only way the Palestinian Authority would agree to move forward with peace talks is if Israel would agree to freeze the building of settlements in the West Bank1. Israeli settlements in the West Bank have become the largest obstacle in negotiating a two-state solution and it appears the continued expansion of Israeli settlements may render a two-state solution impossible. Inside the Israeli government following the 1967 war there was a debate about how to deal with the newly occupied territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, and Golan Heights. The debate revolved around two competing desires: the need for secure and defendable borders and the wish to absorb as few Palestinians as possible into Israel proper2. This paper intends to discuss the major influences on Israel’s West Bank settlement policy. It further argues that by straying from the pragmatic Allon Plan and by exploiting ambiguities in the wording of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and U.N. Resolution 242, Israel is squandering any future chance at a two-state solution.

Yigal Allon made the first proposal on how Israel should deal with the West Bank3. Allon was a former Israeli Defense Forces General, and in 1967 he was a member of Israel’s cabinet. In an article for Foreign Affairs Magazine, which ran in 1976, Allon publically laid out his vision for the West Bank. From his perspective, Israel existed solely because of its defensive strength and would continue to exist only as long as it maintained its military advantage4. Allon also believed the armistice lines drawn in 1949 could not be c...

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..., Ian S., “For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel” Council on Foreign Relations (1988): http://www.ciaonet.org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/book/lustick/biblio.html (accessed May 24, 2012).

“Geneva Convention,The,” BBC News on the Web, December 10, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1682640.stm (accessed May 22, 2012).

Settlement Watch Team, “West Bank & Jerusalem Map, The Settlements: The Biggest Threat To A Two-State Solution.” PeaceNow on the Web, November 2011. http://peacenow.org.il/eng/sites/default/files/Settlement%20Map%20Nov%202011%20Page%201.pdf (accessed May 22, 2012).

Shlaim, Avi. The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2000.

U.N. Security Council, Resolution 242, 1967, http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/240/94/IMG/NR024094.pdf?OpenElement (accessed on May 22, 2012).

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