Settlements Again Loom Large as a Roadblock to Peace

An early litmus test of Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s intentions as Israel’s prime minister will be what he does to fulfill Likud’s campaign promise to increase the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, parts of which have been turned over to Palestinian rule since Likud was last in office. Before this becomes a confrontational issue, the Clinton Administration must make quietly but unambiguously clear to the new Israeli government that it would view a renewal of settlement activity as a serious threat to the peace process and would strongly oppose such a development. A clear statement of this position would be entirely consistent with long-standing U.S. policy and is both justified and necessary in light of what happened under the last Likud government.

When Likud first came to power in 1977, Israelis who had settled in Gaza and the West Bank following Israel’s occupation of those areas in the 1967 war numbered fewer than 5,000. When Likud left office in 1992, this number had grown to about 110,000. (These figures do not include areas incorporated within the expanded post-1967 boundaries of Jerusalem.)

While the settlements did not begin or end with Likud, there is a critical difference between Likud and Labor Party settlement policies, reflecting their different territorial objectives. Consistent with its acceptance of the principle that Israel should withdraw from territories occupied in 1967 in return for peace, the location of settlements under Labor (with the exception of the Jerusalem area) was determined primarily by securityconsiderations. Most of those settlements are in largely unpopulated areas that Labor envisaged remaining under Israeli control in a peace treaty. By contrast, Likud policy was to build settlements throughout the West Bank and to increase their numbers dramatically, consistent with Likud doctrine that all of former Palestine is an inalienable part of the land of Israel.

From the start, the United States opposed the establishment of the settlements, arguing that they would be obstacles to peace once negotiations began. Little was done to press this policy, however, until 1978. On the last night at Camp David, President Jimmy Carter believed he had reached agreement with Prime Minister Menachem Begin to freeze further settlement activity. The next morning, it became apparent that Carter and Begin had quite different interpretations of what they had agreed. These differences were never resolved.

What followed proved to be critical for U.S. efforts to enlist Arab support for the Camp David accords. On a trip through the area after Camp David, I was authorized to convey the assurance that the president had a commitment from the prime minister to freeze settlements during the time it took to complete the Palestinian autonomy negotiations provided for in the accords. Of all the points I made about Camp David to Arab representatives, this was the one that seemed to impress them most--the Palestinians in particular. Then, only three months later, before the Palestinian autonomy negotiations had even begun, the Israeli government resumed settlement activity. To U.S. objections, Prime Minister Begin responded that he had agreed to freeze settlements only for the three months specified in the Camp David accords for negotiating an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. This seriously undermined U.S. credibility and whatever chance there may have been of moderating Arab and particularly Palestinian criticism of Camp David.

The U.S. continued to make its position known throughout the Reagan years, but made no effective effort to bring about a change in the Likud government policy. The first successful U.S. effort to influence Israeli settlement policy came three years into the Bush administration.

Before the October 1991 Madrid conference that relaunched the Arab-Israeli peace process, President George Bush strongly criticized the settlements policy of Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. To underline the point, the president put on hold a $10-million housing loan guarantee to Israel, which probably contributed to the defeat of Likud and the return to office of a Labor government under Yitzhak Rabin in July 1992. The Rabin government agreed to apply the brakes to the establishment of new settlements, and the U.S. housing loan guarantee was approved. While settlement activity was not entirely frozen--for example, the Rabin government permitted completion of 11,500 housing units begun under the previousgovernment--it was kept low key and (except in the Jerusalem area) the pace was greatly slowed.

Although the settlement issue has been largely defused since 1992, it has by no means disappeared. It remains an irritant in Palestinian-Israeli relations and is one of the many tough items on the agenda for Israeli-Palestinian “final status” negotiations, which are due to begin this summer. It is still too early to predict what strategy Prime Minister Netanyahu will follow in negotiations with the Palestinians, but one thing is clear: If Israel now adopts an active settlements policy, which Palestinians are certain to see as prejudicing their position in the final status negotiations, the setback to Israeli-Palestinian peace will be ominous; a renewal of the Palestinian intifada cannot be ruled out. There also will be wider repercussions affecting prospects for one of the most hopeful developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict: the gradual expansion of the peace process throughout the Arab world.