ARE SETTLEMENTS A BARRIER TO PEACE?

Sure, let’s all agree: People building stuff is the real problem here.

Jewish homes: The reason stupid people think we don’t have peace. 

Pearl-fishers around the world are pulling double shifts to meet global demand as bien pensants clasp their necklaces over the latest shocker from Israeli pol Bezalel Smotrich.

Smotrich, leader of a far-right party and finance minister in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, is said to be legitimizing erstwhile illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The New York Times says this move “could further inflame tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and draw the ire of the international community, but … advances the expansionist agenda of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government.” (This was an ostensible news report, note, not an opinion columnist.)

Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as the New York Times seems determined that you understand, are a major impediment to peace and a two-state solution.

This is, of course, a core tent-pole of the anti-Israel (or “pro-Palestinian”) narrative.

My take is two-pronged. West Bank settlements are a move in the wrong direction for people who advance a two-state solution.

They are also an almost complete red herring in this discussion, a deflection from the real issues.

Anyone who bemoans settlements as a major impediment to peace, anyone who wastes an ounce of energy condemning settlements instead of addressing the real reasons a two-state solution currently seems doomed, is not a serious interlocutor. If you are someone who thinks “settlements” are the reason for this conflict, if you think they are anything more than a sideshow, you are not someone whose opinions should be taken seriously.

Summary: I oppose expanding settlements. I also oppose stupid people who think settlements are anywhere near the top of a long list of reasons we don’t and won’t have peace in the region.

Quick recap: In 1967, Israel defeated the combined forces of its neighboring countries in a defensive war the explicit aim of which was genocide and the eradication of Israel.

It is important to understand the war of 1967 in the context of the larger century-long battle to rid the Middle East of Jews (or, at a minimum, Jewish self-determination). This was a war of annihilation. And it did not come out of the blue. It was one of a succession of efforts to end Israel and perpetrate genocide. There is a direct line between the war of 1948, the war of 1967, decades of terrorism and the atrocities of October 7.

You can keep telling yourself that “From the river to the sea” is a call for a democratic, “one-state” solution. The briefest flirtation with a history book would reassure you that it is a call for rivers of blood flowing into the sea.

But I digress.

In the process of defending itself against this genocidal war of 1967, Israel gained control over the Gaza Strip (occupied by Egypt since 1949) and the West Bank (occupied by Jordan since 1949).

Almost instantaneously, Israel presented an olive branch, offering to return these lands in the exchange for nothing but the Arab states’ word that they would live in peace. The answer was a unanimous, emphatic NO. Three no’s, in fact: No recognition of Israel. No negotiations with Israel. No peace with Israel.

If you want to know why there is no Palestinian state today, you need to know this history.

Palestinian statelessness is not a consequence of Zionism or the existence of Israel. It is a deliberate strategy of the Arab world to keep the Palestinian people stateless, hopeless and helpless as a living testament to presumed Zionist iniquity. Yes, it defies belief — which is why most of the world seems to prefer believing the worst lies about Israel than the brutal truth about the situation. This refusal to accept to the basic foundational facts of this conflict is the main reason it has not been resolved.

The collective Arab decision to maintain Palestinian statelessness for mindbogglingly sadistic political advantage has worked out brilliantly of course. Useful idiots worldwide see the situation and blame Israel. They fall right into the trap set by the theocrats and dictators who pen up Palestinians precisely so Western activists and diplomats respond as they knew we would.

For religious reasons, as well as practical economic reasons, since the 1970s, some Israelis began moving into new communities within the West Bank. There are now almost half a million Jews living in the West Bank, and about 200,000 more living in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians imagine to be rightfully theirs.

Critics say that these suburbs, villages and towns change reality on the ground and ensure a contiguous Palestinian state becomes impossible. Settlements, a whole bunch of people will tell you, are the reason there is not a two-state solution.

Now imagine the proverbial Martian getting a first glimpse at this situation.

Palestinian terrorists, carrying on a line of attack that has continued for most of a century and acting on generations of education and social indoctrination deliberately intended to raise ordinary people to eviscerate “others,” (that is, Jews), invade a sovereign country, rape, behead, immolate, kidnap and mass murder civilians.

But, sure. Let’s agree that Jews building stuff is the problem here.

As the New York Times put it, Smotrich’s move would “tighten Israel’s hold on the West Bank, further complicating any future effort to reach an agreement on a two-state solution for Palestinians and Israelis.”

Can we get some rational perspective here?

Of course settlements are not a step toward a two-state solution. Smotrich is clear. He wants Israel to annex the West Bank and make it part of Israel. He doesn’t support a two-state solution.

But it is juvenile to freak out about his actions and declare that, unchecked, this policy will lead to the end of the dream of two states.

Two things can be true at the same time. Smotrich doesn’t want two states and he thinks more settlements will be a step in that direction. But, in the event of a genuine possibility for a two-state solution, settlements will not be an impediment.

Israel has a proven track record on this.

In Sinai, and then in Gaza, Israel has evacuated settlements in the faint hope of peace.

Yes, but, there are 500,000 Jews living in settlements in the West Bank, critics say.

Yes but, again, let’s not be childish.

The vast majority of these settlers live relatively adjacent to Israel proper. As was proposed in the Oslo process, there will be land swap in which the vast majority of West Bank settlers will be included in Israel through a slightly adjusted border and Palestinians will get equivalent lands from what is now Israel. Every reasonable person knows this. The minority of Jews living in the sorts of remote settlements Smotrich aims to legitimize will be relocated. (Interestingly, nobody — nobody — makes the case that these Jews would be able to live as free citizens in an independent Palestine the way Arabs and other minorities live in Israel. The idea that Jews would live in Palestine — and I mean live in the most literal sense — is simply unthinkable. And yet no one seems to have a moral problem with this fact.)

Compared with the real obstacles to a two-state solution, dealing with settlements will be easy-peasy.

What are the real impediments to a two-state solution? It’s nothing Israel does. Borders, settlements, refugees — all the things we are told are the issues upon which this problem rests — are manageable diplomatic debating points.

The real impediment to coexistence and a two-state solution is the hatred instilled into Palestinian hearts and minds over eight decades, the sort of dehumanizing abhorrence that could license ordinary people to perpetrate the sorts of unimaginable atrocities we saw on October 7.

The perpetrators were a small portion of the Palestinian population, sure. But a vast majority of Palestinians, according to opinion polls, think the rape, beheadings, kidnapping, infanticides and other acts of gross inhumanity were just awesome. About three in four Palestinians think these brutalities were “correct.” Fewer than one in four think they were “incorrect.” If you have the slightest understanding of the inhuman barbarities that happened that day and you understand that three in four Palestinians support these acts, you need to ask what sort of dehumanizing, demonizing socialization this population has been subjected to. That’s what my next posts will address.

If you do not understand the centrality of incitement to martyrdom and genocide that is at the core of the Palestinian movement and that permeates Palestinian society, including education and religion, news, weather and sports, you cannot possibly understand this conflict. My next posts will clear this up for you. It is grotesque. And if this is new to you, you will never look at Israel and Palestine the same way.

In the meantime, the takeaway is this …

Settlements can be torn down. People can be forcibly moved, as Jews were from Sinai and from Gaza, in exchange for the ephemeral promise of coexistence.

What is far, far harder to tear down are the walls of hatred, the occupation of human brains, the indestructible construction of genocidal hostility in the hearts and minds of an entire people.

That’s the root of this conflict. And if we do not address this, we can stop nattering about a two-state solution. We can shut up about settlements, refugees, checkpoints, borders, and all the other assorted flimflam “pro-Palestinian” voices put up to prevent us from confronting what is at the heart of the conflict and what really prevents coexistence.