An Israeli soldier stands by as a Caterpillar bulldozer clears the ground next to the settlement Carmel, south of the West Bank city of Hebron. (Mamoun Wazwaz, Maan Images)

On September 26, 2010, Israel refused to extend a partial settlement freeze, bringing to a halt the most recent round of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. In the leadup to the critical deadline and in hopes of avoiding a premature end to the peace talks, world leaders from President Obama to the European Union's Foreign Ministers urged Israel to continue the settlement freeze.

President Obama was blunt, saying simply, "the settlements must stop," and telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that "given so far the talks are moving forward in a constructive way, it makes sense to extend the moratorium."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton further clarified the United States' position, saying "The United States believes that the moratorium should be extended."

And speaking on September 14th, US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell said, "We think it makes sense to extend the moratorium."

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said, "Let us be clear: all settlement activity is illegal anywhere in occupied territory, and this must stop." And on September 16th, European Union Foreign Ministers declared that, "the EU recalls that settlements are illegal under international law and calls for an extension of the moratorium decided by Israel."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignored these calls and allowed the partial settlement freeze to expire. The decision was met with mass celebrations by the Israeli settler community across the West Bank.

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1. Had a settlement freeze really been in place?

2. Israel officials claim they must be allowed to approve "natural growth". What is "natural growth"?

3. What benefits does Israel provide to settlers?

4. What are unauthorized outposts?

5. What have past agreements said about settlements?

6. Do Israeli settlements violate international law?

7. What is the impact of the settlements on a two-state solution?

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1. Had a settlement freeze really been in place?

In July 2010, The New York Times revealed that despite the freeze, settlements continued to be built throughout the year. Settlers took advantage of the fact that the freeze excluded settlement construction approved before the announcement of the freeze. The article found that the leader of the Regional Council in the northern West Bank, Gershon Mesika, "knew a freeze was coming and so approved more than 1,600 units in 2009, nearly 10 times the number that had been approved the previous year for his area."

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem claims "2,500 apartments" were already under construction before the freeze; allowing for the settlements to finish construction during the 10-month freeze period. The New York Times found that the average growth rate of settlements built from 2006 to 2008 is equal to the average of settlements built in the first half of 2010. Others, like the Israeli organization Peace Now, say without the continuation of the settlement freeze past the September 30th deadline, "the freeze will have no significance on the ground."

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2. Israel officials claim they must be allowed to approve "natural growth". What is "natural growth"?

Gershom Gorenberg, author of The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, calls the insistence on natural growth a "very deliberate distraction." "Construction in settlements," he says "is not aimed only at accommodating children of settlers. It's aimed at drawing more Israelis across the Green Line boundary between Israel and the West Bank." Population figures confirm Gorenberg's contention.

While the average population growth rate inside Israel is 1.8 percent, in the settlements it is 5.5 percent, and during the Oslo period fluctuated between 7 and 9 percent. This phenomenon is due to higher birth rates and Israeli government efforts to promote migration to the settlements. In 2007, the last year for which official figures are available, Israelis moving for the first time into the Occupied Territories accounted for 37 percent of the growth in the settler population (not including Occupied East Jerusalem).

Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, recently said, "Washington has a strong enough memory of what Netanyahu did with natural growth last time he was prime minister, which is basically drive a settlement truck through that loophole."

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3. What benefits does Israel provide to settlers?

Israel promotes migration to the settlements in a variety of ways. It labels most of the settlements as "national priority areas", giving settlers access to substantial economic assistance. This assistance includes, "generous loans for the purchase of apartments, part of which is converted to a grant; significant price reductions in leasing land; incentives for teachers, exemption from tuition fees in kindergartens, and free transportation to school; grants for investors, infrastructure for industrial zones, etc.; incentives for social workers; and [until 2003] reductions in income tax for individuals and companies."

Israel also provides local and regional governments with funding much greater than that disbursed inside Israel. In 2000, local governments of settlements received 65% more funding per capita than local governments inside Israel received. Regional settler governments received 165% more funding than their counterparts in Israel.

Finally, the Israeli government funds the entire budget of the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Division. This allows the WZO to promote and assist migration to settlements in ways that government ministries cannot.

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4. What are unauthorized outposts?

While all settlement activity in Occupied Palestinian Territory is prohibited by international law, "outposts" are settlements that are established without Israeli government approval. There are currently at least 110 such outposts. (PLO Negotiation Affairs Department - Negotiations Support Unit, "Summary of Israeli Road Map Violations since Annapolis.") They are often comprised of mobile homes, huts and shacks that are both easily removed and easily replaced. For example, the Ma'oz Esther outpost has been repeatedly removed by the Israeli army and then subsequently rebuilt by settlers. The Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now dismisses such removals as "P.R. in light of the Washington meeting between Netanyahu and Obama" and an attempt "to create a false facade of outpost evacuation."

Such claims carry particular weight in the aftermath of the Israeli government's 2005 Sasson Report. The report found that despite outposts being illegal under Israeli law, over the years numerous Israeli government ministries provided funds and material to construct and maintain the outposts. According to Peace Now, the population of the outposts in 2009 was 3,371.16.

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5. What have past agreements said about settlements?

Oslo Accords (1993)

The Oslo Accords left discussion of settlements to final status negotiations which were to begin no later than 1996 and to be completed by 1998. The Accords called for "a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338." UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 war, emphasizes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and calls for the "termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State." By basing the solution to the conflict on UNSC Resolution 242, the Oslo Accords implicitly call for the removal of the settlements.

Israeli Settlement Activity Post-Oslo

In 1992, the year before the Oslo Accords, there were 246,400 settlers living in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. During the Oslo years from 1993 to 2000, the Israeli settler population expanded by 71 percent. The Israeli government built 21,999 new housing units and the population grew to 371,904.

Roadmap to Peace (2003)

In 2003, President George W. Bush released the Roadmap to Peace, a document accepted by both the Israelis and Palestinians. Phase one of the roadmap outlines two actions Israel must take regarding settlements: "[Government of Israel] immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001" and "Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)."

Did Israel Comply?

From 2003 to 2007, Israel built 8,820 new housing units in settlements. And despite removing its settlers from Gaza in 2005, in 2007, Israel still had 133 official settlements, 102 unauthorized settlement outposts and 468,500 settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Annapolis Conference (2007)

On November 27, 2007, President Bush released the "joint understanding" document that the Israelis and Palestinians agreed to at the Annapolis Conference. It stated in part that, "The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map... The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty". Therefore Israel remained obligated to freeze all settlement expansion and remove outposts.

Did Israel Comply?

From December 2007 until May 2009, Israel began construction on 962 new housing units, in addition to the 3,229 units already under construction at the time that the joint understanding was issued. In March 2009, Peace Now revealed that Israel has drawn up plans to build 73,302 settlement housing units in 24 different settlements. According to Americans for Peace Now, there are 38,000 housing units already partially approved (13,000 of these fully approved) by the Israeli government. Once the "freeze" expires, these settlements can be built.

There are currently 133 official settlements, 110 outposts, and a settler population of 485,200 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (PLO Negotiation Affairs Department - Negotiations Support Unit, "Summary of Israeli Road Map Violations since Annapolis").

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6. Do Israeli settlements violate international law?

Israel's settlements exist in clear violation of international law. They violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which bars an occupying power from moving its citizens into the occupied region. They also violate The Hague Regulations, which forbid the occupier from making permanent changes in the occupied territory unless it is a military necessity.

The United Nations Security Council has passed several resolutions labeling Israel's settlements as violations of international law. As well, in 2004, the International Court of Justice passed a unanimous ruling that the settlements violated international law.

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7. What is the impact of the settlements on a two-state solution?

Israeli settlements pose a serious obstacle to the international consensus for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Currently, settlement-related infrastructure (including settler-only roads, army bases, the separation wall, closed military zones, checkpoints, etc.) consumes 38% of the West Bank. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) notes that, "The West Bank has been dissected into dozens of enclaves by the settlements and related infrastructure."

Without removing the settlements, a contiguous and viable Palestinian state is not possible. President Bush recognized this, stating in April 2008 that, "I assured the president [Abbas] that a Palestinian state's a high priority for me and my administration: a viable state, a state that doesn't look like Swiss cheese, a state that provides hope."