In an interview with Al-Jazeera Tuesday, Secretary Clinton unequivocally called on Israel to halt all construction activity connected with its settlement project in the occupied West Bank.
She said,
- First, we want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth – any kind of settlement activity. That is what the President has called for. We also are going to be pushing for a two-state solution…
In reporting this earlier today, Haaretz’s Natasha Mozgovaya also noted that when Israeli President Shimon Peres was in Washington earlier this month he discussed the possibility of getting a waiver from the US regarding “construction to accommodate natural growth in the settlements.”
The actual words she reported from Peres on this issue were, “These children are not going to live on the roofs.”
This whole “natural growth” argument is a dishonest canard, whether used by Peres or anyone else,for the following four reasons:
- 1. No settler children are going to be “living on the roofs.”
The settlements– whether in East Jerusalem or elsewhere in the West Bank– have plenty of spare capacity, as evidenced by the facts that they continue to advertise for home-purchasers and that both the Israeli government and numerous private settlement organizations provide generous subsidies to (Jewish) people who want to go and live in them.
2. This excuse has been used– and abused– before.
Past Israeli governments have a track record on this question, having promised on several previous occasions to limit the growth in settlements to so-called “natural” growth and then continuing to build just as before while also giving all the incentives to non-settler Jewish people to move into the settlements. That record of past abuse needs to be taken into account.
3. Accommodating Jewish Israelis’ alleged “natural” growth claims is inequitable unless the Palestinians’ much more urgent needs for housing are on their way to being met.
It is simply obscene that, at a time when the Israelis are still refusing to allow into Gaza even the most basic materials required to rebuild the thousands of housing units destroyed during the recent war, they ask the world to pay heed to the almost completely specious claims they have regarding the alleged housing claims of residents of the illegal settlements.
Wherever Palestinians currently live under Israeli rule, Israeli zoning and home-demolition policies have forced them to live in extremely overcrowded conditions. Any sustainable peace settlement between the two peoples must be based on equal rights and equal access to the basics of a decent life. Shifting towards a sustainable, equality-based outcome will be hard if, right at the start of the process, specious Israeli claims get any precedence over the far more pressing needs of Palestinians.
4. Why think about “natural growth” at all if the peace agreement is, as we hope, due to be completed in timely fashion?
In demographic terms, “natural growth” only becomes a real factor over a time period of five or more years. Proponents of the natural growth argument seem to assume the peace negotiations might go on for that long, or even longer. Peres’s use of the term “children” was telling. Was he assuming that settlers who are currently children will grow up, get married and want homes of their own before a final peace agreement is reached? If so, the peace process is doomed before it even starts.
For the above four reasons, the Israeli argument about “natural growth” is nonsense.
Congratulations to Sec. Clinton and Pres. Obama for being quite clear on this issue.
I’ve thought 2-states was unrealistic for some years. There are too many Jewish fanatics entrenched in the West Bank for one thing. And the Palestinians are trapped in unsustainable pockets in a territory where conditions for them are worse-than-Apartheid.
Now Bibi on his chutzpah stilts has proclaimed the indivisibility of Jerusalem and effectively scotched the hopes of even the most optimistic observers. Time for Obama to kick ass, but of course, he won’t.
Cancer is a “natural growth” as well. And in terms of the body politic these illegal and immoral settlements on other people’s territory are surely cancerous.
The argument is really to sit quietly and let cancer ravage the region.
The US has been feeding this cancer with weapons and dollars and is ultimately responsible for its growth.
Seize the assets of groups raising money for the settlements, just as the assets of groups raising money for Palestinian relief have been seized.
End all aid to Israel.
Work for health and hygiene in the region.
Stop the cancer in its tracks.
With Helena’s first argument against “natural growth,” I assume that she does not consider building new structures on land already part of the settlements to be natural growth.
There is a difference between acquiring more land for settlements, and building another house in an already settled area. Would Helena consider building another dormitory for students at the University of Judea and Samaria (attended by Jewish, Israeli Arab, and Palestinian students) to be illegal?