The Painful Cost to Israel of Its Settler Adventure

As friction between the Obama administration and Israel mounts over Washington's repeated calls for a freeze on settlement construction, anxious supporters of Israel's West Bank settlement enterprise ask one question with ever greater urgency and frequency:

Why should settlers have to pay the price for peace between Israel and the Palestinians?

The question is intended to be rhetorical, meant to dismiss and deflect pressure to curb expansion of West Bank enclaves.

But in a real sense, it is precisely the question of the moment. Why, in fact, should settlers be made to pay the price for peace?

The answer, in short: Because of what the settlement movement has cost us, cost Israel. And because of what it is costing Israel now.

1. The cost in dollars

The settlement movement has cost Israel some $100 billion over the past 40 years.

Setting aside the considerable waste and graft in building projects in the West Bank and Gaza, the cost to Israel's development has been incalculable. Settlement in remote areas has siphoned off critically needed funds for investment in employment, infrastructure, housing and social welfare in central Israel, the Galillee and the Negev.

Huge expenditures on West Bank road construction, including parallel highways intended only for use by Israelis, and roads built at great expense to remote and often illegal settlements, have taken a human toll as well. They have put off the upgrading of dangerous roads (designated "red highways") within Israel, adding materially to one of the country's most lethal problems. Last year more than 440 people died on Israel's highways, more than 12 times the number of Israelis killed in terror attacks.

2. The cost to Israel's security

For decades, the enormous burdens of guarding settlements, policing roadblocks and maintaining the far-reaching bureaucracy of occupation have robbed the IDF of vitally needed resources of time and funding for military training.

In recent months, as Haaretz military commentator Amir Oren has reported, Prime Minister Netanyahu's wrangling with President Obama over settlement construction has been doing damage to the IDF's capability to face the threat posed by Iran.

3. The cost to Israeli democracy and the rule of law

The unwillingness of the settlement movement to brook compromise, even when in direct defiance of national consensus, and its explicit threats to exploit Israel's precarious political system to topple any democratically elected government which makes significant progress in negotiations with the Palestinians, places the very nature of Israeli democracy in doubt.

The double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing, heavily subsidized social services, and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property.

4. The cost to Israel's diplomatic credibility

Both in established settlements and in outposts acknowledged by Israel as illegal, settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures, military directives, and government decrees in order to boost settlement, block Palestinian construction, agriculture, and access to employment, and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress.

Measures aimed at driving a secure wedge between settlers and Palestinians have had the effect of tarnishing Israel's international image, and have kept many nations from normalizing and strengthening diplomatic ties with Israel.

The settlers' rejection of all territorial compromise renders moot all proposals similar to the Arab League peace initiative.

5. The cost to Israel's relationship with the U.S.

With every move of ostentatious defiance mounted by the Netanyahu government, the Obama administration finds the Palestinian Authority a more reliant, cooperative, and businesslike partner for diplomacy and West Bank security.

The gratuitous machismo characterizing many of the declarations of right-wing parties, in particular the shrill back-benchers of Netanyahu's Likud and members of Avigdor Lieberman's indictment-shadowed Yisrael Beiteinu, has done little to win domestic backing in Israel, but has landed with dramatic and destructive effect in Washington.

For the full post, see haaretz.com.

 

 

Follow Bradley Burston on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bradleyburston

Comments

[Realization]

The cost to Israel should be a lot higher. Time to cut off aid. Actually, it's long past time. There is much in Israeli society to admire. The fact seems to be that our aid supports, directly or indirectly, the elements that are not admirable.

[mamacat]

The author gives the cost of the settlements, to Israel, over the last 40 years (since 1967), of $100 billion.
The United States has given more than $100 billion to Israel over the past 40 years, so it is not too big a stretch to see how one could make the argument that the U.S. has been subsidising Israeli expansionism. I can think of no better reason for the ending of U.S. "aid" to Israel.

[S1m0n]

Settlers are, quite literally, human shields.

This is a nation which has deliberately encouraged--paid, in fact--civilians to move themselves and their children into a war zone in order to make the war more difficult for the opposing side to fight. What kind of nation would do that? What kind of PARENT?

[BubbaC33]

Your analysis is painfully mistaken.

[MemoryAlpha]

Dogmatic Denial without Refuting Argument of any sort:
Noted.

[S1m0n]

There's no other way to interpret Shamir's celebrated "creating facts on the ground" remark.

[Darwin256]

Obama's voters will support him on Israel:

http://www.alternet.org/world/141261/obama%27s_voters_clearly_have_his_back_if_he_wants_to_get_tougher_with_israel/

[gbrooks]

Heck I'm one of Obama's biggest critics and I fully support his rhetoric towards Israel.

I'd like to see some concrete action in the form of ending aid and arms though--he should be a lot tougher, in my opinion.

[zaz33]

Mr. Burston continues to assert that Iran is a threat to Israel.

Iran doesn't have the means or the will to attack Israel. (the retaliation would be unthinkable)

Also

There is no evidence that Iran has EVER pursued nuclear weapons. NONE

That explains why, when accusations are made the word EVIDENCE and the IAEA are never used.

[BubbaC33]

You are absolutely wrong. The last intelligence report by the US indicated that Iran had given up seeking a nuke, but it did not make the case that Iran was not at that time seeking to make one. And all indications are Iran is in the process of making a working nuke.
What Iran hopes to accomplish is to be in the position of blackmailing the other gulf states and to threaten Israel in stronger terms. And anyone who believes Iran would refrain from an attack on Israel because the retaliation might be extensive is just goofy. Iran is ruled in a manner that makes it clear consequences are of no importance.

[MemoryAlpha]

Statement:
You are absolutely wrong. The last intelligence report by the US indicated that Iran had given up seeking a nuke, but it did not make the case that Iran was not at that time seeking to make one. And all indications are Iran is in the process of making a working nuke.

Query:
Can anyone else make sense of this contradictory set of statements?

[S1m0n]

The real threat is that the presence of a nuclear-armed islamic nation in the reasons means that Israel will no longer be able to exploit the shelter of its own nuclear umbrella while waging unrestricted conventional warfare on it's neighbours with no fear of effective retaliation.

No nuclear-armed nation and to a slightly lesser extent no nation with a nuclear ally, for instance, would ever allow itself to be carpet-bombed as Israel did to Lebanon 2 years ago. If any nation had done unto Israel what Israel just did unto Lebanon, Isreal would have gone nuclear.

[altohone]

When so many within the borders you control are denied the vote, is it really a democracy?

[BubbaC33]

Yes. And your implication is wrong.

[altohone]

Didn't imply anything.
Straight out asked.

But I'll take your word for it since you explained why so nicely.

[mamacat]

A few quotes:

Yitzhak Shamir, 1997 "The settlement of the land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It's that simple."

Ariel Sharon, 1998 "....there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."

Ben Gurion, half a century ago "Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel....­we have taken their country."

Albert Einstein, in the 1940s and 50s

"There could be no greater calamity than a permanent discord between us and the Arab people....­Let us recall that in former times no people lived in greater friendship with us than the ancestors of these Arabs."

"I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish State."

"It is inconceivable that those who opposed fascism throughout the world, if currently informed as to Mr. Begin's political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents­....A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin....­"

"....this is the unmistakable stamp of a fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike) and misrepresentation are means, and a 'Leader State' is the goal."

[audadvnc]

Israel's standing as a moral force has plummeted in the past generation. When I was a young Protestant kid in New Jersey, I and everyone I knew took it for granted that Israel had a right to its own destiny and defense. Over the years, Israel's image has come to resemble the worst excesses of South African-style apartheid, treating its Palestinian population with appalling disrespect. The expansion of Jewish settlements onto Palestinian lands is nothing short of state-sanctioned robbery, and Israel's true destiny is about to become that of a pariah outlaw state, without the support of the United States.

[AOGutierrez]

The unasked question is "Why should the Palestinians pay the price for what was done to European Jewry 70 years ago?"

[yaskeptik]

AOGutierrez, be careful not to get sued by president Ajmadinejad for plagiarising.
Reestablishing state of Israel was a dream of Jews worldwide forever. After all they prey " Next year in Jerusalem", not Hamburg or Wasilla, Alaska, or Uganda. Zionist movement began to gain momentum long before Holocaust. What was done to European Jewry 70 years ago proved to the world that Jews must have their country just like Italians have Italy, Hungarians Hungary and Japanese Japan. Hence the state was established.
I hope and prey that Palestinians and Jews will live in peace in 2 free prosperous countries and I do not support settlements and fully agree with B. Burston's points.
Let's discuss this great article rather than asking questions leading nowhere

[mamacat]

The results of territorial Zionism have been a disaster.

[BubbaC33]

Hardly