The Eight Percent Solution

As a practical matter, I support the Obama's administration's position for a halt to all construction in Israeli settlements situated across the 1967 Green Line.  The Israeli argument that "natural growth" be allowed is fallacious.  Why should settlers benefit from a government guarantee that no one else enjoys?  Insisting that new construction follow certain codes - in this case a political code - is not "unreasonable" and certainly not equivalent "to Pharaoh's demand that all firstborn sons be thrown into the Nile River," as Israeli Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz told the cabinet on Sunday, May 31.  Really.

If you can't add rooms to your house to accommodate more children, you may have to move.  These facts are part of what Prime Minister Netanyahu's spokesman calls "normal life."  If the community cannot provide sufficient space for a kindergarten, send your kids to the nearest one instead.  If a young married couple cannot build a house next to their parents, they can move elsewhere - how far away could they be anyway? The whole country is about the size of New Jersey.  Peace Now has indicated that a third of the new building aims to provide housing for new settlers.  But even if natural growth were entirely what it claims to be it is a political gift to these settlers that is not given to the Israeli population at large.  There are no natural rights involved, only government priorities.  One cabinet minister's rhetorical question is not so rhetorical after all: "What will we say to a family living with one child, which now has four or five children?  That the children will move to Petah Tikva?"  Precisely: just as the government formerly told families with four or five children in Petah Tikva to move to the West Bank.

Many critics argue that all of these settlements are illegal, although I think that an incorrect reading of the relevant international law.  In sharp contradistinction, the "illegal outposts" are illegal by Israeli standards because they never received government authorization.  Israel should do itself a favor as a state based on the rule of law and dismantle them. Living up to its own laws should not be seen as a concession to anybody.  Moreover Israel has pledged many times over to do so (most emphatically by endorsing the road map) and has not lived up to its commitments, as well as to its own laws.

The real question is whether the Obama administration will reaffirm or ignore the Bush letter given to Prime Minister Sharon in April 2003 assuring Israel that when final borders are discussed, America will take the position that Israel need not redeploy to the 1967 lines and that the new lines would have to take into account the new demographic realities (i.e. settlements).  Even if Mr. Obama reaffirms the Bush letter, there is no provision therein to automatically green light expansion in those settlements which Israel would like to include inside Israel in any future arrangement.  But vague as its assurances were, not reaffirming the Letter will undercut the perceived strength of future American promises.

The matter of a Jewish claim to the West Bank is in any respect limited to the 8% or so that Israel hopes to secure.  So it comes down to this: does a decision to halt construction in the settlements within that 8% signal a retreat from the hope that Israel will retain it in any agreement with the Palestinians?  Not necessarily, and therefore natural life should be allowed to flourish, without the benefit of government subsidies and permits.