Of Fictions

In a nytimes op-ed piece, Tony Judt says that settlements are bad.

His (jumbled) argument amounts to something along the lines of: He spent some time on a kibbutz. Israelis self-identify as a settler-nation. Some settlements are large demographically and geographically. All settlements, authorized by the Israeli government or not, are illegal under international law which "prohibits the annexation of land consequent to the use of force." Settlers amount to ~10% of Israeli Jews. American aid subsidizes the price of Israeli settlements, which are much cheaper than homes in Israel. No Israeli government will dismantle settlements under any peace deal. Netanyahu, and Israel, is playing Obama "for a fool" and America "for a patsy". From this he concludes that it is not enough to stop Settlement expansion and that Obama should "remind Israelis that all their settlements are hostage to American goodwill" and that they "have nothing to do with Israel’s defense, much less its founding ideals of agrarian self-sufficiency and Jewish autonomy." If he does not, "the United States would be humiliated in the eyes" of the world.

In claiming that American aid subsidizes settlement activity, he is correct to the degree that different Israeli governments have subsidized settlement activity to varying degrees. However, without any subsidy, homes in settlements would naturally be much cheaper then homes in Israel proper both because of the cramped-ness of Israeli cities and because of the risks inherent to settlement living.

He creates a false dichotomy out of settlement dismantling. It is not an all or nothing question. While no Israeli government will likely agree to dismantle all settlements, Israeli government have twice now -- in Sinai and Gaza -- dismantled settlements, and twice now -- in 2000 and 2007 -- agreed, in the context of a final status offer, to dismantled some West Bank settlements.

His core premise is that all settlements are illegal as annexations of land consequent to the use of force. Putting aside arguments along the lines of wondering why Israel's borders need be amongst the few in the world not such, there is still room to question. If the prohibition is, as Judt, describes it "annexation", then Israel is in the clear so long as it does not annex settlements without an agreement. If the original "use of force" is some sort of original sin that can not be cleansed via agreement, then it is not simply the post-67 settlements at stake. After all, the '67 borders were themselves established through force in 47-49. Which would argue that only the UN partition plan borders are "permitted". In the end, of course, even the UN partition plan was not peace-ably accepted: without the "use of force" there is no Israel.

I find it easy to agree with the longstanding American position that settlement activity is an obstacle to peace. Peace requires space between Israelis and Palestinians, settlement activity creates an unhelpful proximity. I also have no quibble with the argument that American tax payer dollars ought not be going to subsidize settlement activity. But I see no reason, as some do, to take for granted that the '67 borders are this bright unassailable green line, behind which Israel is safe and secure. It is not clear to me that this International Law which we are told states explicitly that no Jew may live in Hebron does not apply equally to Jerusalem or Tel-Aviv.

In other words -- and this should go without saying -- that it is not at all unreasonable, if it is is debatable, to believe that settlements have a great deal to do with Israel’s defense and Jewish autonomy. And, so, Judt's inflammatory rheteric (eg: patsy, fool, humiliated) wildly off-base. It continues to amaze me that otherwise sensible people -- on all sides of the issue -- start to froth at the mouth when discussing Israel.