Brit Tzedek v'Shalom
Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace
St. Petersburg Times
Unsettled in the Mideast
By DAVID BALLINGRUD
6/22/2003
Ariel Sharon and the Likud Party have long been champions of Israeli settlements in land Palestinians claim as their own.
Since the mid 1990s the settler population has about doubled, and the settlements' territorial control extends over more than 40 percent of the West Bank.
This has taken place despite Palestinian objection and armed opposition, worldwide condemnation and the cajoling of U.S. presidents.
It also has taken place without the support of many Israelis, who worry that many of the settlements can't be justified and provoke Arab rage. Rather than making Israel safer, they say, these settlements are a root cause of terrorism.
Now, with President Bush pushing hard for the dismantling of some settlements as part of his Middle East "road map" to peace, those Israelis are being heard.
"It is time to call the settlers home," said Marcia Freedman, board president of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, a national organization of American Jews committed to a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Most Israelis went to live in the settlements because of housing and tax incentives, she said in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times last week, and similar incentives should be used to bring them back.
Agreed, said Lewis Roth, assistant executive director of Americans for Peace Now, a leading Jewish-American group seeking peace in the Middle East. He said polling last year showed a large majority - 75 percent - of the settlers moved to the territories not for religious or ideological reasons, but to take advantage of economic incentives.
"The same polling (by Tel-Aviv University) found that those same people would accept compensation to come back (to Israel)," Roth said. "We raised this issue as part of the (U.S.) loan guarantees discussion at the beginning of the year. There should be some conditions placed on the military assistance and loan guarantees the U.S. provides Israel. The Israeli government should have to set aside some of that money to pay for housing for returning settlers."
"We've been at this for about a year," Freedman said of the Alliance for Justice and Peace, "and we already think we have accomplished an enormous amount. We have more than 25 chapters and about 10,000 members and supporters."
The alliance is circulating a petition nationwide, to be presented to the U.S. Congress, statehouses and city halls in about a year. The petition is available on the Internet, Freedman said, and bears 5,000 signatures since it began circulation in May.
"The target figure is 10,000 names, but we're already halfway there so I think we should aim higher," she said. "This is an idea whose time has come."
The Alliance's Web site (www.btvshalom.org) makes these arguments in support of the petition:
"For the past 35 years, more than 200,000 Israeli citizens have been induced by special economic incentives to settle in the West Bank and Gaza Strip ... nearly 80 percent motivated by a desire to create better lives for themselves and their families and not by ideological or religious reasons."
"That dream, however, quickly became a nightmare of constant terror, sniping, murderous incursions into settlements, and suicide bombings. Simultaneously, enormous suffering has been inflicted upon the Palestinian population."
The settlement campaign pushed by the Likud Party and Sharon "threatens the moral foundation of the State," according to the alliance.
"One year after the 1956 Sinai Campaign, Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, explained to (military) officers the reasons for Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Nearly fifty years later, his speech serves as both warning and grim prophecy.
It was clear that our remaining in Gaza, while the entire world ostracized us, would lead to ... finding ourselves in a hostile sea of terrorism. Our military authorities would have had to shoot terrorists on a daily basis. ... We would not have been able to withstand this. For the State of Israel, such a reality would have become a catastrophe ... . Possibly, this would have destroyed us, not militarily, but morally - and in my opinion our morality underpins our very existence.
In addition, according to the alliance, the cost of sustaining and protecting the settlers is draining Israel's resources and has contributed to a host of economic ills: severe economic downturn, a rising unemployment rate (more than 10 percent), a dramatic decrease in foreign investment and an increase in the number of Israelis (20 percent) living below the poverty line.
"We believe the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians want peace, and that can only be achieved through the establishment of a viable Palestinian state," said Freedman, a member of the Israeli Knesset from 1973-77.
A few reasons for optimism were detected in recent polling by the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies at Tel-Aviv University. The Center reported that, compared to last year, Israelis are more optimistic and supportive of steps required to move the peace process forward.
According to Roth of Americans for Peace Now:
Fifty-nine percent of Israelis agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza in the framework of a peace accord, up from 49 percent in 2002.
The number of those who think a Palestinian state will be established in the next five years rose from 54 percent in 2002 to 61 percent in 2003.
Further, 59 percent agree to abandon all but the large settlement blocks, up from 50 percent last year, while those who support the idea of separation from the Palestinians by withdrawing unilaterally, even if that means abandoning settlements, rose from 48 percent to 56 percent.