Israeli settlement

For other uses, see Israeli settlement (disambiguation).

West Bank settlements (2020)
East Jerusalem settlements (2006)
Golan Heights settlements (1992)
Gaza Strip settlements (1993), dismantled since the 2005 disengagement

Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies,[1][2][3][4] are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish identity or ethnicity,[5][6][7] and have been constructed on lands that Israel has militarily occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967.[8] The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law,[9][10][11][12] but Israel disputes this.[13][14][15][16] In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel's occupation was illegal and ruled that Israel had "an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers" from the occupied territories.[17] The expansion of settlements often involves the confiscation of Palestinian land and resources, leading to displacement of Palestinian communities and creating a source of tension and conflict. Settlements are often protected by the Israeli military and are frequently flashpoints for violence against Palestinians. Furthermore, the presence of settlements and Jewish-only bypass roads creates a fragmented Palestinian territory, seriously hindering economic development and freedom of movement for Palestinians.[18]

Currently, Israeli settlements exist in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), which is claimed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sovereign territory of the State of Palestine, and in the Golan Heights, which is internationally recognized as a part of the sovereign territory of Syria.[a] Through the Jerusalem Law and the Golan Heights Law, Israel effectively annexed both territories, though the international community has rejected any change to their status as occupied territory. Although Israel's West Bank settlements have been built on territory administered under military rule rather than civil law, Israeli civil law is "pipelined" into the settlements, such that Israeli citizens living there are treated similarly to those living in Israel. Many consider it to be a major obstacle to the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.[21][22][23][24][25] In Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (2004), the ICJ found that Israel's settlements and the then-nascent Israeli West Bank barrier were both in violation of international law; part of the latter has been constructed within the West Bank, as opposed to being entirely on Israel's side of the Green Line.[26][27][28]

As of January 2023, there are 144 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including 12 in East Jerusalem; the Israeli government administers the West Bank as the Judea and Samaria Area, which does not include East Jerusalem.[29] In addition to the settlements, the West Bank is also hosting at least 196 Israeli outposts,[30] which are settlements that have not been authorized by the Israeli government. In total, over 450,000 Israeli settlers reside in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, with an additional 220,000 Israeli settlers residing in East Jerusalem.[31][32] Additionally, over 25,000 Israeli settlers live in Syria's Golan Heights.[33] Between 1967 and 1982, there were 18 settlements established in the Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, though these were dismantled by Israel after the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979. Additionally, as part of the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel dismantled all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four settlements in the West Bank.[34]

Per the Fourth Geneva Convention, the transfer by an occupying power of its civilian population into the territory it is occupying constitutes a war crime,[35][36][37] although Israel disputes that this statute applies to the West Bank.[38][39] On 20 December 2019, the International Criminal Court announced the opening of an investigation of war crimes in the Palestinian territories. The presence and ongoing expansion of existing settlements by Israel and the construction of outposts is frequently criticized as an obstacle to peace by the PLO,[40] and by a number of third parties, such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation,[41] the United Nations (UN),[42] Russia,[43][44] the United Kingdom,[45] France,[46] and the European Union.[47] The UN has repeatedly upheld the view that Israel's construction of settlements in the occupied territories constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.[48][49][50] For decades, the United States also designated Israeli settlements as illegal,[42] but the first Trump administration reversed this long-standing policy in November 2019,[51] declaring that "the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law";[52] this new policy, in turn, was reversed to the original by the Biden administration in February 2024, once again classifying Israeli settlement expansion as "inconsistent with international law" and matching the official positions of the other three members of the Middle East Quartet.[53][54]

  1. ^ Matar, Ibrahim (1981). "Israeli Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip". Journal of Palestine Studies. 11 (1): 93–110. doi:10.2307/2536048. ISSN 0377-919X. JSTOR 2536048. The pattern and process of land seizure for the purpose of constructing these Israeli colonies...
  2. ^ Isaac, Jad; Hilal, Jane (2011). "Palestinian landscape and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict". International Journal of Environmental Studies. 68 (4): 413–429. Bibcode:2011IJEnS..68..413I. doi:10.1080/00207233.2011.582700. ISSN 0020-7233. S2CID 96404520. The continuous construction of Israeli colonies and bypass roads all over the Palestinian land...
  3. ^ Thawaba, Salem (2019). "Building and planning regulations under Israeli colonial power: a critical study from Palestine". Planning Perspectives. 34 (1): 133–146. Bibcode:2019PlPer..34..133T. doi:10.1080/02665433.2018.1543611. ISSN 0266-5433. S2CID 149769054. Moreover in 1995 38,500 housing units were built in Jewish settlements (colonies)...
  4. ^ Abu-Laban, Yasmine; Bakan, Abigail B. (2019). Israel, Palestine and the Politics of Race: Exploring Identity and Power in a Global Context. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-83860-879-8. The ongoing occupation has been heavily shaped by the issues of land confiscation and the building of Israeli Jewish settlements (or what Palestinians often refer to less euphemistically as "colonies").
  5. ^ Haklai, O.; Loizides, N. (2015). Settlers in Contested Lands: Territorial Disputes and Ethnic Conflicts. Stanford University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-8047-9650-7. Retrieved 14 December 2018. the Israel settlers reside almost solely in exclusively Jewish communities (one exception is a small enclave within the city of Hebron).
  6. ^ Dumper, M. (2014). Jerusalem Unbound: Geography, History, and the Future of the Holy City. Columbia University Press. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-231-53735-3. Retrieved 14 December 2018. This is despite huge efforts by successive governments to fragment and encircle Palestinian residential areas with exclusively Jewish zones of residence – the settlements.
  7. ^ "Leave or let live? Arabs move in to Jewish settlements". Reuters. 7 December 2014. Archived from the original on 30 July 2015. Retrieved 21 February 2023 – via www.reuters.com.
  8. ^ Rivlin, P. (2010). The Israeli Economy from the Foundation of the State through the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-139-49396-3. Retrieved 14 December 2018. In the June 1967 Six Day War, Israel occupied the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula. Soon after, it began to build the first settlements for Jews in those areas.
  9. ^ Roberts, Adam (1990). "Prolonged Military Occupation: The Israeli-Occupied Territories Since 1967" (PDF). The American Journal of International Law. 84 (1): 85–86. doi:10.2307/2203016. ISSN 0002-9300. JSTOR 2203016. S2CID 145514740. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 February 2020. The international community has taken a critical view of both deportations and settlements as being contrary to international law. General Assembly resolutions have condemned the deportations since 1969, and have done so by overwhelming majorities in recent years. Likewise, they have consistently deplored the establishment of settlements, and have done so by overwhelming majorities throughout the period (since the end of 1976) of the rapid expansion in their numbers. The Security Council has also been critical of deportations and settlements; and other bodies have viewed them as an obstacle to peace, and illegal under international law... Although East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have been brought directly under Israeli law, by acts that amount to annexation, both of these areas continue to be viewed by the international community as occupied, and their status as regards the applicability of international rules is in most respects identical to that of the West Bank and Gaza.
  10. ^ Pertile, Marco (2005). "'Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory': A Missed Opportunity for International Humanitarian Law?". In Conforti, Benedetto; Bravo, Luigi (eds.). The Italian Yearbook of International Law. Vol. 14. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 141. ISBN 978-90-04-15027-0. the establishment of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been considered illegal by the international community and by the majority of legal scholars.
  11. ^ Barak-Erez, Daphne (2006). "Israel: The security barrier—between international law, constitutional law, and domestic judicial review". International Journal of Constitutional Law. 4 (3): 548. doi:10.1093/icon/mol021. The real controversy hovering over all the litigation on the security barrier concerns the fate of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Since 1967, Israel has allowed and even encouraged its citizens to live in the new settlements established in the territories, motivated by religious and national sentiments attached to the history of the Jewish nation in the land of Israel. This policy has also been justified in terms of security interests, taking into consideration the dangerous geographic circumstances of Israel before 1967 (where Israeli areas on the Mediterranean coast were potentially threatened by Jordanian control of the West Bank ridge). The international community, for its part, has viewed this policy as patently illegal, based on the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention that prohibit moving populations to or from territories under occupation.
  12. ^ Drew, Catriona (1997). "Self-determination and population transfer". In Bowen, Stephen (ed.). Human rights, self-determination and political change in the occupied Palestinian territories. International studies in human rights. Vol. 52. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 151–152. ISBN 978-90-411-0502-8. It can thus clearly be concluded that the transfer of Israeli settlers into the occupied territories violates not only the laws of belligerent occupation but the Palestinian right of self-determination under international law. The question remains, however, whether this is of any practical value. In other words, given the view of the international community that the Israeli settlements are illegal under the law if belligerent occupation, what purpose does it serve to establish that an additional breach of international law has occurred?
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference Harel was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Stone, Julius (2004). Lacey, Ian (ed.). International Law and the Arab-Israel Conflict: Extracts from "Israel and Palestine Assault on the Law of Nations" by Professor Julius Stone (2nd ed.). Jirlac Publications. ISBN 978-0-975-10730-0.
  16. ^ Byron, Christine (2013). War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-847-79275-4.
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hail was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ "Chapter 3: Israeli Settlements and International Law". Amnesty International. 30 January 2019. Archived from the original on 6 March 2024. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  19. ^ Aji, Albert (26 March 2019). "Trump acceptance of Israeli control of Golan sparks protests". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 26 March 2019. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
  20. ^ "Trump's Golan move unites Gulf States and Iran in condemnation". France 24. 26 March 2019. Archived from the original on 26 March 2019. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
  21. ^ Anthony Cordesman, Jennifer Moravitz, The Israeli–Palestinian War: Escalating to Nowhere, Greenwood Publishing Group, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2005 p. 432: 'Between 1993 and 1999, settlers established 42 "unofficial" settlements, only four of which were subsequently dismantled. More than a dozen new settlements were established between the 1998 Wye Accord [sic: it's the Wye River Memorandum, but Oslo Accords] and the outbreak of war, although former Prime Minister Netanyahu supposedly promised Clinton that he would halt expansion.'
  22. ^ Zeev Maoz Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel's Security & Foreign Policy, University of Michigan Press, 2006 p. 472: 'As can be seen from the table, in 1993 there were about 110,000 settlers in the occupied territories. In 2001 there were 195,000 (Note that the number of settlers increased by 18 percent during the Al Aqsa Intifada). This was an increase of 73 percent'
  23. ^ Marwan Bishara, Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid Zed Books, 2003 p. 133: 'The settlement expansion has continued unabated...and accelerated after the launch of the peace process.' p. 133.
  24. ^ Baylis Thomas, The Dark Side of Zionism: Israel's Quest for Security Through Dominance Lexington Books, 3011 p. 137: "Six years after the agreement there were more Israeli settlements, less freedom of movement, and worse economic conditions." Settlement building and roads for Jewish settlers proceeded at a frenetic pace under Barak – the classic Zionist maneuver of creating of facts on the ground to preclude a Palestinian state.' p. 137.
  25. ^ Barahona, Ana (2013). Bearing Witness: Eight weeks in Palestine. London: Metete. p. 49. ISBN 978-1-908099-02-0.
  26. ^ "Summary of the Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004" (PDF). International Court of Justice. 9 July 2004. p. 10. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 August 2014. Retrieved 9 November 2011.
  27. ^ "fco.gov.uk". Archived from the original on 30 August 2010.
  28. ^ Regarding international organizations and courts of law, see "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 September 2014. Retrieved 1 March 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link); regarding the UN, see UN General Assembly resolution 39/146, 14 December 1984; UN Security Council Resolution 446, 22 March 1979; and International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, para 120; Regarding the European Union position, see The Syrian Golan Archived 3 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  29. ^ "Jerusalem". Peace Now. Archived from the original on 25 April 2023. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  30. ^ "Settlements above the Law: BBC Eye investigates extremist settlers in the West Bank and speaks to the Palestinian families who have been forcibly expelled from their homes". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 12 November 2024. The BBC independently verified the location of 196 outposts established in the occupied West Bank, almost half of them built in the past five years. Documents seen by BBC Eye reveal that some of the settlers, who have established these herding outposts, have been supported by two powerful organisations in Israel. One of these organisations describes itself as "an arm of the Israeli state".
  31. ^ "Growth rate of settlements plummets to all-time low". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 5 September 2021. Archived from the original on 22 April 2023. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  32. ^ "Population". Peace Now. Archived from the original on 11 June 2022. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  33. ^ "Regional Statistics". Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 21 March 2024.
  34. ^ * Gershom Gorenberg (2007). The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967–1977. Macmillan. p. 363. ISBN 978-0-8050-8241-8. So argued the government of Israel before the country's Supreme Court in the spring of 2005, defending its decision to dismantle all Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank.
  35. ^ Robert Cryer, Hakan Friman, Darryl Robinson, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure, Cambridge University Press 2010 p.308
  36. ^ Ghislain Poissonnier, Eric David, 'Israeli Settlements in the West Bank, a War Crime?,' Archived 3 June 2023 at the Wayback Machine Revue des droits de l'homme, 2020.
  37. ^ 'Status of Settlements Under International Law,' Archived 25 August 2020 at the Wayback Machine Amnesty International pp.8,29f.
  38. ^ Stone, Julius (2004). Lacey, Ian (ed.). International Law and the Arab-Israel Conflict: Extracts from "Israel and Palestine Assault on the Law of Nations" by Professor Julius Stone (2nd ed.). Jirlac Publications. ISBN 978-0-975-10730-0.
  39. ^ Byron, Christine (2013). War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-847-79275-4.
  40. ^ "Palestinians condemn settlements plan". The Financial Times. 20 May 2011. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
  41. ^ "OIC Secretary General hails EU decision on Israeli settlements" Archived 2 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine. United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine – OIC Statement to UN. Accessed 14 March 2015.
  42. ^ a b "Israeli settlement plan denounced". BBC. 8 November 2009. Archived from the original on 5 March 2019. Retrieved 16 March 2010.
  43. ^ "Israeli settlements – DW – 07/21/2009". dw.com. Archived from the original on 18 February 2023. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
  44. ^ "Russia's stance on Israeli settlements in West Bank remains unchanged — ministry". TASS. Archived from the original on 18 February 2023. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
  45. ^ "Britain: Israeli settlements are 'illegal' and 'obstacle' to peace". Haaretz. 4 November 2009. Archived from the original on 15 January 2010. Retrieved 16 March 2010.
  46. ^ "France condemns Israel over settlement building decision". Business Standard. 21 March 2014. Archived from the original on 9 July 2018. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  47. ^ "EU's Ashton SAYS Israeli settlement plans hurt peace moves". Reuters. 15 March 2010. Archived from the original on 1 February 2011. Retrieved 16 March 2010.
  48. ^ "UN Security Council Resolution 465". Archived from the original on 19 September 2015.
  49. ^ * "What next for Gaza and West Bank?". BBC. 30 August 2005. Archived from the original on 5 October 2018. Retrieved 5 January 2010. Most Israelis support the pullout, but some feel the government has given in to Palestinian militant groups, and worry that further withdrawals will follow. Palestinian critics point out that Gaza will remain under Israeli control, and that they are being denied a political say in the disengagement process.
    • Yearbook of the United Nations 2005. United Nations Publications. 2007. p. 514. ISBN 978-92-1-100967-5. The Israeli Government was preparing to implement an unprecedented initiative: the disengagement of all Israeli civilians and forces from the Gaza Strip and the dismantling of four settlements in the northern West Bank.[permanent dead link‍]
    • Yael Yishai (1987). Land Or Peace. Hoover Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-8179-8523-3. During 1982 Israel's government stuck to its territorial policy in word and deed. All the settlements in Sinai were evacuated in accordance with the Camp David Accords, but settlement activity in the other territories continued uninterrupted. A few days after the final withdrawal from Sinai had been completed, Begin announced that he would introduce a resolution barring future governments from dismantling settlements, even as a result of peace negotiations.
  50. ^ * Roberts, Adam (1990). "Prolonged Military Occupation: The Israeli-Occupied Territories Since 1967". The American Journal of International Law. 84 (1). American Society of International Law: 85–86. doi:10.2307/2203016. JSTOR 2203016. S2CID 145514740. The international community has taken a critical view of both deportations and settlements as being contrary to international law. General Assembly resolutions have condemned the deportations since 1969, and have done so by overwhelming majorities in recent years. Likewise, they have consistently deplored the establishment of settlements, and have done so by overwhelming majorities throughout the period (since the end of 1976) of the rapid expansion in their numbers. The Security Council has also been critical of deportations and settlements; and other bodies have viewed them as an obstacle to peace, and illegal under international law.
    • Pertile, Marco (2005). "'Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory': A Missed Opportunity for International Humanitarian Law?". In Conforti, Benedetto; Bravo, Luigi (eds.). The Italian Yearbook of International Law. Vol. 14. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 141. ISBN 978-90-04-15027-0. the establishment of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been considered illegal by the international community and by the majority of legal scholars.
    • Barak-Erez, Daphne (2006). "Israel: The security barrier—between international law, constitutional law, and domestic judicial review". International Journal of Constitutional Law. 4 (3). Oxford University Press: 548. doi:10.1093/icon/mol021. The real controversy hovering over all the litigation on the security barrier concerns the fate of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Since 1967, Israel has allowed and even encouraged its citizens to live in the new settlements established in the territories, motivated by religious and national sentiments attached to the history of the Jewish nation in the land of Israel. This policy has also been justified in terms of security interests, taking into consideration the dangerous geographic circumstances of Israel before 1967 (where Israeli areas on the Mediterranean coast were potentially threatened by Jordanian control of the West Bank ridge). The international community, for its part, has viewed this policy as patently illegal, based on the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention that prohibit moving populations to or from territories under occupation.
    • Drew, Catriona (1997). "Self-determination and population transfer". In Bowen, Stephen (ed.). Human rights, self-determination and political change in the occupied Palestinian Territories. International studies in human rights. Vol. 52. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 151–152. ISBN 978-90-411-0502-8. It can thus clearly be concluded that the transfer of Israeli settlers into the occupied territories violates not only the laws of belligerent occupation but the Palestinian right of self-determination under international law. The question remains, however, whether this is of any practical value. In other words, given the view of the international community that the Israeli settlements are illegal under the law if belligerent occupation...
    • International Labour Organization (2005). "The situation of workers of the occupied Arab territories" (PDF). p. 14. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 June 2016. Retrieved 8 January 2012. The international community considers Israeli settlements within the occupied territories illegal and in breach of, inter alia, United Nations Security Council resolution 465 of 1 March 1980 calling on Israel "to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem".
    • Civilian and military presence as strategies of territorial control: The Arab-Israel conflict, David Newman, Political Geography Quarterly Volume 8, Issue 3, July 1989, Pages 215–227
  51. ^ "Jewish settlements no longer illegal – US". 18 November 2019. Archived from the original on 8 December 2019. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
  52. ^ "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announces reversal of Obama-era stance on Israeli settlements". www.cbsnews.com. 18 November 2019. Archived from the original on 18 November 2019. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
  53. ^ Hansler, Jennifer; Britzky, Haley; Judd, Donald (23 February 2024). "Blinken says any expansion of West Bank settlements would be inconsistent with international law | CNN Politics". CNN. Archived from the original on 23 February 2024. Retrieved 23 February 2024.
  54. ^ "Blinken reverses Trump-era policy on Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank". Archived from the original on 23 February 2024. Retrieved 23 February 2024.


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