Facing Failure, Messianic Settlers Turn to Violence

The recent attack by settlers on the Palestinian village of Jit, located in the area around Qalqilya and Nablus, is yet another terrible reminder of the folly of the settler movement. Messianic, extreme, increasingly violent after its victory in the 2022 Elections, and with basically no international response worth the paper written on; one might be inclined to believe that this means the settlers have won.

But I have a different take. Having embarked on an utterly ludicrous scheme to permanently alter the demography of the West Bank, which, aside from obvious violations of international law, was never going to succeed anyway-the settlers realize they risk losing, and have known this for a long time. It’s for this reason, more than anything else, that they have become more dangerous than ever.

Let us backtrack. What do we mean by whether settlers have succeeded or failed in their enterprise? Well, the chief political purpose of the settler enterprise was to ensure that the Jewish population of the West Bank reached such a critical mass, and in the correct places, that it would prevent any possible territorial compromise. This was true of so-called security settlements-Israel’s designs on the Jordan Valley and the corridor between Modi’in, Jerusalem, and Gush Etzion informed the Allon Plan of 1968-and of the messianic settlements like Kiryat Arba, Ofra, Kedumim and Elon Moreh that have spread deep inside the West Bank and its population centers.

The Failure to Change the West Bank’s Demography

The critical question then is, has this reached a point where it renders a territorial compromise impossible? Some will argue ‘yes’ because of the sheer raw numbers. But by historic standards of deciding a stable border, the question has always been about proportions and not raw numbers. And in any case, it would be legitimate to propose settlers stay put. The Palestinians actually proposed as much in the Annapolis negotiations in April 2008. And as I will explain, if not for the generous financing from Israel, the settlement enterprise would be a wash. To assess whether the settlement movement has succeeded in this goal, one needs to decide on the following parameters:

(1) Have the settlers irrevocably altered the demography of large regions of the West Bank in a way that renders any territorial compromise impossible?
(2) Have settlers fundamentally entrenched themselves in the West Bank so their relocation would mean the destruction of their livelihoods?

Let us deal with the first question. No, settlements have not irrevocably changed the West Bank’s demography. This is in part because, however high the settlement population growth, it is no match for the Palestinian population. A metric for this is the population of Area C, which as part of ‘stabilization’, former Prime Minister (and certain future political entrant) Naftali Bennett seeks to annex. The reality is that as of 2017, the population of Area C is around 300,000. There is no precise number around today, but reliable estimates quoted by the T-Politography team for the Jerusalem Post suggest it stands at around 354,000 today. It would be reasonable to suggest that given the rate of population growth, this number could be higher today. Some naysayers say this figure is “actually” just 50-80,000. But this is false. Around 2% of Area C includes built-up Palestinian area from cities in Areas A and B, which when accounted for, greatly increase the population of Palestinians therein.

As such, the demography of Area C is now markedly different. Whereas in 2011, the number of Palestinians ranged (depending on whether you included the urban built-up area) between 70,000 and 150,000; today, it is at least twice-and possibly over five times-as much, while the settler population has grown by around two-thirds (in other words, only by a third of the rate of Palestinian population growth). And this is despite record funding, record building, eye-watering expenses on by-pass roads for settlers that remain essentially unused, and all the international condemnation it has elicited.

Nor have the settlements altered the demography in clear, logically contiguous ways. In none of the Palestinian Governorates except for the Jerusalem Governorate is the Jewish population greater than the Palestinian population. Indeed, in the Hebron area and the northern governorates, Palestinians constitute well over 95% of the population. And in the Jerusalem Governorate, the ‘majority’ would include the 235,000 settlers in East Jerusalem and perhaps 60,000 in Givat Ze’ev and Ma’ale Adumim alone (let alone adjacent settlements), most of whom were included in the Palestinians’ own proposed land swaps in 2008. It is true that settlements east of the separation barrier have grown in size and number, but by no where as much as the Palestinian population. While the relocation of 180-250,000 Israeli settlers as part of most agreed visions of a realistic border will prove difficult, the idea of annexing all of Area C is nigh impossible.

The settlers are also essentially entirely tied to Israel for economic reasons. No settlement provides any economic value: none of the farms or vineyards come close to sustaining the livelihoods necessary for settlements, unless you’re talking about some individual outpost (which is anyway, against Israeli law!). In the settlements proximate to the Green Line like Har Adar and Givat Ze’ev, most settlers are employed in Israel proper. In settlements deeper inside the West Bank, there are somewhat more locally-employed settlers, but they tend to work disproportionately in education. And most settlers in areas like Eli and Tel Zion are orthodox and receive generous state subsidies. Land cultivation is inefficient and ineffective; a very small fraction of Area C is privately-held Jewish land. Forget withdrawing from settlements, if their budgets were extinguished, the government imposed the same tax on settlers as on the rest of Israel, and stopped spending billions of shekels on useless industrial parks and settlement construction, the settler movement crumbles.

What this means.

The settler movement has had decades to try and irreversibly alter the West Bank’s demography and has failed. The only lever they have is their violent rejection of any possibility of relocation. The fear instilled in Israelis’ minds regarding the chaotic disengagements and the threat of civil war, combined with antipathy for the peace process since 2009 have done magnificent political work for the settlements enterprise. But the memory of 2005 will never quite leave. Let us not forget, Ariel Sharon was one of the fathers of the settler movement. The idea that one of their own would withdraw settlers seemed unacceptable. And, of course, in 2013-4 Benjamin Netanyahu embarked on two-state solutions negotiations. While those talks proved little better than a sick joke, it was evident that Israel ‘risked’ leaving much of what they viewed as promised land. The failure of the peace process helped solve one half of their problem-Israeli public opinion-so now they needed to work on the second: ensuring that through violence, there will never be a solution.

If one wants Israel to be a Jewish state and keep the territories, there are only two possible ways of accomplishing this: (1) the Palestinians must be expelled or made to forcibly leave; or (2) they should be made to accept permanent third- or even fourth-class status, evoking ideas of Rhodesia and South Africa in the age of apartheid rather than a modern, liberal democracy. To achieve the latter ‘put up or shut up’ attitude (or, indeed, to force Palestinians off their land), the settlers attack Palestinian villages. To be sure, some of them attack the villages because of insecurities and fear of dispossession, and some because of reprisals. Both still do not excuse the inexcusable. But the signs are obvious: Ben-Gvir has been arming the settlers, and settler violence essentially goes unpunished for the most part. This accelerationism, evidenced by the consistent pattern of rising settler violence of magnitudes more egregious and horrific than before, is designed to ignite a conflict. And perhaps this may even result in the long-foretold War of Gog and Magog.

In other words, all this is a basic recognition of the reality that settlement in the territories will not drive the Palestinians into either minority status or into self-governing enclaves; only violence and forced displacement would. To guarantee this further, settlers embarked on a far-reaching program to alter the DNA of Israel altogether: the judicial coup, threats to strip institutions of their freedom, attacks on aid convoys headed for Gaza etc. all ensure they can act with impunity. Ensure that the pesky civil service, diplomats, security chiefs etc. do not warn that this will lead to what is already going on: Israel’s conversion into a leper state. Shut down all opposition by destroying civil society, preventing the Supreme Court from making what sparing rulings they do to protect Palestinian private land, and so on.

The bad news is that settler violence has received the bare minimum of pushback from Israeli leaders and society. Not even Isaac Herzog, who himself has supported a two-state solution in the past, could cobble much more than a sorry statement stating the settler attacks didn’t reflect law-abiding settlers. Apparently showing sympathy for the victims of such violence and their struggles is unacceptable. And the even worse news is that while most Israelis will rightly condemn this settler violence, most do not draw the line to understand that this is all part of a broader plan that will destroy any vestige of morality, legitimacy, and legality to Israel as a state.

The clock is ticking. As Ehud Olmert sagely warned, the Hilltop Youth and far-right will not stop with the Palestinians. They will come after anyone who deviates from their plans. And in all this, their allies in elected office will do as much as possible to publicly support this madness. Israel’s liberal camp must recognise the line between the Palestinians’ suffering and the settler movements broad ambitions for Israel, as made obvious in the ongoing efforts at a judicial coup. Apathy because of the traumas of 2005 and the collapse of past peace negotiations cannot and must not be justifications for silence. It’s often the case that the realization only dawns on liberals five minutes past midnight. Given the urgency of the situation, they should live and act as if there are only sixty seconds left.