Resettling the West Bank Settlers
| DOI | 10.1177/002070201106600423 |
| Date | 01 December 2011 |
| Author | Brent E. Sasley,Mira Sucharov |
| Published date | 01 December 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Over the Transom |
| International Journal | Autumn 2011 | 999 |
Brent E. Sasley
& Mira Sucharov
Resettling the West
Bank settlers
In countering the view that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is intractable,
Israeli writer Amos Oz has famously described it as one over “real estate.”1
Surely he was applying a clever riff on the basic concept of territory—on
which so much of geopolitics rests. And in part there is the simple question
of urban sprawl, where homes in the settlements cost one third or even one
quarter of what an equivalent-sized house or apartment would run in Israel’s
urban centres.2 But it is also broader and deeper. In invoking the importance
of how public space is conceived, the real estate metaphor fills in an important
part of the story between reaching an agreement at the bargaining table and
Mira Sucharov is associate professor of political science and assistant dean in the faculty of
public affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa. She is the author of The International Self:
Psychoanalysis and the Search for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (SUNY Press, 2005) and her
blog appears in haaretz.com. Brent E. Sasley is assistant professor of political science at the
University of Texas at Arlington. He blogs on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and diaspora-
Israeli relations for the Huffington Post. For helpful comments on earlier drafts, we would
like to thank Adina Friedman, two anonymous reviewers, and especially Ron Hassner.
1 Amos Oz, How to Cure a Fanatic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
2 See Ilene R. Prusher, “West Bank settlements become havens of Israeli suburbanites,”
Christian Science Monitor, 21 September 2009, 3, www.csmonitor.com.
| 1000 | Autumn 2011 | International Journal |
| Brent E. Sasley & Mira Sucharov |
eventually having to ratify it at home. This becomes clear as we consider the
long history of breakdowns in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Part of
the explanation is the failure of each side to let go of maximalist positions
out of fear of alienating segments of their domestic support base. In the
case of Israel, the government’s inability to deal effectively with the Jewish
settlements in the West Bank is among the thorniest problems.3
The Israeli government has no choice but to account for the demands
of the settler population. They number in the hundreds of thousands;
have sympathizers among the broader population, including state leaders;
and themselves occupy decision-making positions in the civil service and
the Israeli armed forces.4 Without understanding the dynamics of settler
identity, observers cannot provide workable ideas for inching Israelis and
Palestinians toward a final agreement.
Thinking about how collective identity influences the view of public
space, this article starts from the assumption that, while it is certainly not
inevitable, a two-state solution is the most likely arrangement on which
both sides will reach agreement.5 It follows that to make way for a likely
Palestinian state in the West Bank, the Israeli government will have to move
tens of thousands of settlers across the green line into Israel.6 Though
3 Good discussions of the origins of the settlement enterprise and the inherent
difficulties Israel has had in dealing with settlers include Gershom Gorenberg, The
Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 (New York: Times
Books, 2006); and Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel’s
Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007 (New York: Nation Books, 2007).
4 Oded Haklai, “Religious-nationalist mobilization and state penetration: Lessons
from Jewish settlers’ activism in Israel and the West Bank,” Comparative Political
Studies 40, no.6 (June 2007): 713-39; Zertal and Eldar, Lords of the Land.
5 This assumption forms the bedrock of all official Israeli-Palestinian negotiations,
as well as the reports of a number of nongovernmental organizations. Others have
certainly offered alternate arrangements, including a one-state solution without any
narrow ethnic-religious-national identity. See, for example, Virginia Tilley, The One-
State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 2010). This is a minority position to which Israel has
never given any credibility.
6 This has been the conclusion of both official government peace talks (e.g., at Camp
David 2000 and Taba 2001) and track-two diplomacy (e.g., the Geneva initiative
announced in 2003, www.geneva-accord.org; Mark Heller and Sari Nusseibeh, No
Trumpets, No Drums: A Two-State Settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict [New
York: Hill and Wang, 1991]; and the “people’s voice,” launched in 2003, www.mifkad.
org.il).
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