This paper examines the historical background of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem, analyzing their legal standing under international law and UN resolutions. It discusses the Fourth Geneva Convention and Israel's counterarguments regarding settlement legitimacy, reviews key UN resolutions from 1947–1948, and documents the documented impacts on Palestinian communities including resource disparities, land restrictions, and documented harassment. The paper concludes by exploring potential future solutions, weighing two-state and single-state approaches and the compromises each would require.
Jewish settlements exist in the West Bank, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem. These highly contested communities range in size from small villages to recognized cities. This paper provides an overview of the background on Israeli settlements, examines their legality under international law, reviews relevant UN resolutions, and discusses the impact of settlements on Palestinian populations in the West Bank. It also examines the preferential treatment settlements receive compared to Palestinian communities and explores potential approaches for addressing settlements in the future.
Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank have existed for thousands of years. As documented, "In Hebron, the Jewish community existed throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule, until the massacre during the Arab rioting of 1929." In the West Bank, formerly known as Judea and Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, Jewish communities existed until Arab armies forced the population to flee during the 1948 War of Independence. Some settlements were established by the British Mandatory Administration, including Neve Ya'acov and the Gush Etsion block.
The British Mandatory Administration, implementing a League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, permitted Israelis to form settlements west of the Jordan River. Article 6 of the mandate stated that the Administration of Palestine should "facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands not required for public use." The British government used this mandate to establish both a framework for Jewish settlement and, separately, to establish Jordan as an Arab state. Jordan later annexed the areas formerly known as Judea and Samaria, renaming them the West Bank.
Israel pursued settlements in these areas for multiple reasons. Beyond the desire to reestablish historical and religious ties to land considered the cradle of their faith, Israel viewed settlements as strategically important for national defense against potential attacks from Jordan, Syria, and Egypt.
Palestinians have opposed Jewish settlements, viewing them as an attempt to undermine Palestinian sovereignty. For years, peace negotiations have included proposals for building freezes on settlements. However, these efforts have faced significant obstacles. In 2005, while Israel withdrew settlers from the Gaza Strip, it increased the settler presence in other areas. Under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Israeli government supported the establishment of multiple unauthorized outposts, further complicating the situation.
By 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought Cabinet support for a 90-day construction moratorium. In September 2010, Israel ended a 10-month construction moratorium, prompting Palestinians to suspend peace talks. The United States intervened, offering to sell 20 stealth fighter jets to Israel and to block UN anti-Israel resolutions if Israel would agree to renew the moratorium. However, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party opposed the freeze, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the moratorium because it applied only to the West Bank and not to East Jerusalem.
As of March 2010, there were 121 Jewish settlements in addition to 102 illegally built Israeli outposts. Approximately 462,000 Israelis lived in these settlements: 191,000 in settlements around Jerusalem and 271,400 throughout the West Bank. The Jewish population growth rate in settlements has been four to six percent per year over the last two decades, significantly higher than Israel's overall population growth rate of 1.5 percent. Recently, 9,000 additional housing units were approved in East Jerusalem. Although buildings occupy less than three percent of the West Bank, roadways and restrictions on Palestinian access expand Israeli settlement control to approximately 40 percent of the area.
The determination of settlement legality often depends on which side of the argument is being considered. In 1917, Lord Balfour conveyed to Lord Rothschild, a leading member of the Zionist Federation, that the British government favored establishing a national home for Jewish people in Palestine, provided this would not interfere with the religious and civil rights of existing non-Jewish persons in Palestine.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the legal right of Jewish settlements is based on the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. The MFA insists that Jewish settlements in these areas have existed for more than a thousand years, with only the Jordanian occupation (lasting 19 years) prohibiting them. Under Jordanian law, "the sale of land to Jews (was) a capital offense." The MFA argues that "the right of Jews to establish homes in these areas, and the legal titles to the land which had been acquired, could not be legally invalidated by the Jordanian or Egyptian occupation which resulted from their armed invasion of Israel in 1948, and such rights and titles remain valid to this day."
Opponents of Jewish settlements cite Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the forcible transfer of citizens of one state to another state through armed force. Drafted after World War II with commentary by the International Red Cross, this article was intended to protect local populations from displacement, as occurred with forced transfers in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. The MFA, however, contends that Jewish settlements are fundamentally different.
The MFA cites former Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Professor Eugene Rostow, who stated, "the Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there." The MFA argues that the key difference between the situations addressed in the Geneva Convention and Jewish settlements lies in their voluntary nature. Jewish settlers chose to return to the area where their forefathers originally lived and had been displaced from. Therefore, the settlements do not constitute forced relocations. Additionally, Israel argues that when settlements were first established, the land was not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state nor under private ownership. The Israeli Supreme Court, according to the MFA, performs exhaustive investigations to ensure no authorized settlements are founded on private Arab land, thereby preventing Arab displacement.
The MFA concludes that claims of settlement illegality are motivated by politics rather than international law, and that characterizing settlements as "grave violations" of the Geneva Convention or "war crimes" is baseless and does not justify Palestinian violent responses. The MFA summarizes its position: "Israel has valid claims to title in this territory based not only on its historic and religious connection to the land, and its recognized security needs, but also on the fact that the territory was not under the sovereignty of any state and came under Israeli control in a war of self-defense, imposed upon Israel."
As the predecessor of the United Nations, the League of Nations passed several mandates affecting Jewish settlements. The first was the French Mandate for Syria. In 1919, at the Paris Peace Conference, Dr. Weizmann, representing Zionist interests, and Emir Feisal, representing Arab interests, met and agreed to support a new Jewish home based on Arab aspirations in Syria. However, the French Mandate awarded Syria to France, and Feisal withdrew his support for the Zionist project.
The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922 further affected Jewish settlements. This mandate granted Great Britain legislative and administrative control of Palestine, concurred with the Balfour Declaration, and came out in favor "of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The mandate recognized a historical connection between the Jewish people and Palestine as the basis for reconstituting a national home. Article 2 charged Britain with placing the country "under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion."
In 1947, the question of Palestine came before the United Nations General Assembly. The eleven-member Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was formed, and the majority recommended dividing Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem awarded special international status.
On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (III), the Plan of Partition with Economic Union. This resolution included a four-part document covering the termination of the Palestine Mandate, progressive withdrawal of British forces, and border creation between the Arab state, Jewish state, and Jerusalem. The creation of Arab and Jewish states was to be completed by October 1, 1948. Palestine would be divided into eight parts: three for the Arab state, three for the Jewish state, one for the town of Jaffa as an Arab enclave within the Jewish state, and one for the international city of Jerusalem to be administered by the UN Trusteeship Council. The plan also addressed citizenship, economic union, transit, access to holy places, and established mechanisms for implementation. The Jewish Agency accepted the resolution; however, the Palestinian Arabs and Arab States did not.
By 1948, the UN Security Council determined the situation was a threat to peace and ordered a ceasefire. On December 11, 1948, Resolution 194 (III) was adopted to address the Palestine problem. The resolution declared that refugees wishing to return to their homes should be permitted to do so and live in peace, and that compensation should be given to property owners not wishing to return. The resolution also ordered demilitarization and internationalization of Jerusalem, guaranteed free access to holy places, and established a three-member UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine to assist the parties in achieving a final settlement.
Although Jewish settlers assert their right to settle based on history and international declarations and mandates, Palestinians in the area experience significant negative effects. In Hebron, a city sacred to Jews, Muslims, and Christians as the burial site of Abraham, the persecution of Palestinians has become routine. Jewish settlers and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) protecting them have violently harassed and antagonized Palestinians in the area.
Documented accounts describe the situation in Hebron's "open-air" market in the Old City. Israeli settlers inhabit the second and third floors of buildings from which Palestinian families had been evicted years earlier. From these vantage points, they hurl rocks, debris, buckets of scalding oil, boiling water, and excrement onto Palestinians and their goods below. The metal grate "roof" constructed by Palestinians offers some protection from larger objects but not from liquids. In early August, volunteers witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces entering the marketplace not to protect shopkeepers and customers, but to beat several shop owners and weld the doors to their stalls shut, effectively evicting Palestinians from their workplaces.
Other reported incidents include harassment by gangs of boys shouting, "Visa! Visa! No Arabs!" and Palestinians being told by IDF personnel that if they continued down the street they might be shot by Jewish settlers. At Israeli checkpoints present in every West Bank city, an Arab-American member of a delegation had his camera smashed by an IDF soldier for carrying photographs of Jewish settlements. This pattern of treatment, combined with violent attacks on Jewish settlers by Palestinian residents, perpetuates the cycle of conflict and remains one reason the two parties have not achieved a peaceful resolution despite efforts by the United Nations and other nations.
"Bypass roads, water consumption gaps, and agricultural land loss"
"Analysis of implementation challenges for proposed settlement resolutions"
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