Why does Israel keep building settlements in the West
Bank and East Jerusalem?
The reasons behind the state’s expansion policies despite negative international public opinion
Irene Campmany Canes - 11249234
Master Thesis Political Science – International Relations Supervisor: Dr Seiki Tanaka
Second Reader: Dr Beste Isleyen June 2017
Acknowledgments
This project would not be a reality without the people that have accompanied me through this challenging journey. Special thanks to my inspiring interviewees for sharing their thoughts and opinions with me, as well as helping me understand the nuances of the settlements issue. Many thanks to my supervisor Dr Seiki Tanaka for his guidance and advice, and to Dr Beste Isleyen for taking the time to be the second reader of this thesis. To my nine talismans and my family, thank you for keeping me sane along the process.
COVER IMAGES: Palestinian Protest next to a settlement – Thomas Oex (Getty Images), Jewish man walks on the street in Jerusalem – Peter Marlow (Magnum), A view of Temple Mount – Marc Israel Sellem (The Jerusalem Post), A Palestinian wearing a Keffiyeh – Google images
Table of contents
1. Introduction ……….. 4
2. Theoretical Framework ...……… 7
2.1 Public opinion literature ………... 7
2.1.1 What is public opinion? ………... 7
2.1.2 Domestic public opinion’s impact on foreign policy………... 8
2.1.3 International public opinion……….. 10
2.1.4 Why should Israel care about international public opinion? ……… 12
2.1.5 Shift of forces……… 13
2.1.6 Materialisation of Israel’s bad reputation……… 14
2.2 Context of the conflict……….. 16
2.2.1 History ………. 16
2.2.2 West Bank ……… 16
2.2.3 East Jerusalem ………. 17
3. Research Design ………. 18
3.1 Methodology ……… 18
3.2 Justification and case selection ………... 20
4. Argument ……… 21
4.1 Zionist narrative and claim for land ……….. 21
4.2 US-Israel bilateral relationship ……….. 22
4.3 Defence industry exports ………... 23
4.4 Securitisation discourse ……….. 24
5. Analysis ………... 25
6. Conclusions and Discussion ………. 34
6.1 Conclusions ……….. 34
6.2 Limitations ………... 35
6.3 Further Research ……….. 36
Bibliography ……….. 37
1. Introduction
Israel is a country that generates strong feelings and triggers love or hate in public de-bates. Supporters often argue that Jewish population have always been victims of prose-cution and they finally deserve to settle in their Home Land: Israel. Detractors believe that Israel is a questionable democracy that oppresses the Palestinians, the native popu-lation that inhabited the region before the official creation of the state in 1948.
Leaving aside the ideological preferences of the issue, the state of Israel has been contro-versial since its inception. This is primarily due to its management of the conflict with the Palestinians, often under public scrutiny for Human Rights violations. The main con-troversial aspects are the differences between both parties in terms of living conditions and the unequal access to resources (Sa’di, 2002).
Israel’s reputation has been a recurrent topic explored by polling organisations and re-searchers. As the conflict has carried on over the years, people have had the opportunity to develop their own views about the conflict, especially due to the mediatisation of its developments. This argument is confirmed by Potter and Baum when they argue that the longer a conflict lasts, the smaller the gap of knowledge between elites and citizens is because the more information people have, the bigger the possibility is for them to hold solid opinions about international events (Baum and Potter, 2007; 44-45).
Israel is the fourth most unpopular country in the world according to the last BBC poll of citizens conducted in 20131, scoring lower than previous years. The global results
indicate that 52% of respondents had a negative view, whereas only 20% had a positive opinion about Israel. The remaining 28% had a neutral/neither opinion about the state. People in Egypt, Turkey, UK, Spain, Indonesia, Canada and France view Israel more negatively. At the other side of the spectrum, the US, Ghana and Kenya lean towards the positive view, although the results are quite divided, especially in the case of the African states (Annex 1).
Low public support towards Israel’s policies was also visible in a poll commissioned by the European Union in 20032, where Israel was ranked as the greatest threat for peace in
the world (Euro barometer, 2003) scoring higher than North Korea and Iran.
1 The BBC World service poll elaborated in partnership with Globe Scan interviewed citizens from 33
coun-tries spread among the 5 continents. The interviews were face-to-face or through the phone. To see the over-view of countries that participated and the size of the samples, check the methodology section in the Globe Scan website.
2 The study captured the perception of citizens of 15 EU Member States towards Israel. To see an overview
Respondents from the Netherlands and Austria where the ones that had a stronger unfavourable opinion towards Israel (Annex 2).
These findings are supported by the Anholt Nation Brands Index (NBI)3, which confirms
Israel as the worst brand in the world and the most negatively rated in the history of the index.
In the case of Israel, its bad reputation has been followed by the UN resolution against the Israeli settlements in December 2016, where the measure was passed by the Security Council unanimously, due to the abstention of the US. It was the first time in 40 years that the international body approved a critical measure against the settlements (Dreazen, 2016). However, this global opposition has not been translated into strong political measures that force Israel to stop the occupation.
Looking at these poll results and seeing that Israel continues using the same methods of dealing with the conflict can initially suggest that a country’s image abroad is not important enough to be taken into account. However, extensive literature links third countries’ domestic public opinion with their foreign policy decisions towards other states, in this case Israel. At the same time, international reputation will determine the state’s success in the modern economy (Anholt, 2010; 4).
States care about their reputation abroad and Israel is no different to the rest in this sense. In fact, international public opinion has been a matter of concern for Israeli officials and scholars for a long time. In 2013, the Israeli Government created a Ministry of Hasbara, or public diplomacy, as part of the Foreign Ministry, in order to improve Israel’s international image (Aouragh, 2016: 279). However, these efforts have not stopped the negative reputation of Israel outside its borders. Several scholars (Gilboa, 2006; Aouragh, 2016) highlight that Israel’s image internationally has deteriorated since the Second Intifada in September 2000 due to the high impact of a graphic media coverage with explicit images of the battlefield and personal testimonies (Aouragh, 2016).
This thesis will explore the factors that by-pass international reputation and allow Israel to continue encroaching upon Palestinian territory. Due to the complexity and long
3 Authored by political advisor Simon Anholt and powered by global market intelligence solutions provider
GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.), the Index surveyed 25,903 online consumers across 35 countries about their perceptions of those countries across six areas of national competence: Investment and Immigration, Ex-ports, Culture and Heritage, People, Governance and Tourism. The NBI is the first analytical ranking of the world’s nation brands.
timeline of the conflict, this study will specifically focus on one of the corner stones of the Middle Eastern conflict: the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The main argument of this paper is the notion that foreign public opinion is important, the benefits Israel gets from building settlements are higher than the reputational costs it pays. This means there are other factors which play a more decisive role than international public opinion in defining Israel’s settlement policies. This paper will unveil the factors that the state sells to the world and its domestic public opinion to perpetuate the expansion into Palestinian territories. Therefore, the study focuses its efforts on answering the following research question:
What are the factors that lead Israel to continue building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, despite negative international public opinion?
To do so, this thesis will develop as follows: first, I will conduct a theoretical overview of public opinion both at domestic and international level and its importance. Then, I will proceed to explain the historical context of the conflict between Israel and Palestine focusing on the settlements. Next, the argument will be identified, as well as the variables that answer the research question and the methods used to reach the conclusions. Finally, I will proceed to the analysis of the results, the conclusions, the limitations and possible future paths for research.
2. Theoretical Framework
2.1 Public Opinion literature 2.1.1 What is public opinion?
This paper will highlight the relevance of international public opinion in times of con-flict, especially when the ones making judgements about the confronted parties are de-mocracies. However, in the case of Israel and Palestine, as mentioned before, there are other stronger variables that also play a decisive role in perpetuating the conflict. Before reaching that step, however, it is important to analyse basic questions of the public opin-ion debate, such as its definitopin-ions and the factors that shape it.
Public opinion is defined as an “aggregate of individual views, attitudes and beliefs about a particular topic, expressed by a significant proportion of a community” (Da-vison, 2017). Walter Lippmann, one of the key figures in the study of public opinion in the 20th century, defined it as a “moralised and codified version of the facts” that help
people understand the world and the way we perceive them (Lippmann: 1922; 45). There are many factors that influence public opinion, such as beliefs, educational back-ground, personal experience and the environment we live in. However, media is the most important factor for Lippmann and the majority of the Mass Communication the-orists (Lasswell, 1970; Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955; Noelle-Neumann, 1984) who see the me-dia as the central generator of public opinion, especially in shaping foreign policy op-tions. Citizens rely on media to understand international policy because most of them lack access to first-hand information and understanding of international events, which are by nature more complex and less accessible (Bloch-Elkon, 2007). However, the role of the media varies depending on the body of literature that we look at. Traditionally, from a political science perspective, mass media has always had a passive messenger function that transports mainstream views, mainly those from the powerful elites, to the public without interpreting them (Bennett and Paletz, 1994; Bloch and Lehman-Wilzing, 2002). Nevertheless, political communication literature suggests that media can act as gatekeepers (White, 1950), by shaping news and determining its importance in a certain mediated context.
The definition of public opinion is widely accepted; however, it has changed over the years, especially with the evolution of methods for measuring it, which have been ap-plied to politics, commerce, activism or religion (Davison, 2017). Opinion research has mainly been studied through global polls conducted by institutes of public opinion such as Gallup or Eurobarometer.
Polls are effective to measure “what” or “how much” but they lack depth if the need is to find out the “how” or the “why” of an issue (Davidson, 2017), as is the case for this
research project. Academic literature shows that Israel has negative international reputation through opinion polls. However, this does not explain the reasons behind those perceptions, as well as why people believe Israel carries on with its actions towards Palestinians despite the low international support.
2.1.2 Domestic public opinion’s impact on foreign policy
This study is written based on the assumption that international public opinion matters to democratic states and has an impact on the formation of their foreign policies (Putman, 1988; Tomz, 2007) in this case towards Israel. However, it is also recognised that there are other factors which play a more relevant role. To prove that international public opinion is relevant for Israel, we first need to observe the dynamics of public opinion at a state level. This is because national leaders will look at their domestic public opinion to shape their foreign policy decisions. Therefore, what domestic public opinion from third countries think about Israel would likely influence the way these governments build relationships with Israel.
Public opinion has been a deeply studied topic among scholars. Most efforts have traditionally been focused upon examining how citizens’ attitudes have had an influence on national leaders’ approach to public policy making. The findings clearly state that there is a strong relationship between governmental actions and citizens’ opinion (Baum and Potter, 2007; Page and Shapiro, 1983; Burstein, 2006) but its impact can vary depending on the relevance of the issue at stake. Burstein (2006) argues that survey organisations tend to focus on salient issues and not ask about less important questions. According to the author, it is on relevant issues where opinion is most likely to affect political decisions.
But does the same apply to foreign policy? Do foreign policy perceptions influence the way countries behave towards others? Historically, scholars were convinced that public opinion towards foreign policy was unreasoned and lacked consistency. Researchers such as Almond (1950) and Lippmann (1955) even defined public opinion towards foreign events as capricious and irrational as well as a dangerous influence for foreign policy decisions. During that time, US scholars even highlighted the inability of Americans to properly answer survey questions related to international relations (Campbell et al, 1960). It was widely believed that foreign policy perceptions were irrelevant in affecting political choices, because the issues at stake were too far removed from people’s everyday lives. Issues such as the economy and national politics were likely to have more impact, as they touched people directly. As Gelpi et al (2007) explain: it was unreasonable to think that what happened beyond US borders would have influence on American electoral choices. The Korean and Vietnam Wars and the
opposition of public opinion began to contradict previous assumptions. The results of new studies (Verba et al, 1967; Achen, 1975; Caspary, 1970) agreed with the perception of the public as rational entities able to have solid views.
A third wave of scholars, led by Page and Shapiro (1988), were the first ones not only to empirically prove that the public had the capacity to form attitudes on foreign policy performance, but that these perceptions had an unequivocal impact on political behaviour and were able to shape foreign policies. In democratic systems, this interconnection can be explained by citizens voting behaviour in the sense that “the public is able to develop and hold coherent views on foreign policy, that citizens can and do apply their attitudes to their electoral decision and that this leads politicians to consider electoral implications of their overseas activities” (Baum and Potter, 2007 in Aldrich et al (2006).
In his research, Tomz (2007) specifically explores this issue and concludes that in democracies, public approval is viewed as an asset and disapproval as a political cost. In times of elections, judgements about foreign policy are as important as other national matters. Therefore, they represent a key component of a candidate’s approval ratings and, eventually, a thermometer to measure the president’s popularity and his/her capacity to retain office. This is why political leaders view disapproval as a political liability and pay detailed attention to their reputation (Tomz, 2007: 832).
Aldrich et al (2006) have a similar view and say that foreign approval ratings will shape national elections as long as two factors are accomplished. Firstly, the public needs to have access to their attitudes in an electoral context: that means that policy-making elites and media have to present the different options. Secondly, voters need to have enough different foreign policy alternatives to choose the one closer to their values.
Some empirical examples of the domestic audience having an impact on foreign policy decisions strengthen the argument. Some of them are captured in several research findings that suggest that public opinion influenced the approach of the US towards Nicaragua, Iraq, Somalia (Baum and Potter, 2007: 44), not to forget the impact of mass media and people’s resistance against the Vietnam War (Shapiro and Page, 1988: 234). The link between national and international politics and the tensions derived from it were acknowledged by Putman with his “Two level game” model. He argues that national democratic political leaders, at the international level, seek to maximise their own ability to satisfy domestic pressures while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreign developments (Putman, 1988: 434). At the end of the day, leaders owe themselves to national voters, who in the end will decide if they continue to stay in power or not.
Therefore, any leader who fails to satisfy his fellow players at the domestic table risks being evicted from his seat (Putman, 1988: 434). This is why leaders that have a special interest in being re-elected pay more attention to public opinion in foreign policy matters. Sometimes, when national security is not at stake, national leaders decide to keep their foreign policy decisions ‘private’, so as not to disrupt the domestic audience. However, this approach will likely punish them in the long term, especially in electoral periods (Baum, 2004). This argument would therefore follow Fearon’s (1994) thinking, in the sense that theoretically domestic audience costs could reduce the likelihood of international conflict.
2.1.3 International public opinion
The section above has explained how domestic public opinion plays a determinant role in foreign policy making in democratic states, so it is easier to understand the perception other countries have of Israel; an image that is not always translated into political decisions. This follows the argument of the study, because it sustains that international public opinion is one of the variables that may trigger political decisions, but there are others that often play a stronger role (Rusciano, 1998).
Professor Frank Rusciano created the world opinion theory to refer to the general consensus among informed and interested individuals around the world beyond their borders and national identities (Davidson, 2017). The term is often used as a synonym of international public opinion in academic literature and presents methodological constraints as I will explain below. This thesis will always use the concept of international public opinion to ensure consistency in the wording.
The idea arose during the Cold War era, a period that disrupted the world order as it was understood before and opened up a new paradigm of international relations. According to Crothers and Rusciano (1998), this period was characterised by the creation of a consensus regarding acceptable behaviour in the international system, that all leaders were implicitly pushed to follow. If one did ignore the international consensus, his/her country was exposed to face international isolation in various ways. Their findings matter in two ways: On one hand, they imply the existence of an international community beyond states where actions matter (Hill, 1996: 117) and where leaders interact. This is an assumption that follows the constructivist perception of the world. In that sense, the notion of the public as a defined group of people moves to the conception of a global public as a set of relationships between nations, rather than just a relationship among citizens’ perceptions only within one country (Rusciano, 1998: 14). Such an idea, immediately clashed with the realist approach that there is no such a thing as world
opinion and the concept is invented by powerful elites that want to use it for their own objectives (Hill, 1996: 112). Following this criticism, Hans Morgenthau called it ‘a general sentiment’ but not something that could define national foreign policies (Hill, 1996: 112). On the other hand, Crothers’ and Rusciano’s conclusion matters to the extent that it shows that international public opinion is relevant. International Relations cannot actually be understood without the perception that, in contrast with realism, opinions can be expressed beyond the state boundaries. Christopher Hill recognises that there is a strong interdependence between state power and world opinion but the concept is used in a convenient way: Politicians talk about world opinion as something when it is not a constraint of their own actions and when can be mobilised against others (Hill, 1996: 114).
The development of new technologies, social media and the rise of international media as sources of information have been a major force for the development and rise of world opinion (Davison, 2017). What before was a matter of national concern, nowadays it easily becomes a public matter globally, through international media outlets and international political structures such as the UN or the EU (Rusciano, 1998: 30). International public opinion has not been measured by academics in vast studies. However, it is often materialised in polls conducted by organisations charged with the measuring of people’s perceptions, such as Eurobarometer in the EU or Gallup in the US. International public opinion has been criticised for being imprecise, as according to its detractors it lacks specific state boundaries, audience characteristics or shared culture. They argue that global polls, which are the tools to measure it, have methodological flaws. They mainly focus on urban areas and target elites; therefore, the existing methodology fails to measure global opinion because it risks missing the vision of large parts of the population. However, Rusciano’s research suggests that the power of international public opinion is relevant. The main effect is that it implies that countries shape their actions in foreign policy in order to strengthen or maintain their reputation in the world, as they fear international isolation (Davison, 2017). Ultimately, this may compel a nation, in this case Israel, to change its behaviour to align with other nations’ opinions or at least force its leaders to consider international public opinion in their actions and policies (Rusciano, 2016: 4).
2.1.4 Why should Israel care about international public opinion?
The previous sections explain why countries care (or should care) about their image abroad. National reputation is a concept strictly related to international public opinion as it enables or disables a proper environment in which nations pursue their national objectives in the international arena depending on what other nations think about them.
The use of this concept as an indicator, represents a reliable way to predict its future behaviour (Wang, 2006: 91).
National reputation is, therefore, an instrument of power and its management will undoubtedly define the relationships that a state has with other international partners and countries. According to the Reputation’s Institute Report of 2016, the main benefits of strong international reputation are: more foreign investment, increase in exports, attraction of knowledge and talent, better public diplomacy and an increase in tourism. A country’s reputation is basically the opinion of a nation according to foreign publics (Wang, 2006: 91) which is a concept that highlights the importance of other countries’ domestic public opinion and how national leaders will respond to it in the international arena.
Both Jervis (1970) and Nye (2004) argue that a positive image can be stronger than economic or military power, because at the end of the day states cannot achieve their goals only through force. Hence, the concept soft power (Nye 1990, 2004) was introduced to define a country’s capacity of getting what it wants using attraction instead of coercion or money. The key here is to get other countries to want what you want instead of ordering others to do what responds to your own interests (Nye, 1990: 166). In an interconnected world, he argues, it is more important to make you actions legitimate in the eyes of others, rather than having a very powerful army. A nation’s reputational capital will define the country’s ability to build international coalitions and ultimately help or hinder the achievement of their objectives.
However, in the case of Israel the trend is not observed, as despite international condemnations to their occupation policies and poor performance in international polls, the plans to build new settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem do not cease. In this specific example, the explanation relates to domestic support of such policies. The last national elections in Israel show that national public opinion supports the policies the state of Israel has towards Palestinians. The Government of Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected for the third time in the 2015 Israeli elections, with the commitment of expanding the settlements and closing the door to negotiations with the Palestinians, promoted in the Oslo Accords (Pfeffer, 2015). Despite that national support, the elections in 2015 marked a change in Israeli electoral processes, as it was the first time that the Arab coalition equalled its presence in the Knesset with ultra-orthodox representation (Ben-Meir, 2015). This shows that even Israel’s public opinion might be shifting.
At the same time, Tomz (2007) argues that traditionally, leaders from democratic countries are worried about international image, as not respecting it could create a reputation backlash at home. National audience costs, as we have seen before, could
have disastrous effects in the future elections and that could be the case for Israel too. On the other side of the coin there is the argument that national public opinion, in this case Israeli, cares about international perception too. Therefore, they may not elect leaders that are not able to preserve a decent international reputation, as at the end of the day reputation shapes international relations (Tomz, 2007: 837). However, none of these principles are empirically observable in the Israeli context. As it will be shown, Israeli officials care about international public opinion, but citizens who prioritise international reputation over other issues remain a minority, as we can see by observing the last election results.
2.1.5 Shift of forces
In an interconnected and intercommunicated world, foreign public opinion is taking more relevance, especially because it may influence international political outcomes (Wang, 2006: 91). This explains the relevance of international public opinion, as these perceptions will presumably shape the foreign policy decisions of foreign states and at the same time, Israel’s relationships with the world.
Another reason is that lately there have been signs indicating that Israel could be held accountable in front of international institutions for human rights violations and war crimes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
This is mainly marked by two events in the last years: First, after several attempts, in 2012 the UN General Assembly granted Palestine the status of a non-member observer state within the UN framework (Zimmermann, 2013: 303). Because of their presence in the international scene, Palestinians were able to sign the principles of the Rome Statue and become part of the International Criminal Court (ICC) member states in 2014. Not long after that, Palestine brought the case in front of the Court arguing human rights violations and war crimes for the Gaza War or Operation Protective Edge and the settlements policy carried out by the Israeli government in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (Report on Preliminary Examinations Activities, 2016). The text points at the Israeli government for having an active part in the planning and construction of settlements as well as encouraging Israeli citizens to move to the West Bank and East Jerusalem through housing benefits and economic incentives. If those accusations would go forward, the Israeli governments and its officials could eventually face international isolation and even jail condemnations.
2.1.6 Materialisation of Israel’s negative international reputation
Israel’s negative international reputation of Israel abroad was materialised in 2005 with the creation of the global movement Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Their objective is to end the occupation and dismantle Israel’s illegal wall and settlements by targeting institutions and companies that are complicit of human rights violations in the West Bank (Aked, 2017). They believe that a global bottom-up movement is the only thing that will force governments to stop Israel expansion through the West Bank. The objective so far has been to isolate Israel until they comply with international law (Jamjoum, 2011) and even denying its existence, an issue that has generated controversy among its detractors. The international network is inspired by the financial, cultural and economic sanctions imposed in South Africa, which contributed to the end of the apartheid (Barnes, 2008). This example shows that sometimes, international public opinion can translate into political action and contribute to the end of conflicts. In the South African case, economic sanctions and sports boycotts undertaken with the knowledge of the UN and several Member States paved a path for the end of the apartheid. The success of the anti-apartheid campaign is attributed to transnational civil society and the international public opinion opposition (ESCWA UN report, 2017). Since then, BDS has claimed several victories; among them, the pushing of several European countries; such as Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden, to stop doing businesses with banks and companies that support the occupation of the West Bank (BDS website, 2017). Several multinational corporations, such as Veolia, G4S and Soda Stream, have also been directly affected by international boycotts, and in some cases, have announced withdrawal from their Israeli headquarters (Aked, 2017). However, with the Israeli case, despite facing reputational issues internationally due to the management of the conflict, such punitive actions have not been accompanied by strong political opposition from other states.
Israel, from its side, is aware of the importance of having a positive reputation internationally. The Knesset created an informal Ministry of Hasbara (Israeli Public Diplomacy) as part of the Foreign ministry in 2013 to improve Israel’s international image (Aouragh, 2016: 279), which had severely decreased after the Second Intifada. She adds that “the perceived legitimacy of engaging in public diplomacy is based on the principle that antipathy to one’s power can negatively affect the ability to pursue one’s interest” (Aouragh, 2016: 274), which aligns with Nye’s soft power theory.
According to Gilboa (2006), the Israeli government has failed in preventing the deterioration of the Jewish State’s image due to a “lack of awareness and understanding of the critical role of public diplomacy in contemporary international relations” (Gilboa,
2006: 716).
Both the Israel State Comptroller’s report (released in 2002) and the findings of the Commission of Inquiry after the Lebanon War (2006) showed an unprecedented criticism of Israel’s public relations efforts, resulting in a negative impact. Israeli voices agree on the lack of coordination between central government and information bodies, non-definition between political areas of responsibility and authority between Prime Minister’s Office, Foreign Ministry, Defence Ministry and IDF Spokesman (Jerusalem Centre of Public Affairs, 2002).
On the fight against BDS specifically, the Israeli government started its fight against the movement calling it a “de-legitimisation campaign” and started a counter-boycott effort to combat what they called a “strategic threat” against Israel (Aked, 2017). Unable to win the political battle, the counter movement strategy has been a lawfare campaign that has not been effective so far. According to Aked (2017), legal experts and the European Union have defended the right to boycott as part of the free speech liberties and therefore not liable for being prosecuted.
However, despite the reasons outlined above, the main flaw of Hasbara and the reason for its failure is the contradiction in its main purpose; this has downplayed their political legitimacy. The strategy tries to internationally legitimise Israel’s colonialist behaviour against Palestinians through persuasion and consensus building, which mutilates the basic meaning of public diplomacy (Aouragh, 2016).
2.2 Context of the conflict 2.2.1 History
Israel’s history has always been controversial, especially after the creation of the state in 1948. Before that, Palestine was the name used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river. Many empires, such as the Babylonian, Roman or Ottoman have controlled the area. The last country to do so was Great Britain, between the inter-war period. Traditionally, the local population subsisted through farm industries, fruit exports and religious tourism (Kamrava, 2016: 33). In 1948, after the Second World War the State of Israel was officially born with the mediation of the UN and the support of most European countries that agreed to allocate all the Jewish survivors after the Holocaust to a place where they could settle (Finkelstein, 2016: 75). Palestinians, however, saw the move as a new form of colonialism and did not accept the new state, declaring war against Israel. The latter won the war and took over land beyond the borders established by the UN and left the West Bank to Jordan control (Harris, 2016). This division created more than 700.000 Palestinians refugees, who were
obliged to relocate in neighbouring countries or in the new territorial demarcations (Vox, 2017). Both parties reached a cease-fire that moved the borders again to the so-called “Green Line” (Annex 3). The arrangement lasted until the Six Days War in 1967, where Israel went beyond the agreed borders and took over Gaza, the Syrian Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza, the Egyptian Sinai and East Jerusalem with the justification that this land would be used as an exchange coin for peace (Schindler, 2013: 133).
This event marks the story of modern Israel and Palestine as well as defining the main cause of the conflict: the dispute for land. Palestinians have an antiquity argument, as they claim they were residing in the area before, therefore for them Israeli settlements constituted an act of colonisation. This was the position that the UN and international community took as well (Harris, 2016). Israelis, from their side, often make reference to religious and spiritual ties to the region, according to the Old Testament.
2.2.2 West Bank
Israeli settlers started moving to the West Bank mostly after the war in 1967, without Israeli government permission. However, the continuous migration flows turned the area in an institutionalised part of Israeli society with both political and economic support (Harris, 2016). The institutional endorsement became official in 1970, when the Israeli government authorised the construction of a settlement in the city of Hebron. Although the city had been Jewish –and many Jews were slaughtered there in 1929–, the resettlement of Hebron had an ultimate nationalist goal as it symbolised the return to the Biblical territories of Judea and Samaria (Shindler, 2013: 141).
In the 90s, Palestinian violent uprisings grew at the same time as the condemnation of the settlements by international community. This brought the signature of the Oslo Accords in 1994, which split the West Bank into three sections (B’Tselem, 2017). Areas A and B are under full or partial control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), accounting for about the 40% of the West Bank. It is important to highlight that these villages are scattered throughout the West Bank, forming islands surrounded by Area C (B’Tselem, 2017). There is where most of the settlements are, and at the same time it contains most of the agricultural land and resources. It accounts for the 60% of the West Bank and remains under full Israeli control (Annex 4).
2.2.3 East Jerusalem
According to the Partition Plan of 1948, Jerusalem, Holy city for Muslims, Jews and Christians would have a special international status under the mandate of the international community governed by the UN (Saeed, 2017). However, West Jerusalem
was annexed by Israel after the 1948 war and East Jerusalem after the Six Days’ War in 1967 together with the Sinai desert, the West Bank and the Golan Heights (B’Tselem, 2017). The moves respond to the classic Israeli strategy to expand its borders and potentially trade the land back in exchange for peace (Shindler, 2012).
In 1980, the Israeli Parliament passed a law that established the city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. However, the UN Security Council and International Court of Justice, among others, have regarded the annexation of East Jerusalem as a violation of international law, which prohibits the acquisition of territory by military force (Report on Preliminary Examination Activities, 2016: 26). At the same time, the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an occupying power is not allowed to transfer its civilians to occupied territory, a norm that applies not only in Jerusalem but also to the West Bank (International Committee of the Red Cross, 2017).
This indefatigable claim for the land and its translation to the international fora have been source of Israel’s unpopularity manifested with a Palestinian self-determination movement and several condemnations from the international community, the last one the UN resolution against the settlements approved by the Security Council in 2016. The international governance body together with the International Court of Justice have described the settlements as potential war crimes (Bosco, 2016).
The current situation does not seem to have changed but increased. According to the NGO Peace Now, in 2016 Israeli authorities started the construction of 1.841 new housing units, an increase of 34% compared to the same time period in 2015. In parallel, the construction works continued in 2,657 houses through promotions of plans for settlements. 42 new public buildings started to be built alongside 23 structures for industry or agriculture (Peace Now’s Annual Settlement Construction Report, 2016). In 2017, Israel has approved the construction of the first new settlement in the West Bank in 20 years (BBC, 2017), as well as continuing with the unfinished plans from last year.
3. Research Design
3.1 Methodology
The main objective of this investigation is to find out which factors are allowing Israel to carry on with their settlement policies. For that purpose, I will use qualitative methods, more specifically semi-structured interviews with experts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as advocates from both sides. The interviewees have multidisciplinary backgrounds and were selected by their area of expertise. The more people with different backgrounds and areas of study, the more relevant and generalizable the answers will be.
All the interviews took place face-to-face in the Netherlands, as direct contact tends to ensure a better outcome. However, the sources contacted go beyond Dutch boundaries. To strengthen the results of this investigation I attended two conferences: Israel and the
arms trade industry and 50 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem,
which at the same time allowed me to meet new contacts for interviews.
Although experts with completely different perspectives were chosen, the questionnaire distributed to all of them was the same. The only difference was the formulation of the questions, due to the sensitivity of the issue. At the same time, a non-judgemental position when asking questions or making comments was essential to obtaining honest information. With such a heated topic, where parties seemed to sometimes wonder which side you supported, there was the risk that interviewees would not be completely open if the questions were biased towards one side or the other. Following this strategy definitely helped mitigate the aforementioned risk.
The questions were around the main research query, factoring in the variables I wanted to analyse only when the experts made reference to them to avoid bias. The variables were chosen based on existing literature and examining Israel’s international and domestic political relationships on the media. To be more specific, in this research it is essential to understand two levels of argumentation from the Israeli government when justifying the settlement building: on one hand, the narrative the Knesset sustains mainly at home based on the themes “Zionist narrative and claim for land” and “Securitisation”. These words are reoccurring themes in national politics, used as electoral tools and often very attached to Israeli citizens. On the other hand, the “Bilateral relationship between Israel and the US” and the international benefits of the “Defence industry exports” respond to an international dynamic that defines Israel’s relationships with its foreign partners and the international public opinion. This sphere is a more hidden one, not publicised by the Israeli government, that tries to keep these connections out of public scrutiny.
The fact that the conversations responded to an open format allowed light to be shed on other relevant aspects that are included in the analysis section. All interviews were compared with each other as well as clustered in groups according to the experts’ views on the matter. The objective is to see if there is consistency of answers between interviews as well as between experts that do not share the same opinions. The expected result of this study is to confirm the variables identified in the argument section and strengthen them. If other relevant factors appear, these will also be included to the answer of the research question.
For such a project, the most appropriate method is the interview, as the main interest is to unveil the factors pushing Israel’s behaviour. The relevant variables were documented based on academic literature research as well as journalistic reports and analysis articles. During the interviews the expectation was not to identify key words, but rather to uncover themes. In this way, anything related to one of the variables could be included in the final result contributing to the enrichment and better understanding of the variables rather than expecting the interviewees to mention a specific word and quantify it in the results.
The most accessible way to find that out is by asking experts with divergent opinions. At one side of the ideological spectrum, I discussed with Andrew Tucker, the Executive Director of Christians for Israel, an NGO that supports Jewish population spread around the world through Biblical understanding. I also talked to Kitty Herweijer and Paul van der Bas who work at the Centrum of Informatie en Documentatie Israel (CIDI), an independent foundation that stands for the right to peace and security for Israel and the Jewish people internationally.
At the other side, I talked to Dr Erella Grassiani, specialist in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and professor at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Also, Ilan Amit, Israeli activist and founder of the NGO Breaking the Silence, an organisation in charge of exposing the reality of everyday life in the Palestinian territories through the eyes of veteran combatants who served in the Israeli military. I complemented these views with the testimony of Egbert Harmsen, a member of the BDS movement branch in the Netherlands. Amira Hass, the Haaretz’s correspondent in Gaza and the West Bank and the first Israeli journalist who lived in the Palestinian Territories, is also one of the interviewees.
Exploring a middle ground opinion, I discussed with Galit Saporta and Dr Bart Wallet. The first one is the Director of the Dutch NGO Gate 48, which gathers Israelis living in the Netherlands and takes a critical stance towards the occupation of the Palestinian territories. The second one is a researcher at the History Department of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
3.2 Justification of the research and case selection
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies to deal with the conflict were legitimised again in the legislative election in 2015, where he achieved the presidency of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) with 30 seats, 12 more than in the previous elections with a strong
pro-settlements campaign.
Despite the national support, the negative perception of Israel abroad should not be ignored by its government, as it could eventually lead them to severe international punishment for human rights violations, as well as potential institutional isolation. The conflict, considered asymmetric, could be changing its nature, especially since Palestine made steps towards joining the international community.
The paper will make a contribution to the literature of conflict resolution and international relations, understanding the underlying factors that encourage Israel to continue building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem despite international opposition.
This thesis will focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because it represents the paradigm of longevity, complexity and the failed attempts to solve it both by the parties themselves and several international mediators that have intervened over the years. The claim for land translated in the settlements policy has been the root of the confrontation for 50 years. Having a deep look at the factors that trigger these policies is essential to reopening peace talks and eventually ensuring a long-lasting peace. From a political sciences perspective, the unmasking of these reasons represents an open road for the international community, or even specific states that have diplomatic or commercial relationships with Israel, to have leverage on the country to stop the current situation of inequality.
4. Argument
This paper aims to understand what is leading Israel not to shift their settlements policy in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, considering that is one of the cornerstones of the conflict with the Palestinians and therefore is keeping their international reputation low. Existing literature, although not touching directly on that specific question, has already pointed out the following variables that will be used to build this study.
For the argument of this thesis to be true, I would expect the interviewees to mention the selected variables as the main reasons to explain Israel’s pro-settlement policies and their continuity despite negative international public opinion. At the same time, one of the expectations is to find out more details and relevant information about the four variables using first-hand information provided by the experts in the topic.
4.1 Zionist narrative and claim for land
Zionism as a political and cultural movement started in the 19th century by Theodor Herzl
with the aim of reuniting the Jewish diaspora in the state that it “belonged” to (Finkelstein, 2003: 8), the Promised Land (Bregman, 2003: 7). At the same time, Zionism and its followers would fight against Jewish disintegration, after centuries of prosecution. In its beginnings, the movement, named after the mount ‘Zion’ in Jerusalem, attracted the support of intellectuals and an ideal of building a perfect society aside from Europe’s wars and instability began to develop (Schindler, 2013: 10). After the creation of the State of Israel, however, the policies towards the Palestinians, started to be associated with colonialism and imperialism, as part of the idea implied the transformation of indigenous Arab populations to live under a Jewish majority (Finkelstein, 2003: 12). For the Zionist movement, the Holy Land comprised the whole of Palestine, including Transjordan, the Golan Heights and Southern Lebanon (Finkelstein, 2003: 15), but the Biblical dream was broken with the Partition Plan in 1948. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories experienced its highest peak after the Second World War, when many survivors from the Holocaust moved to the region looking for a safe haven. The Jewish diaspora has two particularities that distinguish it from any other displaced community: First, Jews were not culturally attached to any specific territory, but present all over the world. By the end of the 19th century, almost the entire population of 10
million Jews lived in diaspora. Second, the general dispersion that affected its people lasted almost two millennia (Dieckhoff, 2017: 276), which means that they could not return anywhere specific, and they could only rely on the collective memories enriched by their religious history. Another argument to justify the occupation of the land is that at the time, those territories were empty or inhabited by a minority of unsettled tribes (Finkelstein, 2003: 89). The reality, however, was that at the end of the 19th century, 95%
of the population in Palestine or the so called Eretz Israel (The Land of Israel) were Arabs.
4.2 US-Israel bilateral relationship
The close relationship between Israel and the US is based on a mutual exchange of intelligence strategies, influence and military equipment. The ties that link both countries are mainly economic and respond to three main streams: First, Israel receives a yearly amount of 3 billion dollars in foreign aid, making it the largest cumulative recipient of American funding since World War II (Sharp, 2016). Of this funding, 74% must be spent on American goods and services (Keinon, 2013). Second, the US sends military assistance valued at 38 billion dollars to its most reliable ally in the Middle East, mainly allocated to intelligence systems (33 billion dollars) and missile defence appropriations (5 billion dollars) (White House archives website, 2016). The agreement,
signed as a ten-year Memorandum of Understanding, ensures the smooth collaboration between both allies. Third, the US also provides political support to Israel, mainly using its veto power in the UN Security Council, where since 1972 it has been backing up the country in all the resolutions addressing the occupation of the Palestinian territories (UN Dag Hammarskjöld Library, 2017).
This trend changed in December 2016, when a UN declaration against the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem was approved due to the abstention of the US, in an unprecedented move by the Obama administration. The US decision was immediately condemned by Netanyahu’s office as “shameful” and explicitly referred to Israel’s wish of working more closely with the new president, Donald Trump (Beaumont, 2016). Now that Trump is in power the situation could shift again. A few months after his appointment, the US House of Representatives approved a bipartisan measure that rebukes the United Nations for criticising Israeli settlements and rejects any similar UN actions against Israel (Al Jazeera, 2017). However, Trump’s position remains ambivalent, as he has not shared his strategy regarding the settlements question and has not expressed an open support to Israel as initially expected (Thrall, 2017).
The political connection between Washington and Tel Aviv is strongly materialised by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the so-called Israeli Lobby, which has a great impact on US foreign policy decisions. As Mearshimer and Walt (2006) explain “were it not for the lobby's ability to work effectively within the American political system, the relationship between Israel and the United States would be far less intimate than it is today”. The lobby pursues two broad strategies to promote US support. First, it spreads influence in Washington pressuring both Congress and Executive to make the supporting of Israel the best political choice. Second, the lobby strives to ensure that public discourse about Israel is portrayed in a positive light (Mearshimer and Walt: 2006: 42).
4.3 Defence industry exports
Israel is often portrayed as a start-up nation, economically successful, dynamic and highly developed. The country attracts about 15% of the world’s venture-capital investment in cyber-security (The Economist, 2017) but Israel is even more popular for having one of the strongest armies in the world, as well as for exporting both their knowledge and strategies in terms of security and military technologies. In 2016, Israel was the sixth largest exporter in the world of arms and defence technologies (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIBAT, 2017). The same year, Israel’s military exports grew by 800 million dollars, reaching a total of 6.5 billion dollars (Military Exports Unit of the Defence Ministry - SIBAT, 2017). According to Michel Ben-Baruch,
the SIBAT director, “the majority of the new contracts comes from increased defence budgets in European and North American countries, due to the increased focus on terrorism following dozens of attacks on the two continents by “lone wolves” and Islamic State supporters” (Ahronheim, 2017).
The sector, which generates millions in annual revenue for the state of Israel, is surrounded by a lack of transparency and very limited access to reliable data. The Defence Ministry does not provide the published data by countries but only by geographical units, so it is only through thorough investigation that Israel’s clients can be unveiled. The Israeli government claims that the anonymity responds to security concerns, but according to the journalist Aluf Benn (2014) the whole idea is to avoid the public debate over the morality of selling weapons to dictatorships and keep public attention far from the issue.
Another relevant argument is that the Palestinian territories are convenient for two reasons through the lens of the defence industry: first, they have allowed Israel to become a leading power in terms of security technologies, and second, they represent the adequate scenario to test the latest military devices before selling them to international partners (Halper, 2015).
Israel’s success in the trade of arms and military devices has grown their confidence towards their approach of not stepping back from the Palestinian territories, as well as having built a militarised society that prioritises military production and deteriorates its integrity. This abandonment of basic moral values has triggered Israel’s isolation in the international arena, as well as allowed the country to become an indispensable partner for the most repressive regimes in the world (Chomsky in Shahak, 1982: 9).
4.4 Securitisation discourse
The historical hostility that surrounded the Jewish community required, as Dowty (1999) points out, not only spiritual strength but also the capacity to deal with hostile authorities in an organised way. Historically, this feeling of insecurity made Jewish communities close off from the world and fight to maintain their identity. This separation from the rest of society fostered a strong sense of community and a reliance on the group to overcome external threats. In the political sphere, this translated into habits of secrecy and confidential cooperation. Dowty adds that the history generated a psychology characterised by "the hyper vigilance of the haunted, the alert scanning of the insecure, and the continuous suspiciousness of the vulnerable” (Dowty: 1999: 2).
A moral reason recurrently used as powerful narrative is the history of Jewish suffering in the Christian West, especially during the Holocaust. “Because the Jews were
persecuted for centuries and can only be safe in a Jewish homeland, many believe that Israel deserves special treatment” (Mearshimer and Walt: 2006: 36), but the vision of a Greater Israel as Zionism’s ultimate objective did not consider that it involved additional crimes against a largely innocent third party: The Palestinians (Mearshimer and Walt: 2006: 36).
Security has always been a Jewish leit motiv, especially when referring to the conflict with the Palestinians. The threat to national existence and even personal survival is a theme very frequent in public speeches and political campaigns, as well as a justification for military operations, not only for international community but also to engage domestic public opinion (Dieckhoff, 2017: 277). According to Alon Ben-Meir’s argument, Israel’s fixation with security is making Palestinians extremely vulnerable, in addition to not ensuring a secure ‘Greater Israel’. He puts forth the Operation Pillar of Defence in 2012 as an example, when “Hamas was able to rain hundreds of rockets on Israel, some of which reached the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv” (Ben-Meir, 2013). This same strategy was carried out again in the Operation Protective Edge in 2014, demonstrating how the compulsive pursuit of security has had precisely the opposite effect in the most recent military confrontations. At the same time, justifying human rights violations and land expropriations in the name of national security is strongly inconsistent with Jewish values as well as progressively isolating Israel politically and physically from the international community (Ben-Meir, 2013).
5. Analysis
This section will test the proposed variables in the argument section. These are considered more impactful than international reputation and explain Israel’s narrative to the world and also to its own public opinion. It has already been explained that the country cares about international public opinion and how the world portrays them; however, as this analysis will show, the historic-religious, political and economic factors by-pass the effect of international condemnations. To explain the variables, I will use the same structure followed in the previous section.
5.1 Zionist narrative and the claim for land
This variable is the most recurrent one among interviewees, regardless of their ideological orientations. As professor Bart Wallet affirms: Zionism is the main explanation for the settlement building. The movement, which started as a socialist secular movement, divided Jewish religious tradition into three phases: the first one, the
ideal past, made reference to the Biblical time when the Jews inhabited Israel and lived in
or diaspora, in which Jewish people were prosecuted and killed. This was the saddest period and was seen as a temporary suffering phase before the last step on the ladder. Third, the Messianic era, is the period when the Jews are supposed to return to the peaceful times of phase one in their Holy Land. The differences in Zionist streams are also reflected in the Israeli political landscape, specifically with regards to how the Jewish community transitions from phase two to phase three. From a religious point of view, achieving phase three would require the leadership of a Messiah able to take all the diaspora back to Israel. For the secular movements, the return has to be led by the people through nationalist organisations able to defend the historical land of Israel (Wallet).
The Zionist project therefore represents a strong justification narrative when digging into why the settlements are built. The lands of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem are, according to the Old Testament, Holy places for the Jewish people, where they always have the right to come back. That piece of land is referred to as Eretz Israel, which comprises the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river (Wallet & Andrew Tucker). From the 19th century, but especially after the Holocaust, Jewish people
felt compelled to move to Israel and settle in a safe place after centuries of persecution. Israel is a small country, surrounded by enemies, so it was when they conquered East Jerusalem and the West Bank after the war in 1967 that the Israeli settlement building started booming. Israeli Public opinion had a sense of freedom because they could finally move beyond their boundaries and reconnect with their Holy Land (Wallet). “Media also
contributed to this religious fever as even secular media were publishing biblical quotes to celebrate the annexation. That is how the territories became emotionally important to Israelis, who were able to discover their religious attachment to the land” (Wallet).
However, other voices such as Erella Grassiani and Egbert Harmsen do not rely on the religious mandate to justify the violation of Palestinian rights. Harmsen argues that Israel’s strategy is to create “facts on the ground” with a double objective: On one hand,
“own as much land as possible for constructing a Jewish society with as few non-Jews as possible”.
On the other, to control Palestinians and keep them as a minority in order to own the resources in their land. According to Amira Hass, the state of Israel and the Zionist movement would not have succeeded without Nazism. “Before the Holocaust the
movement was not strong enough to build a state, but because of that it gained strength and attracted international support” (Hass).
A contention point between experts is the Article 49 of the IV Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, which argues that “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into
the territory it occupies” (ICRC, 2017). Harmsen points out that Israel is ignoring the treaty and encouraging its own population to move to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. For Tucker, the Geneva convention article does not apply to the Israeli case for two reasons: Firstly, because Israelis were not obliged to move to the West Bank, but instead did it on their own accord. Second, because the religious attachment between the Jewish people and the land is “undeniable and therefore it does not make sense to call it occupation” (Tucker).
In some interviews, this factor is not explored enough, but as mentioned in the argument section, the Israeli government supports the settlers with economic and social benefits (Galit Saporta, Ilan Amit, Harmsen). In many cases, they are not even aware of the sensitivity of the territory: “if they tell you, ‘have another room in your house’ and you do not
really get punished for having it. You will choose to have one, right?” (Saporta).
As previously commented, according to some of the interviewees the Israeli political landscape reflects the different streams of the Zionist movement fairly accurately. The claim for land is a constantly present element in the Knesset’s policies, mainly for the division it provokes within Israeli society and politics. The settlement lobby is strong in the Israeli government and Netanyahu, who governs with a coalition, must take into account internal pressures to maintain power (Grassiani, Tucker, Wallet). However, Grassiani adds that Israel is aware of the symbolic power that the settlements have for the international community and “no matter what they say, they will continue building the
way they want. For them it is like a middle finger to the world, keeping the arrogance that makes the statement and makes Israel feel superior”. At the same time, by slowly removing the
Palestinian presence in the territory, Israel hopes that the international community forgets about the issue and accepts the situation. Harmsen argues that “they expect a
similar scenario than with the native Americans in the US. Does anyone talk about returning the land to them?”.
Tucker has completely different views and makes a comparison between the Israeli state and Australia, where he comes from. He claims that although his country was created out of the mass killing of almost all the aboriginals by the British, no one says that Australia is an illegitimate or illegal state and the same should be applied to Israel. At the same time, he recognises the need to end the injustice for both parties.
According to Kitty Herweijer and Paul van der Bas from CIDI, the withdrawal of Israeli settlers is almost impossible at this point, as “it would mean forcing thousands of people to
move from their houses”. Therefore, the settlers living beyond the ‘Green Line’ should just
stay and annex those territories to Israel. They also share the idea that Jewish people should be allowed to live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the first place, the same
way Palestinians live in Israeli territory, a view shared by Tucker. Moreover, a sector of Israeli society claims that leaving the territories would not just mean completely changing their way of living, but also going backwards in the pace of history and give up on the religious prophecy that ties them to Israel (Wallet).
For some of the interviewees, the case of East Jerusalem is different. Whereas the West Bank settlements could be easily resolved, the Holy capital is often considered the most sensitive part of the conflict (CIDI, Wallet, Tucker). In the meantime, Israel made a strategic move to ensure its dominance in Jerusalem. The Knesset passed a law in 1980, which included the city in the state of Israel as the eternal capital of the country. Therefore, according to Israeli law it is not occupied territory anymore and they are entitled to freely build new Jewish homes (Wallet).
As long as Zionism and the claim for land remain political tools inside Israel, settlements will continue expanding. The narrative of land ownership is so intrinsic in Israeli society that it is difficult to imagine a scenario without it. According to Amira Hass, the key remains in the past, more specifically in the 19th century. By then, the movement was not
strong enough to push for the creation of a Jewish State, but the Holocaust enhanced the rise of Zionist orientations, which claimed the belonging of Jewish people to the Holy Land, where the Palestinian territories are.
5.2 US-Israel relationship
To understand the Israel-US tandem, some interviewees explained it through historical ties. Harmsen, for example, argued that there is a colonialist link between both countries, whereas Wallet explained that the infrastructure of the Cold War plays an essential role in understanding the relationship between both states. In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace agreement, where the US committed to fund both countries with military aid and economic resources if they could keep the treaty. The circulation of US money to both countries is still ongoing, and a potential cut to these funds would leave Israel in a very weak position, not only in the Middle East but in the world (Wallet).
Politically, Israel is quite isolated in the international arena (Grassiani, Wallet) and if it was not for the US support, they would struggle to maintain power. Van der Bas and Herweijer from CIDI and Tucker disagree with this principle. The first ones believe that in international relations, cooperation only arises if an interest for both parties exists, which is the case in this partnership. Therefore, Israel relies on the US to receive political and military support and the US, in exchange, gets intelligence and highly developed technology (Paul van der Bas). Tucker adds that Israel “would survive without the US
support, as they have other allies too. They also have one of the most powerful air forces in the world and probably nuclear power” (Tucker).
