Israeli settlements, and the expanding divide of settlers and Palestinians

West Virginia native Rachel Braslavi says she moved into her new home so her family could have more space and a greater community feel. But she faces bigger questions than she might encounter when buying a typical home. Their community is the Israeli settlement of Karnei Shomron, located in the occupied West Bank.

When asked if she saw her settler family as obstacles to peace, Braslavi replied: “No. I don’t. I really don’t. I think we have the right to be here. And I think the Palestinians have a right to be here.

“On this earth? I asked.

“Not this house,” Braslavi said. “But I mean, around here.”

This colony, like hundreds of others, is dug into Palestinian territory, surrounded by a security fence. The border separating the West Bank from Israel is called the Green Line. It was concluded as part of an armistice agreement following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, sparked by the creation of the modern state of Israel.

But after Israel’s resounding military success in the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel took more land, occupying Palestinian territories, and Israeli citizens began building settlements.

Today, more than 700,000 Israelis live in these communities, which the United Nations describes as illegal. They are scattered across the West Bank and East Jerusalem. About 15% of the settlers are American.

But Rachel Braslavi does not consider herself to live on Palestinian land: “No, I don’t think so. I think some of the first places Jews arrived in biblical times were in Judea and Samaria. is part of our indigenous right to be here.

I asked, “How much was your decision to move here to a colony related to cost of living versus ideology?”

“I came from America when I was in my 20s to live in Israel,” she said. “And I kind of saw that decision as my contribution to the Jewish people in our country. It didn’t matter where I lived in Israel.

“And my husband grew up here, and he saw things differently. He really believed that to contribute meaningfully you had to cross the Green Line and establish, like, facts on the ground.”

“What does “facts on the ground” mean? »

“It’s simply about strengthening the existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria,” Braslavi responded.

“In the West Bank?

“Yes.”

The settler population has increased by more than 200 percent since 2000. The Israeli government encourages these movements, paying the military to guard them and funding public services like buses and schools.

Judith Segaloff moved to Karnei Shomron from Detroit seven years ago and said she could afford a bigger house here than she would have on the other side of the Green Line. She showed us around. “Across the street is our mall,” she said. “We have an ice cream parlor. This is our sushi shop.”

I asked, “Do you have friends or family who disagree with you living in an encampment?”

“Of course,” Segaloff said. “Some of them won’t come to visit us.”

Segaloff says she’s excited about plans to expand a colony next door. She believes the Israeli presence provides security.

“But it’s also a contested place,” I said, “a place considered occupied territory.”

“By some,” Segaloff said.

“By the international community.”

“Well, they’re going to have to get over it,” Segaloff said. “You can’t live among people who want to kill you. They’ll just have to move out and let us in.”

But not far away, on the other side of checkpoints and a security fence, we met Palestinian Saher Eid, who lives in the West Bank village where his great-grandfather was born.

Asked about the settlers’ claims that – historically, biblically – the land belongs to them, Eid replied: “We have documents proving that we own this land, that we have been farming it forever. Ask the settlers where they came from?

He and his wife, Tamador, a high school science teacher, invited us over for tea. They say they are very concerned about the rise in violence from Israeli settlers, emboldened by The government of Benjamin Netanyahu, increasingly to the right. Since October 7 last year, the UN estimates there have been more than 1,400 attacks by extremist settlers against Palestinians or their property.

The Eids are also frustrated that the fence and checkpoints around a settlement have cut them off from their own olive trees. Saher said his freedom was taken away: “He stole my land. He stole my olives. He stole everything.”

I asked, “Is there space here for introspection?” Have you ever thought, “Maybe we are not the best partners in trying to find a path to peace”?

“We believe that if there were a Palestinian state without settlements, there would be broad support for peace,” Saher said.

The differences on this side of the security fence are striking. Revenues are only a fraction of Israel’s, and Israel controls water and much of the tax revenue.

Saher said he would welcome an Israeli living in Tel Aviv into his home, but not a settler: “No, because he’s a thief.”

Assaf Sharon, professor of political and legal philosophy at Tel Aviv Universitynoted: “James Carville coined the expression: ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’ In Israel-Palestine, “it’s the settlements, stupid. » »

Regarding the settlers who claim that they did not take anyone’s land, that no one lived there before them, Sharon said: “Of course, this was not done individually. Occupying land does not mean you have a house. This may be grazing land. This may be land reserves for future construction or simply an area reserved for the self-determination of a people.

“The settlers make a security argument, that Israel is safer with settlements,” I said.

“The security argument is completely false,” Sharon replied. “Settlements are not a security asset; they constitute a security asset burdenbecause defending and protecting dozens of civilians, in the heart of a densely populated Palestinian territory, is a hell of a burden for the army. »

He added: “The best way to ensure Israel’s security is to partner with the state or state-like entity that has an interest in preventing precisely this type of hostile activity.” »

David Makovsky, researcher at Washington Institute for Middle East Policysaid: “We have ideologues on both sides of this equation who are determined to thwart any accommodation. »

In 2013, Makovsky was part of the team that tried to negotiate a peace deal. This failed proposal, along with two others, would have allowed the Palestinians to keep about 95% of the West Bank.

But today, with the growing number of settlements – blue dots on the map, some far from the Green Line – it could be even more complicated to determine the borders in a two-state solution.

Negotiations have changed under Donald Trump, Makovsky said: “Until Trump, all American peace approaches were similar. Under Trump, together with Prime Minister Netanyahu, he does not want to choose which settlements succeed and which do not. “So the prime minister convinced the president that every settlement is called Israel. This creates an impossible situation. Any Palestinian entity is now going to be dotted with settlements.”

Today, the settlers may have another influential ally in President-elect Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel: Mike Huckabee, who has said he is open to annexing parts of the West Bank.

But there is historical precedent for evacuating settlements. Almost 20 years ago, the Israeli government argued that leaving Gaza was a path to peace.

According to Makovsky, “2005 is for the settlers their Waterloo, their defeat.” That’s when Israel expelled the 8,000 settlers from Gaza.

At the time, I profiled a 17-year-old girl who was forced to leave Gush Katif, her settlement in Gaza. Nineteen years later, the settlements are still making headlines. “Yes, that’s how it is in Israel,” Rachel Yechieli Gross said. Today, she is the mother of three children and no longer lives in a colony.

I asked, “The fact that you left your home, your colony when you were a teenager, shows that colonies can be closed. Could this be a step towards peace?

“After October 7“I’m not so sure anymore, because I really believed there could be a change,” Gross said. “But I don’t feel it anymore.”

Makovsky blamed the Hamas terrorist group, which he said “really led to the growth of the Israeli right. If people in Israel thought Costa Rica was a Palestinian state, they would line up to sign, because They want to end the conflict.” “They just want to be safe. But if they think a Palestinian state is a mini-Iran, there aren’t enough people in the phone booth.”

In the West Bank, Rachel Braslavi and her family are just five of 700,000 Israeli settlers working to change, as she puts it, “the facts on the ground.”

“I wouldn’t leave voluntarily, because I’m raising my family here and I, you know, built my dream house,” she said. “Why does the peace agreement have to be at my expense, to give up my house?”

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Story produced by Sari Aviv. Editor: Ed Givnish.