There is a constradiction here. If we assume a Palestinian state that is not a threat to Isaeli security, why can’t the settlements remain peacefully inside that Palestinian state?
I don’t understand why a Jew whose family lived in Hebron for over 500 years should leave when this peaceful Palestinian state is formed. By reductio ad absurdom, should Israel relocate all of the Arabs in Haifa?
The typical reasons given for why the settlements must be dismantled as part of the formation of a Palestinian state are:
The settlements require security roads and a large military defense force, which would undermine Palestinian territorial integrity and soverenty.
A. If the Palestinian state is truely peaceful, there would be no need for a military defense of the settlements, or for Jewish-only security roads.
The settlements are illegal and should not be rewarded.
A. The Jews of Hebron have had a 500-year presence in Hebron. If anything, the 1929-1967 Jordanian occupation of their homes was illegal.*
(* I’ll leave discussion of other settlements for another thread; This thread is about Hebron)
If I were in charge of Israel’s policy-making, I would not force the settlers to dismantle, but I would schedule a date for withdrawing all protective forces and turning the area over to Palestinian rule. And I would tell the settlers that if they remain there, they do so as Palestinian citizens (assuming Palestine extends them citizenship) and can look to the Palestinian government for any protections and services that they desire or require.
I would argue in conference with Palestine that they should indeed extend citizenship to any settlers who remain behind and who are willing to swear loyalty to the Palestinian government and live in accordance with its laws.
The settlers would, of course, be running the risk that the Palestinian government would regard their ownership of the land as illegitimate. Perhaps Palestine would be somewhat accomodating, though, in principle, infosar as the number of settlers genuinely disposed to remain behind as subjects of Palestine would probably be small.
Well AHuntyer the vast majority ofthe settlers don’t hold the pre-1948 legal title or the post-1948 legal title to the land they are on so it is likely that they would be removed by a Palestinian government.
As I said before you cannot secide on the basis of someones race whether or not they get to return to the land they were living on. It is total hypocrisy to say that the Jews should be allowed to return to their land while actively preventing the Palestinians from doing so.
Anyway, even in Hebron, only a very small number of settlers lived or families lived in the areas they now occupy.
There is absolutely no real doubt to all but the most partizan that the settlemnts are illegal, this fact was confirmed by a conference of the high-contracting parties to the fourth convention, who issued a statement to this effect.
Mhand - as I understand it, the conditions of the settlers are enormously different to the conditions of the Palestinians around them. Were they to stay in that land, we can probably expect a Zimbabwe-esque situation. Settlers cannot expect to stay on in what must become a foreign country with special protection. And as I also understand it, many of the settlers who live there are those with the strongest belief that that land should be Israel, not Palestine. So they are not likely to be best-of-buddy neighbours and compatriots to Palestinians any time soon.
My position is that the settlements must go. My belief is that they will not go, and that there will never be a proper Palestine. At best, I believe there will be a token Palestine, odd, tiny bits of land that will gradually dissolve back into Israel as Palestinians continue to leave due to inhumane conditions, or get absorbed into servility, as in Mawassi in Gaza.
While the settlements exist, there can never be a proper Palestine, so there can never be peace.
The whole premise behind dismanting the settlements would be land-for-peace. But, if there’s truely peace, the settlers would not need special protections, so why would they have to leave.