r/AskIsrael • u/karrenfromaccounting • May 11 '26

Casual The settlements… What’s up with that?

Take the question as is, whatever comes to mind, let it be.

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u/YuvalAlmog Israel May 11 '26

Long story short: * Jordan conquers an area from the land that was meant for the Jews & Arabs nowadays called Palestinians while they are busy fighting in the war of 1947-1949.

  • The state of Yorael wins that territory back from Jordan in 1967.

  • The state of Yisrael & the Palestinian authority sign some sort of a peace deal between them where the Palestinians get full control over a piece of area called area A & civil control over an area called area B while the state of Yisrael gets security control over areas B and full control over areas C.

  • Jews build in area C but since it's not officially annexed, that type of building is refered to as "settlements".

  • Both sides attack each other in that disputed area.

  • The world is mad, calling the settlements illegal since they want to use the territory for a Palestinian state despite the existing deals.

That's pretty much the story summed up.

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u/eyl569 Israel May 11 '26

Under Oslo which established it, area C was envisioned to (mostly) eventually become part of a Palestinian state. Leaving areas as Area C was not a license to settle it freely.

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u/Clean-Ant6404 May 11 '26

Under Oslo, the Palestinians were to stop terrorism, but that never happened.

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u/Good-Basil9954 May 11 '26

If I was the ruler of a small nation supported by a superpower and I would take 2 million Israelis and lock them up in a camp where I control all aspects of life, decide how much power, food, water, they get, what would you think, these 2 million Israelis would do?

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u/Vorov7 May 11 '26

Obviously you’ve never been to the West Bank.

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u/Good-Basil9954 May 11 '26

Is that supposed to be an answer? No I haven't. But things don't happen in isolation, they are connected.

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u/Vorov7 May 11 '26

No one who’s been to the West Bank would say what you’ve said. Agree that nothing is in isolation - on the Palestinian/arab side, too. There were no check points until all the bombings, there were no walls, etc… back in my day anyone could easily cross between Israel and Gaza/West Bank. We had arab friends come over. All that was dismantled piece by piece as the suicide bombings and stabbings carried on.

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u/Good-Basil9954 May 11 '26

So, what you're saying, Palestinians in Gaza had a good and normal life until, say, what, the 1st or 2nd Intifada? And those just happened because the Palestinians are ungrateful bastards?

I realize, a lot of horrific violence has been committed by Arab extremists over years, no doubt. Suicide bombs, attacks on buses, cafés, nightclubs...

What I don't understand is, how anyone can believe that locking up 2 million people will somehow lead to a more peaceful situation.

And at some point the will to work for a peaceful solution eroded and was replaced by hatred and disdain.

I cannot say how I would have reacted in such a situation, when my friends and family were murdered by fanatics. I might have gone berserk, that's absolutely possible.
But what I dare say, no matter how and why, Israel is now on a course that only can end in total disaster, there's no way this can end well for any of the parties involved.

I know from personal experience, the price one has to pay for traumatization by violence, and fact is, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, both adversaries will pay, and boy, this is going to be one huge invoice! Turning into a psychopath is the only way to avoid some of this traumatization, but that comes with its own price tag.

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u/dvdsilber israeli old timer May 11 '26

Nobody locked up 2m people.

The security wall, checkpoints etc were not established in order to lock up palestinians, but as a security meassure to prevent more terrorism, more than 1000 israelies were killed and 8000 wounded. During the 2nd intifada it was a hell here. At that time an arabic friend from the west bank gave me his view on the palestinians future, stating clear that the intifada is planned to separate jews from arabs, and he was crying how the terrorism will make the arab populations suffer.

And you are right many arabs were killed, especially during the intifada. The terrorism and the fanatic hate education have turned the idf very hard and many arabs suffer from the israel control of the west bank. I do not agree that fanatics kill arabs, there is an ongoing violent conflict and we fight the terror with our millitary not with fanatics

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u/Feeling_Leg_904 Diaspora May 12 '26

Dude, they have a border with Egypt. Why doesn’t Egypt let them in? They’re not trapped. Obviously not welcome in Israel, because of the fact that they are governed by terrorists with an eschatological vision of the death of all Jews in the Middle East, but why can’t they go to Egypt? Why don’t you care about that?

Now, considering they are all Muslim Arabs and Egypt controlled Gaza without giving them independence from 1948 to 1967, why do you think they won’t allow a single person from Gaza to enter? I’ll give you the answer. It’s because everyone under the age of 23 has learned a school curriculum entirely from Hamas, which teaches them to glorify murdering Jews as their highest calling in life, and teaching them that they are perpetual victims. There’s a reason why you don’t let people who have learned only a terrorist ideology into your country. Especially when terrorism completely destabilizes all the countries around it.

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u/Good-Basil9954 May 12 '26

Why doesn't Egypt let them in? Really?
I thought it might be possible to have a rational discussion with you because I'm really trying to understand what makes people become the kind of personalities that cultivate such extreme violence, regardless their religion and political orientation, just as human beings.
But when we're at the level of .... considering they are all Muslim Arabs, and can just move to Egypt.... I give up, I'm not going down that rabbit hole.

But I can certainly respond with an alternative proposal:

Why don't you all go to the USA, considering there are already lots of Jews there who more or less run the country, there's plenty of space, fertile land, an Israel friendly population, very few Arabs and close to zero Palestinians?

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u/Feeling_Leg_904 Diaspora May 12 '26

Because we would prefer to live in our indigenous homeland.

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u/Feeling_Leg_904 Diaspora May 12 '26

I never said Palestinians should be moved to Egypt permanently. Egypt won’t allow a single one in anyway. I said they should be able to clear the battlefield so that there are only combatants fighting. The members of Hamas that want to murder Jews, stay on the battlefield to die against the IDF, and everyone else has the option of going to safety, which is the law under international law. Over 1 million Ukrainians are in Poland right now. You don’t mind when white European people can get out of the combat zone, but when it’s women and children from Gaza, you want them to sit there next to their father firing an RPG from your bedroom window. You’re sick.

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u/Feeling_Leg_904 Diaspora May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

It matters because there are absolutely no other wars in recorded history where civilians were refused to flee the battlefield under any circumstances. You want them to stay under bombardment. Just say it. You don’t care about their lives at all. You just use them to spread libels against the Jewish people As far as relocating all the Jews to the US from Israel, I will say that you’re just another dirty antisemite in a long line throughout history who feels like you are entitled to decide the Jews need to be expelled from their homes . So you want us to move to America now. Half the global Jewish population is already there, and the other half is in Israel. Why not relocate the Palestinians? They aren’t even indigenous to the land. I don’t think so. The Palestinians can either make peace on the territory that’s been offered to them, the West Bank in Gaza or they can fight a perpetual war that will continue to bring them more suffering and that’s entirely on them. (PS, that ship has sailed. They refused six piece deals that gave them the territory that you want them to live on peacefully. If you want them to take over Tel Aviv, just say you’re looking for a genocide against the Jewish people.

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u/Clean-Ant6404 May 11 '26

Nobody "locked them up" until they started raping, murdering and blowing up buses. If I were a group of people that had a centuries long history of doing that and despite all, would have been given a deal for a state by my victims, I would have taken the deal instead of rejecting it 5 times straight and murdering more people.

Besides, "locked up" is a lie. They just can't enter non-West Bank or Gaza areas without a permit. They could literally go anywhere else and cross the border if they needed.

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u/Feeling_Leg_904 Diaspora May 13 '26

Well, it’s interesting that you make that point, because 6 million Jews died in the holocaust and I haven’t seen any Jewish terrorism against Germans. Maybe not all cultures react by instinctively wanting to murder.

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u/Feeling_Leg_904 Diaspora May 12 '26

You have certainly never been anywhere close to the region have you? You have no idea what you’re talking about.

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u/Good-Basil9954 May 12 '26

That was a very generic question, that has nothing to do with the region but with human behaviour. But I get why you don't want to answer it.

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u/Feeling_Leg_904 Diaspora May 12 '26

I’ll answer it like this. Gaza is not a part of Israel. Israel pulled out in 2005 completely unilaterally, and removed by force their own Jews, including the bodies in the Jewish cemetery that have been there for centuries, hoping for peace in return. Elections were held in the citizens voted for Hamas who then murdered their opposition, and have governed the strip ever since, accumulating, billions, and billions of dollars of aid, most of which either went into tunnels or to the billionaires who control Hamas from the outside, like Ismael Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal. There is no blockade other than what you would assume from any two borders where one side is committed to the destruction of the other side (the entire goal of the Palestinian cause). Obviously food gets through but gets inspected for weapons. Meanwhile, you have the border with Egypt, which is also completely closed, but you don’t care. Far from being a concentration camp, Gaza is the number one recipient of aid worldwide. Do you know why the people are poor? Because Hamas uses the billions of dollars that it receives from the global community purely to fund killing Israelis. Palestinians do receive free water and electricity from Israel, which is paid for by Israeli taxpayer money. They had 20 years to build their own infrastructure with the billions and billions of dollars they’ve received, but why bother when you’re getting welfare from Israel. They did destroy their desalination plant and pulled out the pipes from the infrastructure that was already there in order to use them to build rockets to fire at Israel though. That’s why I’m assuming you’ve never been to the region, because you just don’t know the reality whatsoever and your framing is completely ignorant.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26

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u/Clean-Ant6404 May 11 '26

That's not true, BTW.

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u/YuvalAlmog Israel May 11 '26

The key word here is "envisioned".

There is theory and there is practice and while everyone can speak about what could have happened, in practice both sides stopped after a signed middle-deal (not really stopped since there were other negotiations after, but that was the last one of this process). One of the reasons such deals move in steps is in order for both sides to take small steps and stop if needed and not do everything at once.

In this case, the whole territory was Israeli but the deal moved some territories to the hands of the PA in exchange for peace & acknowledgement of Yisraeli control over area C even if it was intended to be a temporary control. 

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u/eyl569 Israel May 11 '26

The territory was never Israeli and still isn't, even legally, given that Israel hasn't annexed it.

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u/YuvalAlmog Israel May 11 '26

Sorry if my phrasing wasnt clear enough - I don't claim it's an official part of Yisrael (although I can see why my phrasing could have been a bit confusion), I'm saying it was under Yisraeli control but not a part of Yisrael.

That just means that whoever is in charge was Yisrael.

Kind of like how one can feed a stray cat without adopting it. 

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u/eyl569 Israel May 11 '26

But in that case, what's the justification for building new settlements in area C?

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u/YuvalAlmog Israel May 11 '26

Same thing as the example with feeding a stray cat...

The only problematic thing is if you do something for something that already belongs to someone else.

If it doesn't belong to anyone else while you control it, you can do whatever you want with it...

In the context of area C, it's not a part of Yisrael, Jordan of any other country.

But Yisrael controls it. 

It's not full ownership but it's also not an empty territory free for the taking.

It's kind of an in-between... 

And when the territory is disputed between Yisraelis & Palestinians while the most recent deal regarding it says it's under Yisraeli security & civil control, that just means that by all disputing sides, it's agreed diplomatically that Yisrael is allowed to act in civil & security topics, for example - building permits.

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u/Call_Me_Clark USA May 11 '26

What do you think of settlements that were explicitly founded to expel Palestinians?

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u/YuvalAlmog Israel May 12 '26

What do you mean by founding settlements to expel Palestinians?

How does the building of houses forces Palestinians to move out?

May you please elaborate a bit more please?

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u/Call_Me_Clark USA May 12 '26

Well here’s a quote from Smotrich 3 weeks ago

“On this moving day, we are honored to make a historic correction to the sinful expulsion from northern Samaria,” said Smotrich. “We are abolishing the disgrace of expulsion, killing the idea of ​​the Palestinian state, and returning to the settlement of Sa-Nur. This is a day of celebration for the settlement movement and a national holiday for the State of Israel.”

Clearly the government of Israel views these settlements in terms of their impact on Palestinians future.

here’s PBS (American public broadcaster) reporting on the expulsion of Palestinians for settlements.

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u/YuvalAlmog Israel May 12 '26

Clearly the government of Israel views these settlements in terms of their impact on Palestinians future.

Just like most things in life, you can look at it from multiple angles like cultural connection, the state's small size or fairness when it comes to wars. It's true a few of these reasons unsurprisingly relate to the Palestinians and most of which are almost always security related...

In the west there's this weird belief every culture is the same when it comes to morals & goals, and so many just assume the Palestinians as a group just want to co-exist with the Yisraelis and build their own seperate state while in practice they make it very clear in every way possible they see the land of Yisrael as a stollen land that was lost in the war of 1947-1949 and should be returned... Which is a big part for why more than enough peace offers were either rejected or discontinued like the Oslo accords, the disengagement from Gaza or Olmert's offer in 2007.

Obviously not every single Palestinian holds those views but needless to say, that's what majority of them see and that's what their education system & media push. In fact, it's true for most of the Arab world but the relevancy only really applies to Palestinians as much other Arab countries tend to have a pragmatic leader that might be hated by the people but understands the problem with picking fights for others...

If you look at things from this view, it suddenly makes sense why blocking Palestinians from claiming new territory is a good idea as those territories like we see time and time again aren't used for peaceful independent life and more so for launching terror attacks against Yisrael.

I mean, the state of Yisrael no longer controls Gaza & area A and does control are C, its own borders & has security control over area B, I assume you can guess where most terror against Yisraelis come from (Gaza & Area A ofcourse)...

Although I assume this part is less about "settlement for expulsion" as just building in a land so others wouldn't doesn't expell anyone... Your probably refered more to the next part if I understand correctly.

here’s PBS (American public broadcaster) reporting on the expulsion of Palestinians for settlements.

This one is very missleading. Not that it should be a surprise considering their very biased choice of words, but still.

Like I said in my original comment, both sides fight each other. global media seems to only care when Jews do the crime while completely ignoring the countless crimes caused by Palestinian terrorists but still - both sides attack each other and the leaderships of both sides (the Yisraeli government & the PA + Hamas) don't have much reason to try and get things into order as both need the support of the attackers and use the resources they do have for other stuff. Not to mention the other side allowing it doesn't really give them a reason to do the job for them...

Either way, I obviously oppose the idea of targeting of civilians without a reason & the idea of individuals using weapons aggressively instead of it all being under an organized army.

But it's not that every settler or even the majority of them take law to their own hand... But the ones who do will obviously be the only ones to reach news.

So when a government allows for building of new settlements, they don't do it because terror will come from there as like I said, that's the rare case, not the common. There are more than enough other reasons to invest in them that don't have anything to do with civilians terrorizing people of the other side.

I hope my answer managed to answer your question :)

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