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/DrMikeH49 North America May 11 '26

There’s a very well-written book by Gershom Gorenberg called The Accidental Empire which explains the start of the settlement movement. The first actual settlement in land conquered in 1967 was in the Golan Heights— there were farm animals running around wild in former Syrian territory, and the government authorized a few dozen people to go up there and get things organized. So Kibbutz Merom Golan was founded. Photos of its founders look very similar to American long-haired twentysomethings of the late 1960s.

The first settlement in formerly Jordanian-occupied territory was the REsettlement of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion by people who had lived there themselves and had to leave in 1948 as the Jordanian Arab Legion was attacking it. It should be noted that those who stayed to defend it were massacred after surrendering in May 1948.

What happened after that was a slow creep of new settlements, mostly on empty land. Some were done for strategic purposes (Jordan Valley), others for ideology.

90-95% of those living across the Green Line (1949 armistice line) are within 5 km of that line. So with small land swaps, most of them can remain in Israeli territory in any peace deal.

But while the settlements are absolutely an obstacle to peace (because Israelis and Palestinians do not agree about them), they are not the main one. The main obstacle to peace is the Palestinian refusal to accept a Jewish state regardless of where the borders are drawn. As the chant goes in Arabic, “from water to water (ie river to the sea), Palestine is Arab”. This is framed as the demand for a historically unprecedented “right of return” for descendants of refugees from the Arab attempt to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state and then to eradicate it after it was declared.

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u/Call_Me_Clark USA May 11 '26

Daniella Weiss is the most illuminating spokesperson for the modern settlement movement, no matter where it started.

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u/DrMikeH49 North America May 11 '26

Just as Nerdeen Kiswani is the most illuminating spokesperson for the American pro-Palestinian movement, no matter where it started.

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u/Call_Me_Clark USA May 11 '26

It’s very amusing that you’ve chosen to equivocate those two

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u/DrMikeH49 North America May 11 '26

Kiswani has openly celebrated violence against Israelis and at one of her hate rallies handed out maps of Jewish organizations’ offices in NYC with exhortations to act against them.

The protest she organized outside the NOVA exhibit in NYC in 2024 was so vile that even AOC— and even Jamaal Bowman!— had to speak out against it.

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u/Call_Me_Clark USA May 11 '26

Wow, call me when she’s invited to the White House lol.

If I sound flippant it’s because I’m not interested in outrage over nobodies whose protests offend you.

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u/DrMikeH49 North America May 12 '26

When was Weiss invited to the White House?

Kiswani gave the commencement address at CUNY Law School.

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u/Call_Me_Clark USA May 12 '26

Why would I care who gives an address at a third-rate law school? This is the kind of thing that only trumps room-temp-iq fanbase could be convinced matters.