"Settlements: New towns for Israeli settlers built in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza after they were seized by Israel in the wake of the 1967 war. The Israeli government has been building these settlements since the 1970s. Palestinians say these settlements represent a colonization of Palestinian lands; but the Israeli settler movement and its political supporters say these lands are part of the ancient biblical state of Israel. The construction of new settlements accelerated in the 1990s. Today, an estimated 210,500 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, some 8,000 in Gaza and another 180,000 have settled in what was Arab East Jerusalem before 1967."

Feb. 23, 2005 - National Public Radio (NPR) 

"What is a settlement?

Settlements are essentially large housing projects built illegally by Israel on land confiscated from Palestinians within the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza Strip. These settlements are joined to each other and to Israel through 'by-pass' roads, which are for the exclusive use of Israelis and which are also built on privately owned Palestinian land confiscated by the Israeli government.

Israeli settlements affect Palestinian daily life and impact long-term Palestinian developmental needs. They ensure that Palestinians live in a continuous state of insecurity and fragmentation and therefore prevent economic, social and political development."

June 5, 2007 - Palestine Monitor 

"Since 1967 there is a growing policy of legal and physical separation between the Jewish and Palestinian populations in the occupied territories. Seven months after the 6-day war, the first Israeli settlement, Kfar Etzion, was established in the West Bank. Only one year later, during the Passover of 1968, several families settled in the Park Hotel, Hebron.

In late 1967 the head of the Ministerial Committee for Settlements, Yigal Alon, began to plan the state’s official settlement map. Between the years 1967-1977, around 30 settlements housing approximately 5,000 settlers were established. The majority of these settlements were established on the eastern margins of the West Bank. This construction intended to satisfy the security ideology surrounding the necessity of an Israeli civilian presence in the peripheral areas.

In 1977, with the succession of a Likud government to power, with Menachem Begin as its leader, the settlement effort begun to focus on the western areas in the West Bank. Dozens of such settlements were established at the end of the 1970’s and the beginning of 1980’s. Such measures constituted a direct effort to prevent a split of the country into two, under the political compromise of two states for two peoples.

Today, around 260,000 people live in 121 settlements throughout the West Bank (not including East Jerusalem). 17 settlements in the Gaza strip and 4 in Northern Samaria in the West Bank were evacuated during the Disengagement Plan in August 2005. The settlements cost us at least 556 million dollars per year"

June 6, 2007 - Peace Now 

"Settlements are actually towns and villages where Jews have gone to live since the capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967... Strategic concerns led both Labor and Likud governments to establish settlements. The objective is to secure a Jewish majority in key strategic regions of the West Bank, such as the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor -- the scene of heavy fighting in several Arab-Israeli wars.

The Likud government also provided financial incentives for Jews to move to parts of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] that did not necessarily have any strategic value. Their purpose was to solidify Israel's hold on territory that was part of biblical and historical Palestine / Israel."

Aug. 28, 2006 - Mitchell G. Bard, PhD 

"There are five types of settlements:

1. Agrarian settlements for military purposes manned mostly by soldiers.
2. Settlements of Jews returning to sites occupied by Jews prior to 1948 (Hebron, Gush Etzion, Jewish Quarter).
3. Expanding suburbs of Israeli cities on or near the 'Green Line'.
4. Missionary Settlements unrelated to the previous three types.
5. Patently illegal rogue settlements.

Settlements for Military Purposes

Agrarian settlements manned by IDF [Israel Defense Force] soldiers were established soon after the war along what the IDF felt were crucial corridors of defense, especially along the Jordan river, near the 'Green Line', in the Golan Heights, and near Gaza. Because Egypt, Syria and Jordan remained belligerent states for decades after the war, and because the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] was actively trying to develop bases for terrorism in the newly conquered territories, and because Israel had previously been invaded across these territories, these settlements were intended primarily to serve a strategic military defensive purpose.

Settlements of Jews Returning To Their Pre-1948 Homes

Settlement of civilian Israelis in the West Bank began shortly after the 6-day war, with a small group of Orthodox Jews setting up a few households in the former Jewish section of Hebron, followed by larger re-settling of Jews in the rapidly reconstructed Jewish Quarter of East Jerusalem. Jews had lived in Hebron almost continuously since the days of Joshua (3100 years), and were expelled only during the horrific Arab pogroms of 1929 in which hundreds were slaughtered. Jewish habitation in Jerusalem had a similar millennia-long history, with the 1948 war and the massacre of about half of the population of the Jewish Quarter terminating Jewish presence there.

Later, Jews resettled the villages of the Kfar Etzion area (aka Gush Etzion) southwest of Bethlehem. Since this area had been extensively settled and developed in the early part of the 20th century by Zionist pioneers, and most of the Jews of these villages were massacred by Arab irregulars during the 1948 war, the return of Israelis to these sites created additional Type B settlements.

Expanding Suburbs

Unoccupied areas around Jerusalem and to the east of Kfar Saba and Netania (near Tel Aviv) and to the northeast of Petah Tiqvah were used as sites for major building projects that created low cost housing for the expanding populations of the Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv areas. In most cases, the land utilized for these projects was Jordanian 'Crown Land,' land to which no individual could lay claim of private ownership. In the absence of Jordan's willingness to enter into peace negotiations after the war, Israel's expropriation of these unoccupied areas was legal in as much as Israel's sovereignty, having been created via defensive actions against an aggressor nation (Jordan), was legal.

In cases where West Bank Arabs legally owned land that Israel wanted for these expansion projects, Israel bought the land at fair market prices. Land sale to Israel was fairly active throughout the decades after the Six-day war. So much so that when the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, Chairman Arafat declared that sale of land to Jews was punishable by death; as a result, Palestinian families who had benefited from these sales were suddenly in mortal danger and some were forced to flee the West Bank.

Missionary Settlements

Over time, religious and right wing political pressure supported the creation of settlements elsewhere in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Under Prime Ministers Begin and Rabin, these settlements proliferated. Often they were founded near ancient Jewish holy sites, such as Joseph's Tomb near Nablus (Biblical Shehem).

Arab spokespersons claim that these settlements, some of which were built well inside the West Bank or Gaza Strip areas, stole land from Arab farmers. Israel claims that most land used for these developments was unoccupied and un-owned, thus qualifying as 'Crown Land', upon which Israel had full legal right to build and develop. Where privately owned land was needed for settlement expansion, Israel claims to have purchased that land from its legal owners at fair market values.

Rogue Settlements

These settlements were set up by break-away settlement occupants, often contrary to IDF and/or government instructions, sometimes on privately owned Palestinian land. Palestinian complaints about such illegal land grabs have been adjudicated in the Israeli court system with decisions not infrequently in favor of the Palestinians. These settlements, whether on illegally taken land or not, are considered illegal by many in Israel. Some have been forcibly dismantled. This is a very emotional issue in Israel, with orthodox Jews demanding that all Jews be allowed to settle anywhere in the Promised Land (especially anywhere in the region where Abraham lived: i.e., the West Bank from Shechem/Nablus to Hebron)."

June 24, 2005 - David Meir-Levi, MA