Israel Had "Secret Agreement" With U.S. Over Settlements?

President Obama made the center piece of his Mideast peace push illegal Israeli settlements. Israel began its settlement project to colonize the 1967 Occupied West Bank following the Six-Day War that year. Even though Israel's own consulted lawyers argued that the settlements would be prohibitive under international law as occupying powers are not supposed to settler another people's land with their own population. But Israel's then Labor government ignored such findings as there was a concurrence between the Israeli defense establishment and the Orthodox community to build on the West Bank for national security and religious purposes, respectively.

israel settlement 28cPE 19672

What started then has not bequeathed over 500,000 illegal Israeli settlers in the Occupied West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem (which Israel has annexed, but no nation - not even the U.S. - recognizes this annexation). 10% of the Jewish population now lives in illegal settlements.

Ironically, but not surprisingly, the biggest expansion of settlements took place during the Oslo peace process years. Israel's ostensibly dovish prime minister Yatzhik Rabin told the Knesset that Israel needed to use the peace years as a last minute land grab because after final borders are negotiated there will no longer be an opportunity for expansion, but in the meantime Israel could readily create "facts on the ground" so that whatever Israel "settles" will remain Israeli and the residual will be Palestinian. So Israel needed to surreptitiously expand its borders and prejudice the final negotiations (a clear violation of Oslo which stated that neither side could take such actions) through settlers in order to ensure that final borders will ensure more land for Israel. And that's what Israel did: doubling the settlements population during the Oslo years to 400,000.

The Obama administration recognized that future negotiations cannot take place under such conditions: Israel slowly eating away of what is supposed to be a negotiated Palestinian state so as to negate the very end of the process.

It was not a novel idea to demand a settlement freeze since Oslo already mandated the principle of one. But the Israelis yelled and their domestic lobby went to work. The administration seemed to hold its ground for awhile only to relent. But was the administration tactically signing off on some settlements. Wikileaks:

Patrice Paoli informed POL Minister

Counselor June 18 that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak

told French officials in Paris June 15 that the Israelis have

a "secret accord" with the USG to continue the "natural

growth" of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Paoli noted

that the French anticipate strong Israeli resistance to USG

pressure on this issue. He asked whether the USG has

considered how to adapt to possible Israeli responses: "How

will you react to Israeli reactions to your pressure?" He

claimed that "the credibility of President Obama will be

judged on the issue of settlements." MFA DAS Ludovic

Pouille, who also attended the meeting, underlined this

point: "Arabs are saying progress on settlements is crucial.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt seem obsessed with the settlements

issue; they won't even enter the game without progress on

settlements." Paoli added that "negotiations can wait until

the fall, but steps forward cannot wait until then." Both

diplomats emphasized the need to build confidence measures on

the ground now.

The question of "natural growth" is a dubious Israeli B.S. line about how the settlements need to grow so that adult children can live next to their parents. As if anyone in the world has a right to live next to home...let alone in an act which entails the illegal usurping of another people's land. But that's Israeli propaganda for you. Constantly trying to rephrase its illegalities and crimes.