From what I've read, there are three sorts of settlements
1) The Jordan valley settlements were put there for security outposts
2) Settlements near the Green Line to expand the border. Reuniting Jerusalem and annexing the land around it falls under this category, as well as the Gush Etzion block of settlements. I might add that the situation is considerably more complex here than simply accusing Israel of 'expanisionism' as lots of the land involved, such as the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, Gilo, and Gush Etzion, had been Jewish-owned before 1948, when Transjordan took them and killed or drove off every single Jew. When Israel took them in 1967, they gave the land back to the pre 1948 owners. The settlements near the Green Line are the largest towns, and most of the people in them just came looking for cheaper housing.
3) The rest of the settlements are sprinkled throughout the territories. These are largely religious-Zionist in nature. These settlements were designed to make it difficult to ever give back the territories. They do not generally 'displace' Palestinians (think about it. If the Israelis had displaced thousands of Palestinians lately, wouldn't we all have heard all about it?), but are generally built between Palestinian towns. They get a disproportionate allocation of water, and since the intifada, special roads and lots of soldiers to guard them.
Right now, there are about 200,000 Israeli settlers in the territories (not counting the new neighborhoods of Jerusalem). There are about 2 million Palestinians in the West Bank and 1 million in Gaza. About 500,000 Palestinian immigrants came in the years since 1993, so Palestinians are hardly getting displaced, though at the moment they are occupied with a heavy hand. We know the reasons for that.
I would also add that the Europeans who speak of Israel "expanding into Palestinian land" habitually speak as if there had ever been an Arab country of Palestine, but there never was. Before 1948, there were Jews and Arabs in one country that the Jews regarded as their homeland, the British had demarcated as Palestine, and Arabs still at that time considered part of Syria or Transjordan. There were several proposals to partition the country, one by the Peel commission in 1937 (the Arabs rejected it), the UN partition in 1947 (ditto), and the 1949 truce lines after Israel had won the War of 1948. These truce lines became the borders of Israel, but they were not recognized by any of the Arab states. Until Israel won the Six Day War, when the pre-1967 borders became sacrosanct -g-
If Israel had lost the War of 1948, not only would there have been no Israel, but there would have been no Palestine either; the region would have been divided between Syria, TransJordan and Egypt. Palestinian society lacked the organization of a state; its fighters were the village guerillas of the Mufti, whom all the other Arabs hated and distrusted, and who as an ardent Nazi was not exactly in good odor on the world stage at the time. |
