Israeli settlements and the widening divide between settlers and Palestinians

West Virginia native Rachel Braslavy says she moved to her new home so her family could have more space and a greater sense of community. But she faces more important questions than when buying a house. Their community is the Israeli settlement of Karnei Shomron, located inside the occupied West Bank.

Asked if she considered her settler family to be an obstacle to peace, Braslawi said: “No. I don't. I really don't. I think we have a right to be here. And I think the Palestinians have a right to be here.”

– On this land? I asked.

“Not this house,” Braslavy said. “But I mean, in the area.”

This settlement, like hundreds of others, is carved out of Palestinian land, surrounded by a security fence. The border that separates the West Bank from Israel is called the Green Line. It was drawn up as part of an armistice agreement following the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, which began with the creation of the modern state of Israel.

But after Israel's stunning military success in the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel seized more land by occupying Palestinian territories, and Israeli citizens began building settlements.

Today, more than 700,000 Israelis live in these communities, which the UN calls illegal. They are scattered in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. About 15% of the settlers are Americans.

But Rachel Braslavy does not consider herself a resident of the Palestinian land: “No. I'm not. I think Judea and Samaria were some of the first places the Jews arrived back in Bible times. So, to me, it's part of our indigenous right to be here.”

I asked, “How much of your decision to move here to the settlement was cost of living versus ideology?”

“I came from America when I was 20 to live in Israel,” she said. “And I considered this step as my contribution to the Jewish people in our homeland. It didn't matter where I lived in Israel.

“And my husband grew up here, and he saw it differently. He really thought that to make a significant contribution was to cross the green line and establish the facts on the ground.”

“What does 'facts on the ground' mean?”

“Simply strengthening the existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria,” replied Braslav.

“On the West Bank?

“Yes.”

The number of settlers has increased by more than 200 percent since 2000. The Israeli government encourages these moves by paying soldiers to guard them and funding public services such as buses and schools.

Judith Segaloff moved to Karnei Shomran seven years ago from Detroit and says she was able to afford a bigger house here than on the other side of the Green Line. She took us on a tour. “Our shopping center is across the street,” she said. “We have an ice cream shop. Here's our sushi shop.”

I asked, “Do you have any friends or family who don't agree with you living in a settlement?”

“Of course,” Segalov said. “Some of them won't come to visit.”

Segaloff says she's excited about the settlement's expansion plans down the road. She believes that the Israeli presence provides security.

“But it's also a contested place,” I said, “a place that's considered occupied territory.”

“Some,” Segalov said.

“From the side of the international community.”

“Well, they're going to have to get over it,” Segaloff said. “You cannot live among people who want to kill you. They just have to move and let us in.''

But not far away, on the other side of the checkpoints and the security barrier, we met Saher Ida, a Palestinian who lives in the West Bank village where his great-grandfather was born.

When asked about the settlers' claim that – historically and biblically – the land belongs to them, Id replied: “We have documents to prove that we own this land, which we have cultivated from time immemorial. Ask the settlers where they are from?”

He and his wife Tamador, a high school science teacher, invited us to tea. They say they are most concerned about the rise in violence by Israeli settlers, emboldened by Benjamin Netanyahu's increasingly right-wing government. Since October 7 last year, according to UN estimates, extremist settlers have carried out more than 1,400 attacks on Palestinians or their property.

The Eids are also frustrated that the fence and checkpoints around the settlement have cut them off from their own olive trees. Saher said his freedom had been taken away: “He stole my land. He stole my olives. He stole everything.”

I asked, “Is there room for introspection here? Have you ever thought, “Maybe we are not the best partners to try to find a way to peace”?

“We believe that if there was a Palestinian state without settlements, there would be widespread support for peace,” Saher said.

The differences on this side of the security barrier are stark. Revenues are a small fraction of Israel's, and Israel controls water and a significant portion of tax revenue.

Saher said he welcomes an Israeli living in Tel Aviv, but not a settler, into his home: “No, because he's a thief.”

Assaf Sharon, professor of political and legal philosophy at Tel Aviv Universitynoted: “James Carville coined the phrase, 'It's the economy, fool.' In Israel and Palestine: “These are settlements, fool.”

Regarding the settlers, who claim that they did not take anyone's land, that no one lived there before them, Sharon said: “Well, of course, it was not done individually. Occupying land does not mean that you have a house. It can also be pasture land for future construction.

“Settlers make the security argument that Israel is safer with settlements,” I said.

“The security argument is completely bogus,” Sharon replied. “Populations are not a security asset, but security burdenbecause protecting, protecting dozens of civilians deep in densely populated Palestinian territory is one hell of a burden for the military.”

He added: “The best way to ensure Israel's security is to partner with a state or state-like entity that has an interest in preventing exactly this type of hostile action.”

David Makovsky, employee of Washington Institute for Near East Policysaid: “We have ideologues on both sides of this equation who are determined to disrupt any accommodation.”

In 2013, Makovsky was part of a team that tried to negotiate a peace agreement. This failed proposal and two others resulted in the Palestinians retaining about 95% of the West Bank.

But today, with the increasing number of settlements – blue dots on the map, some far from the “green line” – it may be even more difficult to define the borders in the two-state decision.

Makovsky said that negotiations have changed under Donald Trump: “Before Trump, all US peace approaches were the same. Under Trump, working with Prime Minister Netanyahu, he doesn't want to pick and choose which settlements succeed and which don't. Thus, the Prime Minister convinced the President that every settlement is called Israel, which creates an impossible situation with the Palestinian entities.

Now the settlers may have another ally with the influence of President-elect Trump's nominee to be the next ambassador to Israel: Mike Huckabee, who has said he is open to annexing parts of the West Bank.

But there is a historical precedent for the evacuation of populated areas. Almost 20 years ago, the Israeli government advocated that withdrawal from Gaza was the path to peace.

According to Makovsky, “2005 is for the settlers their Waterloo, their defeat.” Then Israel removed all 8,000 settlers from Gaza.

Then I described a 17-year-old girl who was forced to leave Gush Katif, her settlement in Gaza. Nineteen years later, settlements are still in the early stages. “Yes, in Israel it is,” said Rachel Yechieli Gross. Today she is already a mother with three children, she no longer lives in the village.

I asked, “The fact that you left your home, your settlement as a teenager, shows that settlements can be closed. Could this be a step towards peace?”

“After October 7“I'm not so sure anymore because I really believed there could be change,” Gross said. – But I don't feel it anymore.

Makovsky blamed the terrorist group Hamas, which he said “really led to the rise of the Israeli right. If people in Israel thought that a Palestinian state was Costa Rica, they would line up to sign it because they want to end the conflict.. They just want to be safe, but if they feel that a Palestinian state is mini-Iran, you can't find enough people in a phone booth.”

In the West Bank, Rachel Braslavy and her family are just five of 700,000 Israeli settlers working to change what she calls “the facts on the ground.”

“I wouldn't leave voluntarily because I'm raising my family here and I've, you know, built my dream home,” she said. “Why should the peace agreement be at my expense, giving up my home?”

For more information:

Story produced by Sarah Aviv. Editor: Ed Givenish.