Opinion
Why Israeli Settlements Will Never Be a Success Story
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It is often argued that the proliferation of settlements has buried the two-state solution. The opposite is true
שני כהן
Shani CohenFollow
August 15, 2026
At a public event I recently attended, representatives of several organizations working on proposals to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took the stage one after another to persuade the audience to support their respective plans. They answered questions about different aspects of their proposals and made their case to the audience, which then voted for its preferred plan.
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Bezalel Smotrich
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Cerecer • 17.08.2026 | 20:55
Today we are informed that the new word of the day for the anti Israel haters is Jewish supremacy.
Forget that for 20 centuries the word was Jews are cowards and meek and sneaky.
Now they are the super duper bullies. That turn around is as ludicrous as it sounds .
Anyway given a choice I'll go with the powerful Jew image . But it's amazing how European Jew haters can change on a dime
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GodfreyCerecer • 18.08.2026 | 22:11
These comments are mindless rantings with a one note excuse for anything bad that happens to a Jewish Israeli. My dad called it hissing in the wind. You get covered in your own hiss. If everyone supposedly hates Jewish people century after century. If all Jewish people are better than non Jews and always innocent of any bad acts then a few million people are always right and the rest of the billions of others are always wrong. Writing about it is a waste of time. So is commenting on writing about it. Apologies to all open minded humans.
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CerecerGodfrey • 20.08.2026 | 04:55
I get it. Jews are basically responsible for their own persecution. Nice. So blood libels are true
Elders of Zion is true Nazi we're right
Hamas is right
With people like you around no wonder Israelis don't trust the Palestinians.
You sir are the reason we always need a strong and dominant israel
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Sandra Chitayat • 17.08.2026 | 02:36
It's just evil what they are doing: harassing & abusing even one family! I pray the incoming gov't will change course. Ben- Gvir arming them. Let's wait to have a proper peace, a proper Palestinian State & maybe all these lands can be shared equitably in a model of coexistence - if that can happen at all. You can't have one population existing at the expense of the other. Not right & not fair leading to explosive situations. Now I see the Jerusalem municipality has taken over UNRWA's building.
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AIB • 16.08.2026 | 17:53
I began as a supporter of the settlement enterprise. I changed my views when it became clear that they would not survive (I don't mean only from a security perspective) without massive government support. They have been on the political equivalent of medical "life support" since the first day.
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CVAIB • 16.08.2026 | 18:11
Interesting comment. Could you explain the reasoning behind you being a supporter of the settlement enterprise ? how did Palestinians fit in this reasoning ?
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CerecerCV • 17.08.2026 | 06:00
Many people including the labor government at the time set up settlements to protect the Jerusalem area and the Jordan valley. Most people support that and still do
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CVCerecer • 17.08.2026 | 10:54
So the civilian settlements were built as human shields ?
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CerecerCV • 17.08.2026 | 20:58
Not sacrificial lambs like Palestinians but an infrastructure of support ie roads stations logistics to keep up the defense of an area
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Lou Arpino16.08.2026 | 15:50
It should be clear by now that the desire of the Jewish people to return to their Biblical land has been no match against the determination of the Palestinian people to remain on their ancestral land.
The creation of an artificial Settler Enterprise, unproductively "cantonizing" stolen land, is proof that Zionism has gone too far in its attempts to adjust to its faulty assumption, the assumption that Zionism would dominate the demographics from River to Sea has never materialized. If fact, if Jewish Israelis were to be cured of their cognitive dissonance they would realize that their country cannot function without its Palestinian workforce and consumers.
The vision for a viable two state solution has been rendered impossible by religious Zionism. The only option left is for the bi-national state which was called for in both Israel's Declaration of Independence as well as its draft Constitution...a nation where all inhabitants of are completely equal regardless of race, religion or sex.
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CerecerLou Arpino • 17.08.2026 | 06:03
They have doing just fine without Gaza and West Bank workforce. The Arab have had a tremendous economic blow not working in Israel . If you mean the Palestinians citizens of Israel. Yes we do need them and they are citizens so no issue
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Lou ArpinoCerecer • 17.08.2026 | 16:40
As a people and a culture, how do you feel that the West Bank Palestinians are different from the Israeli Palestinians?
Personally, I believe that Gaza should have never left Egyption governance. So, if we focus only on the WB being a bi-national federation with Israel, wouldn't another three million Palestinians help make Israel a better place?
In his address to the UN General Assembly, Abbas has said that Palestinians would accept a One State solution as long as they were completely equal, as are the two million Palestinians currently living in Israel as citizens.
I genuinely seek your opinion.
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Lou ArpinoLou Arpino • 17.08.2026 | 16:53
C'mom Cerecer, put your comment back up! I found your, now deleted, response that the Israeli Palestinians were making a productive contribution to Israel's success to be a great opening for useful dialog.
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CerecerLou Arpino • 17.08.2026 | 21:08
I didn't take it down. Yes the Palestinians of the West Bank are by and large much better off working with iand inside Israel than they would be without Israel. Just imagine how well off they would be with tourism construction hi tech manufacturing if their perpetual conflict and terrorism we're gone . The poverty level of the West Bank and Gaza would fall dramatically
All the problems of inequality would vanish .
But you people want to encourage a constant state of conflict for your own virtue signaling.
You encourage boycotts and sanctions. You don't help Palestinians
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XSLou Arpino • 01:22
I don't think you can even delete comments here, Haaretz just sometimes randomly takes them down (and sometimes restores them later) for no apparent reason.
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XSCerecer • 01:26
That's a bit hilarious if Israeli settlers are the ones torching homes, with support of the army, Israeli civil administration is forbidding development and the Israeli government closed the border (oh, suddenly there is a border). But it's the Palestinians who don't want to work with Israel!
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ELPOD • 16.08.2026 | 12:33
An apartment block is actually a colony; a suburb is nevertheless also a colony.
Not settlements
Settlers are colonists
Hilltop caravans are colonial outposts
Colonist violence is terrorism backed by the terrorist armed wing of a terrorist organisation
Colonial youth gangs are terrorists; not "juvenile delinquents"
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CerecerELPOD • 17.08.2026 | 06:04
We are all colonists at some part of our history . Stop pontificating.
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WreckerwreckCerecer • 17.08.2026 | 07:56
I'm Irish. Enlighten me. When were we colonists?
Pope Leo is doing some good pontificating.
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CVCerecer • 17.08.2026 | 08:38
Those of us who were colonists stopped being colonists in the XXth century and it is now generally considered wrong. Except in Israel. You think it's wrong for everyone and Israel should stop too, or it's right for everyone and everyone should restart colonizing ? Or somehow, let me guess : "it's not the same when Israel does it" ?
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CerecerCV • 17.08.2026 | 21:17
From the perspective of the Jewish people it's not a colony in current understanding. It is a return to the land . The first waves of returnees bought land . Some tenants were dispossessed that's life .
Later land was lost during consolidation following wars
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XSCerecer • 01:30
And in between, most of the land was taken by violence...
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ELPOD • 16.08.2026 | 12:33
An apartment block is actually a colony; a suburb is nevertheless also a colony.
Not settlements
Settlers are colonists
Hilltop caravans are colonial outposts
Colonist violence is terrorism backed by the terrorist armed wing of a terrorist organisation
Colonial youth gangs are terrorists; not "juvenile delinquents"
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Bethlehemite • 16.08.2026 | 12:03
It's the size of the ghettos that has been in play since 1967 . Every single Israeli government has played the Jordan option , they all lie in different shades . Will they connect 80% or the bare minimum 30 % of the WB to Jordan . The architecture has been developing for decades . The plan is to connect area A via highways to Jericho and then to Jordan . Will the world do anything to stop the colonizers ? Will Israel's genocidal majority become a minority and change anything ? Will the new progressive current in the US make a difference ? Will the billionaire Zionist lobby keep supporting ethnic cleansing ? Will the ghetto people use a dirty bomb one October day in the future ? Theses are some of the variables .
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BethlehemiteBethlehemite • 16.08.2026 | 12:39
Another complication might be if the greater Israel Zionist keep growing and go for the other side of the Jordan river a 30-50km of a "security barrier " , like southern Lebanon and southern Syria . It would make ideological sense to get Mount Nebo ( Madaba ) north of Amman , where it all started , rumored that G d told Joshua go down the valley, cross the river , slaughter everyone ( bring me the gold ) starting with Jericho and as the American Embassador said, " take it all " .
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BethlehemiteBethlehemite • 16.08.2026 | 13:50
Forgot to mention the Gazafication of some or most of the West Bank , the wackos may go for some of that before the world organizes pathetically to try and stop it .
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CerecerBethlehemite • 17.08.2026 | 06:11
The world won't do jack sht because it's tired of the same complaining from Palestinians who can't seem to agree to any peace plan. Interest in Gaza is already fading . People like you keep beating the same drum the world is doing nothing the world is doing nothing . Not everyone is as wacky as you and believes without a shred of evidence that Israel is interested in Jordan They have had a solid thirty year peace .
Sorry but your agitation hasn't accomplished a thing at the height of the war. And it won't do anything now that things are quieter
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CerecerBethlehemite • 17.08.2026 | 06:14
Who are the ghetto people. lol?
Do you mean African Americans because that the most racist thing to say . You are of course allowed to be antisemitic these days but you never criticize people of color . That is taboo my friend
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XSCerecer • 01:33
"Interest in Gaza is already fading"
AIPAC and other Jewish establishment orgs (why actually?) are desperately trying to make it fade by investing millions in the primaries. Doesn't seem to work so well...
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Cerecer • 15.08.2026 | 20:10
The settlement movement succeeded quite well
Sure you can evacuate small hilltops groups but the idea that you can uproot 700 thousand people in established cities is ludicrous
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CVCerecer • 15.08.2026 | 20:58
Oh, no need to evaluate them. The next government can simply announce that it will respect the UNGA resolution ES-10/24 and proceed to the evacuation of the IDF soldiers stationed outside of 1967 borders by January 1st.
And voilà ! The settlements will certainly evacuated themselves quite effectively. It's not as if it's technically complicated : there are magnificent roads to allow them into Israel proper into Israel proper and it's not far, a few dozens of miles at most. What's not to like ?
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LorraineCerecer • 15.08.2026 | 21:07
Another possibility is that in an arrangement with the Palestinians, the settlements and settlers will remain in place as citizens of Palestine--Jewish Palestinians, I guess--beholden to Palestinian state law. The settlers love "The Land" more than "The State" so they should be happy on The Land--but they would have to adjust to another state.
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CVLorraine • 15.08.2026 | 21:10
The wackos will never stay in such conditions. They will run.
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LorraineCV • 15.08.2026 | 22:17
They may run--and if they stayed I would feel a bit guilty donating this crowd to the Palestinians who have their own extremists to deal with--they don't need Jewish deadly true-believers. But I'm afraid a goodly number of the settler crowd will kill if either abandoned by Israel or forced away from settlements--and a number of them are already in the IDF and these may refuse evacuation orders--so, I expect (dread) a mess whatever happens.
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CVLorraine • 15.08.2026 | 23:23
The mess is certain. Not sure though those guys resist for long if they are left alone without the IDF defences in sovereign Palestine. They are dangerous for Israelis because Israelis don't want to hurt them. No such feeling in a post independence Palestine. I really don't expect many to stay. They just don't have the numbers.
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CerecerCV • 16.08.2026 | 05:24
You two fools go on debating your fantasies with each other. You forget that the vast majority of people in the settlement cities are regular citizens not the hilltop youth you focus on
They are not going to be abandoned by the idf
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CVCerecer • 16.08.2026 | 08:48
The vast majority of Israelis living in the settlements are illegal migrants, protected by an armed mafia against the rightful owners of the land they live on.
But I'll give you they are not messianic wackos. The thing is, those people, they are smelling the coffee : and leaving. The net migration is negative in the settlements. By multiplying the outposts Israel is importing wackos from somewhere (probably the USA ?) and the non-wackos they are not going to stay in this powder keg. Plus the wackos are really wackos and dangerous for them too.
This is unsustainable.
And by the way, once again, you demonstrate your total disregard of the well being of Israelis. You want them to stay even when endangered because you want an expanding, conquering Israel, because it makes you feel powerful from your American place thousands of miles away
And never mind if it's unlivable for them, isn't it ?
People like you support Israel like the rope is supporting the hanged man, as we say in france.
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HalsnalleCerecer • 16.08.2026 | 10:49
It's just as easy as it was for Israel to uproot and move all of Gaza. If you can succesfully move a million people there within days, the same can surely easily be achieved in the occupied territories. Just withdraw the IDF and all armed support and declare the lands free for the palestinians to do whatever they want with the remaining israelis, hunting season open and the settlers sure will move fast as hell. As for the ensuing mass exodus into Israel; not the palestinian's problem. Good riddance of this israeli cancer, finally.
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CVCV • 16.08.2026 | 18:16
@cerecer : thinking back about it, it's quite telling : you are literally instructing an Israeli, who has lived for decades in Israel and still is living in Israel, to think like you or else, while you live in the USA and are not an Israeli, and as she disagrees with you about the colonization you are demanding from abroad, you insult her.
It says a lot about why you actually support Israel. Obviously, it's not for the sake of Israelis.
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CeeeCV • 17.08.2026 | 06:25
She can think as she wants . I have over twenty family members in gush etzion . I am referring to them . They are left of center politically and don't support the current government.
For all of you nincompoops who think settlements are dying just take a trip to the gush and see the expansion and growth. I think creating settlements on isolated hills in vulnerable areas is ludicrous and intentionally antagonistic to the arabs
Rabbi Riskin who started Efrat intentionally taught coexistence with the Arabs not antagonism.
You guys focus on a a group who are violent and destructive and who do not represent the vast majority of people living in the major areas
My connection to the area goes back over fifty years so I have some say in this
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CVCeee • 17.08.2026 | 08:42
For all of you nincompoops who think settlements are dying just take a trip to the gush and see the expansion and growth.
We do : the settlements in question "experience negative net migration", say the article. Apparently, the people living there are smelling the coffee, rather than "the expansion and growth". So ?
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CerecerCV • 17.08.2026 | 20:43
Sometimes these statistics lie in the face of obvious expansion of these areas. Maybe the isolated areas are losing and that skews the numbers
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CerecerCV • 18.08.2026 | 02:39
Wait I thought you leftist love illegal migrants! You think border fences should be torn down
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XSCerecer • 01:34
The IDF had no problems giving an evacuation order for the 700.000 inhabitants of Gaza City for 24 hours...
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Paul Joseph • 15.08.2026 | 19:06
How is a two-state solution possible when the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank continues with neither the Israeli government nor the international community taking meaningful action to stop it? How is a two-state solution possible when a good majority of Israelis oppose it? How is any attempt to remove settlers from where they are or subject them to Palestinian rule not likely to result in civil war? How is the renewal of Israeli democracy possible when the electorate has moved so far to the right? Is the Palestinian problem even an issue in the upcoming election?
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CercerPaul Joseph • 15.08.2026 | 20:11
Great points. You can thank Hamas for that
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CVCercer • 15.08.2026 | 21:11
For the umpteenth time Hamas is not at fault for the pogroming of the West Bank, which started before october 7.
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CerecerCV • 16.08.2026 | 05:27
Hamas is responsible for why Israelis just don't care. Think of all their hand over celebrations. The taking of hostages. It would make any body sick of Palestinians
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CVCerecer • 16.08.2026 | 08:53
It was humiliating, wasn't it ? How dare they behave like victors, indeed, how dare they behave like IDF soldiers routinely do. Like sderot people routinely do (celebrating death and destruction in Gaza has been going on for decades in sderot).
Hamas kicked IDF's ass and upended your precious supremacist worldview, and you can't bear a world where IDF doesn't have the upper hand
Poor you, humiliated, proven to the face of the world that the IDF's reputation was a complete charade.
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HayaCV • 17.08.2026 | 00:40
It's fascinating to watch you basking in your own hate of us. Like an anthropological study of someone deeply pathological. Really captivating, if one were not to feel the urge to vomit from time to time.
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CerecerCV • 17.08.2026 | 06:39
Cv honey you have seriously lost your sht . One day you say Israel is invincible and is the nuclear armed Goliath. Now you say it's a weak charade ???
So what is it ? A super power or paper tiger ?
Because if it is really a weak power than it need to be very aggressive and untrusting of its enemy .
The truth is in the middle. In an asymmetrical war , the advantage is held by the group that's willing to commit suicide or sacrifice its people to achieve its goals .
Personally , I think you should be focusing on the poor people gunned down at a music festival. Not whether someone one or lost or hostages . Or the tens of thousands of Gazans that were likely to be killed in a full frontal war .
You celebrating the one day battle loss of the IDF that would lead to the deaths of tens of thousands Is telling of your lack of humanity . I guess it makes you feel good cause you can now say genocide over and over even though no ruling was issued.
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CerecerCerecer • 17.08.2026 | 06:49
Sometimes with all you guys here the veneer of being well reasoned open minded commenters falls off when you get riled up
Like Miramar oy and some others. You are truly happy for what Hamas did on Oct 7 and take great pleasure in the outcome.
Somehow you can't see a direct line between the event of Oct 7 and the inevitable and overwhelming angry Israel response . Or perhaps that's exactly what you wanted so you can say genocide genocide. But these are real people who your Hamas buddies sacrificed with full knowledge of what Israel would do in response
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CeeeCerecer • 17.08.2026 | 07:15
I think the key to cv must be in the familial trauma his family suffered being uprooted from algeria and forced to flee back to France. Perhaps there is a deep shame of his background that he compensates by equivocating the colonization of Algeria with Zionism. The funny thing is that his beloved France played a pivotal role in boosting the nascent Zionist movement with the Dreyfus's affair. It is very natural for someone of his background to see the world as colonizer vs colonized . It's sad he can't see the nuances and the deep connections Jews have to Israel that go beyond colonization.
For Pasternak it's a deep need to live up to the mythic accomplishments of his mother by defending a victimized people . The problem is they are victimizing themselves
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CerecerCeee • 17.08.2026 | 07:32
Oy and Miramar are much easier . No psychoanalysis needed there . They are just outright Hamas supporters who truly believe that Hamas was perfectly justified on Oct 7 and their actions completely reasonable and not out of line . They are quick to say genocide even though sinwar received the same indictment as Netanyahu
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CVCerecer • 17.08.2026 | 08:52
You are cute, all of you. I'm not from Algeria. I'm lily white with no connexion to any sort of migration : I'm a native french, can you imagine ? And your torrent of hysterical reactions when I dared say that Hamas kicked IDF's ass on October 7 is really impressive. Touched a nerve, did I ?
And so you desperately display once again all the toys of your hasbara toolbox trying to make once again the tired all talking points work. That it's antisemitism to criticise Israel while Russia China whatever, never mind that they are sanctioned and you are helped. And the Dreyfus affair, look, antisemitism over there ! Etc etc.
Seriously people, you really think this reaction is winning something ?
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CerecerCV • 17.08.2026 | 20:46
We are convincing you as much as you keep trying to make us feel guilty for the Palestinians and their lentil soup . It's not really working.
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XSCerecer • 09:27
Yet you guys are scared by a peace banner in the mall...
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Lorraine15.08.2026 | 18:54
In a recent analysis in Israel Policy Forum (https://israelpolicyforum.org/2026/07/16/a-reset-is-coming-focus-on-the-fundamentals/ ) the following was asserted: "...no matter how much Bezalel Smotrich and his band of arsonists want to portray their project of settlements on steroids as a massive success, what they are doing in many ways is building an elaborate movie set that is a façade with nothing behind it. Settlements are unpopular with Israelis; the West Bank is experiencing a multi-year net negative migration...Israelis are fleeing the West Bank because living there—with its security burdens, depressed to non-existent homegrown economy, and logistical difficulties—has never been less attractive. None of this is to downplay the bureaucratic revolution that this government has instituted in the West Bank, but there is still no evidence that if you build it, as this government has, Israelis will come."
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LorraineLorraine • 15.08.2026 | 18:56
So what the author states here, especially as the Israeli public comes to realize the many debilitating costs of the settlement adventures, may come to pass. But three matters are still not addressed: (1)-How to stop the killings and expulsions of West Bank Palestinians while we are waiting for potential changes--this is an emergency - (2)-formulating a clear policy of ending occupation and settlements in accordance with international law (which Israel will also need sometimes; it is folly for anyone to sneeze at international law) - (3)-how to deal with the inevitable violence, and even murder (against other Jews as well as Palestinians), that the settlement terrorists will engage in if their plans are thwarted by any new government's moves in opposition to them,
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