Over the last couple of years, a disturbing and worrisome shift has taken place in Israeli political discourse. For decades, the prevailing debate within Israel over the West Bank was about maintaining the status quo versus withdrawing in some form. Before Oslo, withdrawal was largely discussed in terms of a federation between Jordan and the Palestinians in the West Bank, and after Oslo it shifted to the idea of a Palestinian state. But whether it was in the context of negotiations or of unilateral withdrawal – as was done by Ariel Sharon in Gaza – the debate has been over maintaining the current status of temporary military occupation in the West Bank or leaving it.

This is no longer the case. Between the Regulation Bill that would legalize currently illegal outposts, the push by Naftali Bennett and other MKs in Bayit Yehudi and Likud to annex first Ma’ale Adumim and then the rest of Area C, Tuesday’s announcement of another 3,000 homes in the West Bank, and yesterday’s statement by Prime Minister Netanyahu that he will build a new settlement to replace the evacuated Amona, it is clear that the debate over the West Bank has a new center of gravity. Rather than policy arguments over the status quo or easing Israel’s presence in the West Bank, the new fault line is between those who want to maintain the status quo and those who want to deepen Israel’s hold on the West Bank. The reasons for this shift are numerous, from the disappointing failures of Oslo to the bloodshed and terror of the Second Intifada to a more rightwing population and Knesset. The result, however, is that Israel is entering a dangerous period where the government is perilously close to the point of no return. This only reinforces why a saner policy on settlements must emerge, that combines an understanding of what Israelis will accept politically while preserving the possibility for two states, and it must start with a focus on the settlement blocs.

Shaul Arieli wrote brilliantly last week about why annexation of the West Bank would be so dangerous, using the example of Jerusalem as a canvas for what precisely will go wrong. In the current environment, with the prospect of successful negotiations as dormant as ever, separation without withdrawal – as advocated by the Commanders for Israel’s Security – is the way forward, as it maintains Israel’s hold on the blocs while laying the foundation for Israel to one day in the future cede the rest. But this only works in keeping Israel secure, Jewish, and democratic if the distinction between the blocs and everything else is maintained. Otherwise, separation does not – to use the infamous term – create facts on the ground in support of two states but instead contravenes it. Employing an inviolable bright line between the blocs and the rest of the West Bank is also critical to Israel’s credibility; increasingly fewer governments and international observers will buy the rhetoric that settlements are not the primary obstacle to peace when the government is building up areas outside of any reasonable consensus of what Israel will keep in a deal. Not only will this be a better policy, it will eliminate some of Israel’s public opinion headaches and lessen the chances of future nasty diplomatic surprises in the vein of UNSCR 2334.

There are two steps that should be taken right away in order to rebalance the conversation over settlements and Israeli policy. The first is for the Netanyahu government to actually define what it views as blocs. The debate surrounding settlements right now is rife with purposeful misunderstanding, as everyone talks about the blocs as if they have been divinely decreed when the truth is that they mean different things to different people. Most everyone would include the blocs in the Jerusalem triangle – Givat Ze’ev, Ma’ale Adumim, Gush Etzion – along with Modi’in Illit and Alfei Menashe, areas that have the largest Jewish populations and are close to the Green Line. But there are other large population centers that cut farther into the West Bank, such as Ariel, or smaller population centers that encroach on large Palestinian cities, such as the Kedumim finger. Netanyahu himself has said that he envisions Beit El and Kiryat Arba as parts of blocs too, which takes us into the realm of the absurd. If any government is going to adopt a policy of building in the blocs to the exclusion of the rest, it first must adopt a hard definition of what it views as blocs.

Second, once the official Israel view of the blocs is set forth, the borders of those blocs must be defined. For instance, Ma’ale Adumim is the part of the West Bank that is least controversial in the eyes of most Israelis; it is hard to find virtually anyone who does not envision it as part of Israel one day, which is why it is the first target in the current annexation push. But the land slated to be annexed along with Ma’ale Adumim encompasses an area six times that of the settlement itself, and those borders include E-1, which has been a redline for both the U.S. and the European Union. Building in E-1 will destroy Palestinian contiguity in the West Bank by cutting off any direct access between Ramallah and Bethlehem, which is why it is such a big deal and why neither Sharon nor Netanyahu has taken that step. If Israel is to build in blocs while freezing the rest, does Ma’ale Adumim include its entire current municipal border? As another example, does the border of the Givat Ze’ev bloc include Beit Horon, which incorporates more Palestinian villages and agricultural land to get another 1000 Jews inside the border? Do the borders of the blocs remain fixed, or do they constantly expand to allow for natural growth? It is very easy to abuse the notion of building inside the blocs without knowing exactly what the borders of the blocs are.

Israel has to make a choice about what its core strategic interests are. Does it want to move toward a sustainable position in the West Bank that incorporates the overwhelming majority of settlers while maintaining somewhere upwards of 95% of the West Bank for a Palestinian state, or does it want to try and incorporate 60% or even all of the West Bank into Israel? One of the reasons that the announcement two days ago of new construction is so damaging – perhaps even more so than the Regulation Bill, which will be struck down by the High Court if passed – is because some of it is outside the blocs, which is doubly counterproductive by raising the temperature on the settlement issue writ large and seriously calling into question not only the Israeli government’s motives but the continuing viability of a Jewish and democratic Israel.

I have spent days in all parts of the West Bank over the past half year seeing the precise layout of settlements and topography with my own eyes. Territorial contiguity for a Palestinian state is still very possible and can be maintained while incorporating nearly all of the settlers into Israel, but only if Israel immediately takes the steps outlined here. Otherwise we slide quickly down a slippery slope that only ends with an Israeli defense of annexing all of Area C because of new facts on the ground that make doing anything less infeasible, and that is not a day that I ever want to see. The only way to ward this off is to reshift the debate away from annexation, and this is how to start doing it.

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