For over a decade now, the voices pronouncing the death of the two-state solution have been growing. This pronouncement relies to a large extent on two deeply entrenched assumptions about the settlements issue. The first is that establishing a Palestinian state necessitates the evacuation of all the settlers who at that time will reside inside the borders of the designated state. This assumption was a principle agreed upon by both sides in all the rounds of negotiations since Camp David (2000), although for different and even contradictory reasons. The second assumption, which is closely linked to the first, is that the prospect of a forced evacuation of the settlements that will remain in the Palestinian territory even in a scenario of land swaps like the one proposed by the Geneva Accord – swaps that would leave “only” some two hundred thousand settlers in this territory – is not politically feasible.
In the face of this challenge, the movement “A Land for All” posited its own version of the two-state solution. This version is based on recognizing the deep ties of both peoples to all parts of the homeland, a recognition that in turn yields a vision of freedom of movement and of residence for all residents of the future states throughout the land of Palestine/Israel. In the context of this vision, the need to forcibly evacuate settlers will largely be avoided, since those who so choose will be allowed to remain in the Palestinian state, subject to an agreement about rights to the land on which they settled.
This approach, however, encounters multiple objections from among the supporters of a two-state solution that can be divided into three main types: the legal-ethical objection contends that since the settlements are illegal and cause ongoing harm to the human rights of the Palestinians, no option other than dismantling them and returning the settlers to Israel is acceptable; according to the practical objection, encapsulated by the popular saying “This is not Sweden,” given the animosity between Palestinians and settlers, the proposed arrangement is not practicable and is doomed to deteriorate into violence and a collapse of the entire peace accord; and according to the deterministic objection, the history of the latter half of the twentieth century proves that decolonization processes are inextricably linked with the complete evacuation of settlers.
Based on a broad international historical perspective, I will argue that all three of these objections are mistaken. The concept of decolonization is typically associated with the disintegration of the overseas European empires after World War II. The deterministic objection is correct in pointing out that in those places where the colonial project included a settlement component, the fall of the empire led to a mass exodus of settlers. This was the case, for example, in Algeria, Kenya, Angola, Libya and Indonesia. But the phenomenon of settler colonialism did not begin with the overseas European empires and did not end with them. Settler colonialism – that is, the takeover of a territory, in part by settling it with a population loyal to the occupying state while displacing the indigenous population – is a practice that exists from the dawn of history. This practice has been applied not only in distant, overseas territories but also in the adjacent borderlands of colonial states – as in the case of Israel regarding the West Bank.
Some of these colonies have achieved independence or substantive autonomy. In those that are adjacent to the colonial state, and unlike in the overseas colonies mentioned above, many of the settlers and their descendants, and sometimes most of them, stayed in place after the decolonization. This was the case, for example, with Russians in most former Soviet states, English Unionists in Northern Ireland, Serbs in Kosovo, Italians in South Tyrol, Sunni Arabs in Iraqi Kurdistan, white Afrikaners in Namibia, and more.
To be sure, just like in the overseas colonies, so too in the contiguous occupied territories, the settlers differed from the indigenous population in their language, culture and religion, and the two populations typically lived segregated lives. In both cases, the colonial regimes were characterized by a mix of discrimination, dispossession, displacement, and physical elimination of the indigenous population, who in turn resisted the oppression, typically violently. Obviously, the resentment and hostility stirred up by these practices did not disappear after the indigenous population gained power; in other words, none of these places “is Sweden” either. And yet, in most cases, conditions were created that allowed the settlers to remain in place as part of the new polity and allowed patterns of co-existence to emerge between the two groups. How has this been possible?
Here are three directions for thinking about this question, very briefly put. First, the cumulative experience suggests that the shorter the distances between the new state and the former metropolis, and the more open the borders between them, the smaller the harm caused to the daily lives of the settlers by the change of regime. This kind of spatial relationship is a convenient basis for maintaining and developing the social, cultural, economic and political ties between this population and its mother state. Moreover, in some cases, “cross-border arrangements” were adopted that allowed the mother state to provide services and support to its co-nationals across the border, enabling them to receive passports without requiring residency, and upholding preferential trade agreements with the new state. Whether these arrangements are grounded in a broad peace accord, as in Northern Ireland, or in controversial interim agreements, as in Kosovo, they contribute to the settlers’ adjustment to the new reality.
Second, the new regimes naturally tried to undo the colonial practices and related privileges that were previously applied. Insofar as these attempts were successful, they resulted in the dismantling of the settlements – not by physically removing the settlers, as the legal-ethical objectors mistakenly demand, but by ending the violation of the indigenous population’s rights and transforming the settler into a citizen. At the same time, some of the regimes adopted political arrangements that guaranteed the settlers’ representation in the state institutions and granted them various levels of spatial and cultural autonomy. For the indigenous elites, this generosity toward their former enemies was the price they had to pay to advance their state-building project and achieve international recognition.
The threat of military intervention by the mother state, which is amplified by the geographical proximity, served in many cases as further incentive for those elites to adopt such arrangements and uphold them. If we believe the narrative of the Putin regime, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is an example of the realization of this threat in the face of the ongoing oppression of its co-national who reside across the border. Even though this narrative is most likely false, it is plausible that a more sensitive policy by Kiev toward its Russian minority in the years that preceded the outbreak of the civil war in the country’s eastern region in 2014 would have channeled events in a different direction. In any case, the failure of this attempt of coexistence-amid-decolonization between former settlers and an indigenous people is a painful reminder that there is no determinism.
Third, the abstention of the new regimes from comprehensively harming the economic assets of the settlers – especially land and buildings – even if these assets were attained at the time by illegitimate means, was an important contributing factor to the settlers’ choice to remain in the new state. In cases where property restitution mechanisms were set in place, a balance was struck between the rights of the original owners (members of the indigenous population) and those of the present tenants (the settlers). Estonia, for example, offered several alternatives to the forced evacuation of Russian settlers from houses to be restituted, including selling the property or renting it out to the current tenants with government mediation, and helped those who did have to evacuate. Namibia, for its part, almost entirely avoided forcing whites to restitute lands to their historical owners, and instead encouraged the voluntary sale of these lands to the state, which in turn reallocates them to black people.
Needless to say, the formula proposed by “A Land for All” for addressing the problem of the settlements is not a magic solution, and in itself, does not advance decolonization and peace. These depend above all else on the willingness of the Israeli public to pay the necessary price, a prospect that today seems farther than ever. But the ability to imagine the desired peace in the most concrete terms possible, and to draw lessons from the experience gained in other places, is vital for the process of setting in motion change-oriented political action. Like other essays in this issue, this article is a call to formulate a broad-minded research agenda that will strengthen the ability to imagine possible futures for the shared homeland and the problem of the settlements. This call echoes another call, from the Passover Haggadah, which compares Pharaoh’s destructive intentions toward the Jews to what Lavan the Aramean sought to do to the extended family of the patriarch Jacob, who settled among them: Go out and learn!
