Key Issue in Mideast Talks: How Do You Define 'Settlement'?

WASHINGTON (Sept. 1) -- Neighborhoods. Colonies. Facts on the ground. Suburbs. Unauthorized outposts. Jerusalem.

Whatever you call Jewish areas outside of Israel's 1967 border, the peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that opened today at the White House will have to confront what to do with a half-million Israelis living in disputed territory that Palestinians want for their new state.

There are other intractable core issues, such as refugees and security, that must be worked out before a peace deal can be signed. But the question of settlements, which are seen by some Israelis as bargaining chips in a future land-for-peace agreement with the Palestinians, may be the most difficult to tackle. And they could end talks even before they seriously begin.

A 10-month moratorium on settlement construction, imposed in November under pressure from an Obama administration eager to set favorable conditions to restart peace negotiations, runs out Sept. 26. Netanyahu has said he won't extend the freeze even though Abbas has made clear he'll walk out if construction resumes.

Never mind that construction never really ended: Projects that had already been approved or started were grandfathered in. Schools, community centers and other public buildings were exempted from the moratorium, as was East Jerusalem. And when violations are added to the concrete mix, there has been no actual let-up in the pace of construction.

"Negotiating over the future of the West Bank while still building settlements is akin to two people talking about splitting a pizza pie while one of the parties is nibbling on the pie," said Ori Nir of the group Americans for Peace Now. "It is nibbling away at a future Palestinian state."

But Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., told AOL News this week that the Palestinians should not "demand our concession on a core issue as a precondition for negotiating," noting that "we believe that the settlement issue is part of the borders issue, which is a core issue to be discussed only in direct talks."

So, on the eve of direct negotiations between the two sides, here is a primer on this most vexing of issues:

What is a 'settlement'? Like most things in the Middle East, there is no simple answer.

Before the United Nations voted to partition Palestine in 1947, the word settlement, or yishuv in Hebrew, referred to Jewish communities established before the state of Israel came into being.

The word took on a different meaning after the Six Day War in 1967 when Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights from neighboring Arab states. Jewish Israelis soon moved across the border, or Green Line, to build residential areas they called settlements but the Arabs called colonies.

Kfar Etzion, which had been a Jewish community before 1948 and was destroyed in Israel's war of independence, was the first settlement in late 1967. The next year a group of religious Zionists moved into a hotel in Hebron, the vanguard for a population that would come to include four settlers killed by Hamas this week.

Where are the settlements? Throughout the West Bank. They range from dense urban neighborhoods to isolated hilltop trailers to small villages to sprawling new cities.

Two of the three largest settlement blocs, Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion, lie close to Jerusalem and are viewed by many Israelis as suburbs they hope to keep in a land swap with the Palestinians. A third bloc, Ariel, sticks into the northern West Bank like a finger and is more controversial. Its new cultural center is the target of an actors' boycott.

Also close by the Green Line are several recently built ultra-Orthodox cities, including Modi'in Illit. They have attracted religious settlers in search of more affordable housing for families that typically can have 10 or more children.

Since the 1990s, about 100 illegal outposts have sprung up in isolated areas of the West Bank. Unlike other settlements, they have not been authorized by the Israeli government, although a 2004 report found officials often look the other way.

How many settlers are there? According to the group Peace Now, which keeps the most comprehensive database based on government information and its own research, there are about 290,000 settlers in 120 settlements in the West Bank. In addition, there are another 190,000 Israelis living beyond the Green Line in east Jerusalem.

Israel does not count Jerusalem residents as settlers because it annexed the eastern part of the city and some adjoining areas in 1967 and considers itself to have sovereignty there. The international community and the Palestinians, who want the eastern half of the city for their capital, don't recognize the annexations.

Who are the settlers? According to Peace Now, almost 40 percent of those living in the West Bank are there for ideological reasons. They include religious Zionists who believe Jews have a biblical and historical right to all of what they call Judea and Samaria, as well as a new generation of "hilltop youth" who have set up makeshift outposts and clashed with police attempting to dismantle them.

A third are secular Israelis drawn to the settlements for a better quality of life and by government incentives such as tax breaks, cheap housing and subsidies for education and transportation. Another third are nonideological, ultra-Orthodox families.

How much land do the settlements cover? Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said 2 percent. He counts only "urban areas" that he defines as "built-up, concrete areas" and not the surrounding land or access roads reserved for Israelis. He also doesn't include east Jerusalem.

Peace Now calculates occupied land at about 9.3 percent of the West Bank. Of that, almost all, or 8.6 percent, is inside Israel's security barrier. Under construction since 2002 to block suicide bombers from attacking Israel, the fence has saved lives but is seen by Palestinians as a land grab that has cut them off from jobs and livelihoods.

Are the settlements legal? Depends who you ask. The Palestinians and the American government have said the settlements violate the Geneva Convention of 1949, which declared it illegal for an occupying nation to transplant civilian populations into occupied lands. Israel says they are legal under international law and "claims to the contrary are mere attempts to distort the law for political purposes."

Is there precedent for Israel to give up settlements? Yes. In 1979, after the Camp David peace agreement, Jewish settlements in the Sinai Peninsula were evacuated before it was returned to Egypt. More recently, Israel forced 9,000 settlers to leave Gaza and four small, isolated settlements in the northern West Bank in 2005 after the government approved a unilateral "disengagement."

So why not give up the West Bank settlements? Israel fears a repeat of what happened after settlers left Gaza and Hamas rocket attacks provoked a war nearly two years ago.

Israeli defense officials argued from soon after the Six Day War that settlements are critical to the defense of a country about the size of New Jersey and as narrow as 9 miles at its narrowest point.

Hawks in Netanyahu's coalition are demanding that any peace agreement leave Israel with "defensible borders" that, in their mapmaking, would include all of Jerusalem, the large settlement blocs ringing the holy city, and the Jordan Valley. Those on the left are stressing "robust and verifiable security arrangements" with the help of international peacekeepers in order to preserve a viable Palestinian state.

Settlements, said Jeremy Ben-Ami of the advocacy group J Street, are "a symptom rather than the underlying ailment that needs to be cured. And that's the lack of a border."