A Closer Look at the West Bank
There Are Settlements … 80 % of Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank live in settlement blocs close to the Green Line . Though the international community has deemed this construction illegal under international law , these settlements are generally considered to be legal according to Israeli law . Legal or not , most observers of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process do not regard these settlements to be major obstacles to a peace deal . This is because many proposals , such as the Clinton Parameters , envision land-swaps in order to give the equivalent of nearly 100 % of the West Bank to the Palestinians while incorporating the vast majority of Israeli settlers into Israel .
... And Then There Are Settlements In an entirely different category of settlements are the smaller ones that were set up deep in the West Bank , many of which were established without prior authorization from the Israeli government . Around 20 % of the 500,000 Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank — between 80,000-120,000 people — live in such settlements . While international law permits the construction of military infrastructure in occupied territory for the purposes of self-defense , the Fourth Geneva Convention expressly forbids the transfer of civilian population into an occupied territory .
The residents of these outposts tend to be strongly driven by religious and political ideology , and would almost certainly resist the dismantling of their communities . Perhaps the most prominent of these Jewish enclaves deep in the West Bank is the city of Hebron and the settlement of Kiryat Arba on its outskirts . Over 8,000 Jews live in this area — dwarfed by the 215,000 Arab residents of Hebron — driven by a commitment to preserve the Jewishness of the ancient city , considered by Jews to be the second holiest city in the world . They believe themselves to be piously fulfilling a Divine commandment by settling the Biblical Land of Israel .
Indeed , of the 80,000-120,000 Israelis living in these far-flung settlements , many have expressed a desire to remain in their settlements even in the event of withdrawal as part of a peace deal , so