Apartheid or no Jewish majority: Israel's settlement dilemma

A construction site for new housing in the Jewish settlement of Shiloh, in the West Bank, on June 21, 2023.

During four days in late April 1994, exactly 30 years ago, an awed world watched the first democratic elections in South Africa. The transformation occurred after the white regime realized that it could no longer maintain apartheid.

One can debate what contributed more: strategic changes in the world following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which decreased South Africa’s importance to the West, or growing international sanctions. It is also possible to debate how South Africa reached its current crises regarding inequality, unemployment, crime, and so on.

But I will focus on lessons that contemporary Israel can learn from that change in South Africa. While we are “a step from total victory” in Gaza, to quote the prime minister, it is necessary to look at the territories Israel has controlled since the 1967 Six Day War.

Just before Passover, we were informed that the government has begun the process of legalizing 68 “young settlements,” which were established without the approval of the government and are considered by Israeli law to be illegal.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry where he has broad authority over civilian issues in the territories, instructed several ministries to provide those settlements with the same services as regular settlements. This caused joy in some circles, consternation in others, and was met with a yawn elsewhere. So what difference does it make?

Bezalel Smotrich (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Bezalel Smotrich (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Settlements in non-annexed territories

At the outset, it should be noted that Israel has not annexed the territories (Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are a different matter). No government in any combination of Right, Left, and Center did so. This includes the current coalition, whose guidelines begin with: “The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel – in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, and Judea and Samaria.”

This is because annexation can have but two outcomes. One would entail providing equal rights to all residents of the annexed territories, and an Arab majority would soon terminate the Jewish state. The other is to grant rights on an ethnic basis, resulting in official discrimination, like apartheid.

Indeed, for almost 57 years, Israel insists that its hold on the territories is “belligerent occupation.” In international law, this means temporary military rule, which lays certain responsibilities on the occupier vis-à-vis the local population while guaranteeing the security of the occupier.

In the past, all decisions regarding the territories, including establishing settlements, were taken by security personnel, and were officially based on security considerations. Thus, if the Fourth Geneva Convention decrees that the occupier cannot move its own population into occupied territories, Israel could claim that decisions on settlements were made due to security considerations, and thus comply with international law.

The formation of the current coalition changed that. A civilian (Smotrich) was given extensive responsibility regarding the territories, and decisions may now be made based on openly civilian considerations. This raises a question: if Israel is no longer a belligerent occupier, are the territories annexed? If so, the choice between apartheid and the end of the Jewish majority is fast approaching.

WE ARE currently witnessing two developments that are reminiscent of South Africa. But whereas strategic changes were to South Africa’s detriment at the time, they now favor Israel. And in both cases, international sanctions were in evidence, due to the treatment of the local population.

Recently, the United States and some Europeans expanded sanctions against individuals and organizations in the territories, and the US is considering sanctioning an Israeli army unit. At the same time, the reaction of countries in the world and in the region to the Iranian missile attack on Israel is evidence of a new strategic alliance.

Israel’s participation in this fresh alliance will serve its interests and those of other players in this international coalition, including Sunni Muslim countries. However, Israel’s conduct in the territories may be a stumbling block to their goodwill and cooperation, and could even lead to painful steps against us.

Two coalitions stand before Israel, which can probably not exist side by side. One is the fresh international coalition against Iran and its cronies. The other rules Israel and believes that it is possible to continue ignoring the world indefinitely.

Thirty years after South Africa learned that even a large country with many resources cannot do as it pleases, it remains to be seen which coalition Israel will choose to preserve.

The writer is a former ambassador to South Africa, as well as Israel’s first ambassador to the Baltic states after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and a past congressional liaison officer at the embassy in Washington. She is a graduate of Israel’s National Defense College.