MEETING WITH SETTLER REPRESENTATIVES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 002521

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/13/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV KWBG IS
SUBJECT: MEETING WITH SETTLER REPRESENTATIVES

Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Luis Moreno, reason 1.4 (b) and
(d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: In coordination with Knesset Deputy Speaker
Otniel Schneller, Pol Couns, EconOff and POLOFF met with
representatives of the settler community on November 5 to
discuss the settlers' role in internal Israeli politics and
the rise in settler violence. Pol Couns led off by reviewing
U.S. policy on a two-state solution and GOI commitments to
dismantle outposts and freeze settlements. The settlers
reiterated their well-established positions: that the
two-state solution is unrealistic and any peace deal must
include Jordan; that the focus should be on economic
development for the Palestinians; and that the settlers could
learn to live with their Arab neighbors if the politicians
stopped interfering. YESHA Council Chairman Danny Dayan said
he is opposed to illegal outposts built on private
Palestinian land. However, he emphasized his view that the
majority of illegal outposts are only illegal due to
"technicalities," and do not infringe Palestinian rights. He
said he would vigorously oppose evacuation of these outposts.
On settler violence, all the representatives condemned the
actions by a few "hooligans," with Dayan calling it "the most
serious issue we face." Rabbi Bin Nun claimed to have spoken
out many times against violence, earning him the scorn of
settler extremists. END SUMMARY.

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No Change in U.S. Policy
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2. (C) PolCouns opened the meeting by reviewing U.S. policy,
underscoring our support for a two-state solution and that we
see settlement activity as an obstacle to peace. He stressed
that the primary interlocutor for settlers is and will remain
Consulate General Jerusalem, but the Embassy is interested in
an ongoing dialogue in order to understand how they the
settlers see their role in internal Israeli politics and to
raise U.S. concerns, including about the rising incidents of
settler violence. The settlers were represented by Danny
Dayan, Chairman of the Yesha council; Shaul Goldstein, Mayor
of Gush Etzion; Rabbi Bin Nun of Gush Etzion; and Gila
Waxman, a member of the security committee of Alfe Menashe.
They were selected by MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima),who
decided not to attend for fear it could become a political
issue during elections if the meeting ended up in the press.


3. (C) The United States is committed to the two-state
solution, PolCouns explained, and that was unlikely to change
in the next administration. Current U.S. strategy, he said,
was to support both negotiations and progress on the ground.
This includes improvement in Palestinian security forces,
which our IDF contacts are saying is progressing, thus
allowing for closer IDF-PASF coordination and the assumption
of greater security responsibilities by the PA security
forces. He underlined that while the 2004 letter from
President Bush to then-PM Sharon did say it was realistic for
Israel to expect adjustments to the 1949 armistice lines to
reflect the development of major population centers, it also
called for all changes to be "mutually agreed." PolCouns
also pointed out that the U.S. expects Israel to fulfill its
commitment to evacuate all post-March 2001 illegal outposts
and to freeze settlement expansion.

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"Politics prevents us from getting along with Palestinians"
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4. (C) The settler representatives all said they believed
that the politicians are preventing peace and, if left alone,
they could get along with their Arab neighbors, although they
also insisted that overall security responsibility for the
West Bank must remain in Israeli hands. For example, Shaul
Goldstein said he had reached out to his Arab neighbors for a
joint emergency management exercise around Gush Etzion. He
explained that while his Palestinian counterparts were
supportive, the PA government in Ramallah prevented it. When
the same groups later held a joint emergency response
exercise with Efrat, Goldstein asked them what had changed.
The Palestinians told him that this time they did not ask
Ramallah for permission.


5. (C) Waxman added that Alfe Menashe, located just over the
Green Line and inside the Security Barrier, provides
employment for a neighboring Bedouin village that is inside
the barrier. She said that left-wing activists pushed
through a petition to reroute the barrier, and now these
Bedouin are afraid they will not be able to get to their
jobs. The Bedouin don't complain, she claimed, because they
have been threatened by the Palestinian Authority to stay
quiet.


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6. (C) Bin Nun also said that the settlements play an
unpublicized role in delivering humanitarian and other forms
of assistance to the Palestinians, and that there is the
potential for much more to be done. He cited what the Magen
David Adom (Israel's Red Cross) teams based in the
settlements could do in the area of health care and
emphasized the role settlements are playing in providing
employment for thousands of Palestinians, as they used to do
in the evacuated Gaza settlements. He noted that "Hamas has
no answer for this."

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"Two-state solution unrealistic, Palestinians need Jordan"
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7. (C) Shaul Goldstein called the two-state solution
unrealistic and a product of negotiators who have never
visited the settlements. He said that without the IDF's
presence, any Palestinian state in the West Bank would look
like Gaza. The Palestinians lack the basics of
infrastructure and economy, he asserted, and would have no
way of earning a living on their own. Because of this,
Israeli involvement could only be replaced by Jordan, which
is already a Palestinian-majority state. Goldstein compared
current peace efforts to Ariel Sharon's attempts in 1982 when
to install pro-Israeli leadership in Lebanon with whom he
could make peace. He added that not even international
forces in the form of U.S. Marines could enforce that deal.


8. (C) Goldstein emphasized that near term efforts should
focus on education and real economic development for the
Palestinians. Dayan added that the Palestinians must be
given their "economic" and "humanitarian" rights immediately,
but they are not ready for their "political" rights. He
called the Roadmap "obscene and immoral" because its first
phase equates Israel's responsibility to freeze settlements
with the PA's responsibility to stop terror activity.
Security, he said, is the prerequisite for all other
progress, and only the IDF can provide security for both
peoples. The goal, Dayan said, should be to return to the
situation that prevailed twenty years ago when Palestinians
could work in Israel without a problem. Only total security
will allow this to take place.


9. (C) Rabbi Bin Nun asserted that the settlements are not
obstacles to peace. Citing the over one million Israeli
Arabs in Israel, he advocated allowing the settlers living
outside the barrier the option of staying in an eventual
Palestinian state with adequate security protection. He
noted that the 1947 partition plan included leaving many Jews
within the Palestinian Arab state. Bin Nun thought it would
be a mistake to replay the Gaza evacuation, which destroyed
Israeli communities and impoverished thousands of
Palestinians employed by those settlements. He hoped that
the difficulties and consequences of the Gaza evacuation
would mean no one would try to repeat the experience in the
West Bank, adding that he suspected that had been Sharon's
intent at the time.


10. (C) Unlike her colleagues, Kadima-member Gila Waxman
said she supported the two-state solution, but emphasized the
need to keep areas like Alfe Menashe to establish defensible
borders. She added that no Arabs were ever displaced for
Alfe Menashe to be built. The problem, she explained, is
that the Palestinians are unable to "move on" psychologically
as her family had done when it was expelled from Poland, or
as millions of other refugees around the world had done since
the 1940's.


11. (C) On the illegal outposts, Dayan made a distinction
between outposts that are only illegal because they lack
proper approvals and those built on private Palestinian land.
He said that he supports immediately evacuating outposts
built on land where a Palestinian has a valid title.
However, he claimed this is only the case for a small
percentage of outposts. The majority, he said, are only
illegal due to a legal technicality. He explained that they
are only missing final bureaucratic approval from the GOI,
which was withheld due to U.S. pressure. He asserted that
these outposts should be legalized and he would vigorously
oppose any effort to evacuate them. He believes that it is
inherently undemocratic for Israel's left-wing to rely on
U.S. pressure to compel the GOI to do something the
government would not do otherwise, both in the case of
settlements and in negotiations as a whole.

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Settler violence undermines everyone
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12. (C) PolCouns responded by explaining that there is no
contradiction between economic development and a political

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settlement to the conflict, in fact they are mutually
supportive. He also underscored that there is no way to
delay granting Palestinians their political rights, and that
all previous attempts to do so have failed. He added that
settler violence undermines all of these efforts and damages
Israel's reputation as a state based on the rule of law.


13. (C) Dayan agreed that violence, perpetrated by a few
angry youths in the settlements, is extremely damaging to the
settlement movement, calling it "the most serious issue that
we currently face." Rabbi Bin Nun also decried the violence
by "a small group of hooligans," saying that he has incurred
the anger of many other settler rabbis by speaking out
against the violent extremists. However, Bin Nun said that
he must be careful how he addresses the issue, as their
hatred stems from fear and it is impossible to hold rational
discussion with these youths.

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