REPORT: Israel's settlements may be losing their ideological pull

When Batsheva Reback called time on living in an Israeli settlement after five years of trying to make it work, she breathed a sigh of relief. Her new apartment in central Israel is close to the grocery store and the doctor's, it's a much easier commute and she feels her children are safer.

Reback lives in the Israeli city of Modiin to which she moved in August from Neve-Daniel settlement. Though she gave up a larger house with a garden for a small apartment she finds life simpler.

But the 26-year-old kindergarten teacher's assistant adds that her choice was not just logistical.

“Towards the end of our stay I started to feel uncomfortable living in a settlement because I personally don't think that building more and more settlements is going to help bring peace,” she said.

When it comes to settlement population shifts, the big picture is the same in recent years: more settlers, more construction. But a closer look at the data reveals significant nuances that suggest the settlement enterprise may be getting weaker.     
 
As President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiate a limit on construction in the enclaves Israel built on the land Palestinians seek for a state, settlements are drawing relatively fewer people every year.  

Although the Israeli population in the West Bank has gone up by almost two thirds in a decade, Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) data shows the migration ratio to settlements is less than a third of what it was in that time: a steady drop from 20.1 per 1,000 residents in 2006 to 6.1 in 2015.

“The settlement enterprise is in the process of decline which means that the physical and spatial feasibility of a two-state solution is still a strong and viable option,” said Shaul Arieli of the Economic Cooperation Foundation think-tank, which advocates for the two-state solution between the Palestinians and Israel.

“This (the two-state solution) depends on a political decision, not on the physical, territorial feasibility.”
 
Population, now at about 400,000, is up mainly due to natural growth.

The general growth, migration and natural growth combined, is higher than the 2 percent national average. But growth rate has been falling steadily over the past 20 years: from about 10 percent in 1995 to 4 percent in 2015 - a sharper decline than the one percent drop in national growth rate.    

Leaders of the settlement movement acknowledge the decline but say it does not reflect a fall in popularity.

While the downturn is a concern, they say, it stems from government curbs on construction. People aren't moving to the settlements simply because there are not enough homes being built to house them.

Demand is high and families are clamoring to get in, said Yigal Dilmoni Deputy CEO of Yesha Council, the main settlement body.


REUTERS


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