Sharon on the Future of the Settlements
Settlement Report | Vol. 5 No. 6 | November-December 1995
Following are excerpts from the Israeli newspaper Davar, July 14, 1995.
Question: Israeli negotiators recently returned from a tour of the West Bank, lamenting the "Sharonization" of the occupied territories. How did this happen?
Sharon: When I assumed the post of chairman of the ministerial committee on settlement there were 25 settlement communities, most of them in the Jordan Valley, and two were under construction. Today there are 144 communities in Judea and Samaria. In October 1977, I presented to the government a plan that aimed to solve a number of problems we were facing.
The first problem was that two-thirds of the Jewish residents of Israel live in a small strip that can be controlled from the high ridges of Western Samaria. I wanted to assure that in any future political agreement Israel would retain these areas and would prevent their retention by any other party. As a child of the settlement movement, it was clear to me that it was only possible to retain these commanding heights by Jewish settlement.
The second problem, the eastern front, was also addressed by Labor governments, and they gave their answer through the Allon Plan that I implemented, although in my opinion it wasn't deep enough.
The third problem was the need for a system of roads that would connect the seacoast with the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, and in order to retain control over these axes it was clear that we would have to control a corridor many kilometers wide. The thing that seemed to me the most appropriate way of retaining these corridors was the establishment of settlements on both sides of the axis.
Question: From the beginning, you supported settlement in order to retain all of it in Israel's hands?
Sharon: No. In contrast to what has been said, except for isolated instances, settlements are not located in areas of large Arab population, not because I shied away from this but because the Arabs did not settle in areas that were of interest to us--because they are difficult regions. Were there Arabs in Beit Arieh? Did someone live in the area of Ofarim? Not today or ever. Here and there were small villages but not large concentrations.
Question: But you established settlements close to cities. Pesagot, for example, is almost inside of Ramallah.
Sharon: Good. Pesagot was a very important place. You can stand there and you can look at Jerusalem and you will see what could happen. The topographical conditions necessitated its establishment. Okay, there are also settlements like this but there were good reasons for them.
The whole process of settlement was based upon three sources. The first thing was the grand reawakening of the national religious camp spearheaded by Gush Emmunim. The second thing was the change of government [in 1977 when Labor lost to the Likud] and the creation of ideological possibilities, and the third thing--something that does not seem superfluous to me--was the fact that I received the job of chairman of the ministerial committee on settlement. I do not argue with Shamir who gave me credit for this enterprise. I do not want to argue with him, but had he not prevented the establishment of some settlements our situation would be better. Also, Mr. Begin wanted at a very early period to stop the establishment of settlements.
Question: Why?
Sharon: Because he feared the Americans. And I would also say that both men did not really know how, [even Begin] with all of his abilities, to turn an idea into a reality. . . . In the first government of Menachem Begin there were a few genuine Laborites: Dayan, Ezer [Weizman], Yigal Horowitz and myself, people who had grown up and who knew how to take an idea and turn it into reality.
I began my work much earlier. After the Six-Day War, I was put in charge of training in bases in Judea and Samaria [which I had transferred into the West Bank]. . . . These bases were used as the seeds of the first settlements, but I did not publish a letter declaring this. . . . Have you ever seen the order of the day that established the Etzion Base? . . .
Question: So now you feel that your achievements are being sunk in the sea?
Sharon: God forbid!
Question: [IDF] Training centers 3 and 4 are being abandoned, and that is only the beginning?
Sharon: . . . Were there not Jewish settlements today on the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria, Israel would long ago have found itself across the Green Line. The Jewish settlements are the only factor that has prevented the agreement of this government [to withdraw] and created difficulties in the negotiations. The Arabs also know their value.
Question: Settlements prevent for the time being a return to the Green Line but in the final status there is an intention to evacuate them.
Sharon: Who knows what will come after that? Not one settlement will be evacuated. Each one of them is important. We did not establish a settlement on every hill. When I concluded my job after four years the map was already sliced up on the ground. When I was Minister of Defense I remembered something that Israel Galilee [a prominent member of the Labor Party] had said to me when he gave to me my first job at the Ministerial Committee on Settlements. He said to me, 'I want to teach you something. In order to establish a settlement you need government permission. I created something new, a Nahal [paramilitary] outpost. For an outpost, you don't need to bring it up for approval.' I remembered these words and established thirty Nahal outposts in Samaria. Most of them were turned into settlements over time together with the two in the Golan Heights.
In the same fashion I created industrial zones . . .
Actually, in almost every community I established an industrial facility.
Question: Some of which are not being used to this day.
Sharon: In Barkan [near Ariel] there isn't a meter available.
Question: Barkan is an exception.
Sharon: Listen, anyone who has some hindsight need not be excited about this. Take Metulla, for example, which just celebrated its 100th anniversary. It's worthwhile to remember how many times people settled this place. One group replaced another. They in turn were replaced with others until the situation stabilized. . . . .
The settlement communities, almost without exception, are part of a concept which says that we need to enable the Arabs to conduct their lives as much as possible without our intervention. External and internal security should be in our hands, and matters concerning themselves should be left to their "blue police."
Question: Municipal autonomy?
Sharon: When Begin presented his autonomy plan I told him: 'You are establishing a Palestinian state, even if we massively settle these areas vital to our security.' And we did this. . . . I remember the argument with Ezer [Weizman, minister of defense in Begin's first government]. He always wanted to establish [only] five Jewish cities [in the West Bank]. I argued that the demographic issue was important, but we had to control the territory. You can double or triple the size of Ma'ale Adumim, but you don't have a way to Jordan and the north Dead Sea without settlements along the way. The people have no intention of moving from these places.
Question: And they won't move even if Rabin decides to offer compensation?
Sharon: . . . . Rabin knows that if he offers compensation, some people in Ariel will accept it. This will possibly happen also in the secular parts of Karnie Shomron. But in Yizhar? In Elon Moreh? In Tapuah? Let him try in Ali, in Ma'ale Levona, in Shilo, in Bracha, in Kedumim [settlements in the West Bank heartland established by Likud].
Question: You mention only a few settlements.
Sharon: You simply are mistaken. Go to Beit Hagai, to Shema, to Carmel, to Beit Yatir. So what is Rabin going to do? Exit from Ma'ale Adumim? He doesn't want to leave there. Yesha [the settlers' council] estimates that 30 percent of settlers will leave, but settlements can handle this. . . . We are already seeing the second generation in these settlements. What is happening to them is similar to what occurred 50 years ago. In 1975 Rabin asked me, 'Who are these Gush Emmunim anyway?' . . . I told him, 'You will see, they are like we were in the 1940s, only more serious.'
Question: Israeli negotiators recently returned from a tour of the West Bank, lamenting the "Sharonization" of the occupied territories. How did this happen?
Sharon: When I assumed the post of chairman of the ministerial committee on settlement there were 25 settlement communities, most of them in the Jordan Valley, and two were under construction. Today there are 144 communities in Judea and Samaria. In October 1977, I presented to the government a plan that aimed to solve a number of problems we were facing.
The first problem was that two-thirds of the Jewish residents of Israel live in a small strip that can be controlled from the high ridges of Western Samaria. I wanted to assure that in any future political agreement Israel would retain these areas and would prevent their retention by any other party. As a child of the settlement movement, it was clear to me that it was only possible to retain these commanding heights by Jewish settlement.
The second problem, the eastern front, was also addressed by Labor governments, and they gave their answer through the Allon Plan that I implemented, although in my opinion it wasn't deep enough.
The third problem was the need for a system of roads that would connect the seacoast with the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, and in order to retain control over these axes it was clear that we would have to control a corridor many kilometers wide. The thing that seemed to me the most appropriate way of retaining these corridors was the establishment of settlements on both sides of the axis.
Question: From the beginning, you supported settlement in order to retain all of it in Israel's hands?
Sharon: No. In contrast to what has been said, except for isolated instances, settlements are not located in areas of large Arab population, not because I shied away from this but because the Arabs did not settle in areas that were of interest to us--because they are difficult regions. Were there Arabs in Beit Arieh? Did someone live in the area of Ofarim? Not today or ever. Here and there were small villages but not large concentrations.
Question: But you established settlements close to cities. Pesagot, for example, is almost inside of Ramallah.
Sharon: Good. Pesagot was a very important place. You can stand there and you can look at Jerusalem and you will see what could happen. The topographical conditions necessitated its establishment. Okay, there are also settlements like this but there were good reasons for them.
The whole process of settlement was based upon three sources. The first thing was the grand reawakening of the national religious camp spearheaded by Gush Emmunim. The second thing was the change of government [in 1977 when Labor lost to the Likud] and the creation of ideological possibilities, and the third thing--something that does not seem superfluous to me--was the fact that I received the job of chairman of the ministerial committee on settlement. I do not argue with Shamir who gave me credit for this enterprise. I do not want to argue with him, but had he not prevented the establishment of some settlements our situation would be better. Also, Mr. Begin wanted at a very early period to stop the establishment of settlements.
Question: Why?
Sharon: Because he feared the Americans. And I would also say that both men did not really know how, [even Begin] with all of his abilities, to turn an idea into a reality. . . . In the first government of Menachem Begin there were a few genuine Laborites: Dayan, Ezer [Weizman], Yigal Horowitz and myself, people who had grown up and who knew how to take an idea and turn it into reality.
I began my work much earlier. After the Six-Day War, I was put in charge of training in bases in Judea and Samaria [which I had transferred into the West Bank]. . . . These bases were used as the seeds of the first settlements, but I did not publish a letter declaring this. . . . Have you ever seen the order of the day that established the Etzion Base? . . .
Question: So now you feel that your achievements are being sunk in the sea?
Sharon: God forbid!
Question: [IDF] Training centers 3 and 4 are being abandoned, and that is only the beginning?
Sharon: . . . Were there not Jewish settlements today on the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria, Israel would long ago have found itself across the Green Line. The Jewish settlements are the only factor that has prevented the agreement of this government [to withdraw] and created difficulties in the negotiations. The Arabs also know their value.
Question: Settlements prevent for the time being a return to the Green Line but in the final status there is an intention to evacuate them.
Sharon: Who knows what will come after that? Not one settlement will be evacuated. Each one of them is important. We did not establish a settlement on every hill. When I concluded my job after four years the map was already sliced up on the ground. When I was Minister of Defense I remembered something that Israel Galilee [a prominent member of the Labor Party] had said to me when he gave to me my first job at the Ministerial Committee on Settlements. He said to me, 'I want to teach you something. In order to establish a settlement you need government permission. I created something new, a Nahal [paramilitary] outpost. For an outpost, you don't need to bring it up for approval.' I remembered these words and established thirty Nahal outposts in Samaria. Most of them were turned into settlements over time together with the two in the Golan Heights.
In the same fashion I created industrial zones . . .
Actually, in almost every community I established an industrial facility.
Question: Some of which are not being used to this day.
Sharon: In Barkan [near Ariel] there isn't a meter available.
Question: Barkan is an exception.
Sharon: Listen, anyone who has some hindsight need not be excited about this. Take Metulla, for example, which just celebrated its 100th anniversary. It's worthwhile to remember how many times people settled this place. One group replaced another. They in turn were replaced with others until the situation stabilized. . . . .
The settlement communities, almost without exception, are part of a concept which says that we need to enable the Arabs to conduct their lives as much as possible without our intervention. External and internal security should be in our hands, and matters concerning themselves should be left to their "blue police."
Question: Municipal autonomy?
Sharon: When Begin presented his autonomy plan I told him: 'You are establishing a Palestinian state, even if we massively settle these areas vital to our security.' And we did this. . . . I remember the argument with Ezer [Weizman, minister of defense in Begin's first government]. He always wanted to establish [only] five Jewish cities [in the West Bank]. I argued that the demographic issue was important, but we had to control the territory. You can double or triple the size of Ma'ale Adumim, but you don't have a way to Jordan and the north Dead Sea without settlements along the way. The people have no intention of moving from these places.
Question: And they won't move even if Rabin decides to offer compensation?
Sharon: . . . . Rabin knows that if he offers compensation, some people in Ariel will accept it. This will possibly happen also in the secular parts of Karnie Shomron. But in Yizhar? In Elon Moreh? In Tapuah? Let him try in Ali, in Ma'ale Levona, in Shilo, in Bracha, in Kedumim [settlements in the West Bank heartland established by Likud].
Question: You mention only a few settlements.
Sharon: You simply are mistaken. Go to Beit Hagai, to Shema, to Carmel, to Beit Yatir. So what is Rabin going to do? Exit from Ma'ale Adumim? He doesn't want to leave there. Yesha [the settlers' council] estimates that 30 percent of settlers will leave, but settlements can handle this. . . . We are already seeing the second generation in these settlements. What is happening to them is similar to what occurred 50 years ago. In 1975 Rabin asked me, 'Who are these Gush Emmunim anyway?' . . . I told him, 'You will see, they are like we were in the 1940s, only more serious.'
