Settlement boundaries have never been delimited

T. Belman. The reason that this is important is that we have an understanding with the Bush Admin, and even with earlier administrations, that we could build within the agreed boundaries. If such boundaries are now going to be delineated, why not widen the boundaries so that each settlement bloc can hold perhaps 3 or 4 times the current population. If the US intends to limit construction to within the blocs, why not give us room to expand considering how desperate we are for land near thecenter of the country to build housing on.

[Dr. Aaron Lerner – IMRA:  This item recirculated today as Jason Greenblatt arrives in Israel.  Thanks to the Israeli tendency not to read anything longer than a sentence (in any language) – combined with the Israeli self confidence that anything they don’t already know isn’t worth knowing – even senior Israeli officials and top journalists think that the Bush era exchange of letters related only to settlement blocs.  This was hardly the case!]

Dov Weisglass to IMRA: Why settlement construction area never delineated as planned with US

Dr. Aaron Lerner – IMRA 28 October, 20013

IMRA contacted Attorney Dov Weisglass, who served as Chief of the Prime Minister’s Bureau during Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s administration, asking why the settlement construction maps that were supposed to be prepared along with US Ambassador Kurtzer a few days after April 14, 2004 were never drawn up.

In a conversation this evening, Dov Weisglass told IMRA that back on 30 April 2003 Israel and the Bush Administration agreed to the principle that settlement construction would be limited to within the construction line of the settlements.

The two sides started to take practical measures and an American team together with an Israeli team started to go over aerial photos and it turned out that there were a lot of difficulties coming up with the edge of the construction. As a result of this to the process was held up.

In the meantime, Weisglass explain, we reached the end of 2003 start of 2004 and we started talking about the Disengagement and the work on the construction line was delayed.

This matter came to a head with the April 14, 2004 exchange of letters in Washington that included:

Dr. Condoleezza Rice
National Security Adviser
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Dr. Rice,

On behalf of the Prime Minister of the State of Israel, Mr. Ariel Sharon, I wish to reconfirm the following understanding, which had been reached between us:

1. Restrictions on settlement growth: within the agreed principles of settlement activities, an effort will be made in the next few days to have a better definition of the construction line of settlements in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]. An Israeli team, in conjunction with Ambassador Kurtzer, will review aerial photos of settlements and will jointly define the construction line of each of the settlements.

…
Sincerely,
Dov Weisglass
Chief of the Prime Minister’s Bureau

After that the teams returned to work but a difference in principle arose
between Ambassador Kurtzer and the Israelis regarding which settlements
would be included in the process.

We wanted, Weisglass noted, to start from East to West and not deal with the
large settlement blocs as we explained to the Americans that it was silly to
include them and put limits on development there as we already have a letter
(Bush April 14, 2004 letter to Sharon: “… In light of new realities on the
ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers…It is
realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on
the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”) showing
that we see eye to eye on the large settlement blocs

As the situation was sensitive and pressure great the question of belief of
the promise in the Bush letter about the large settlement blocs was
important for the belief of the public in the Disengagement.

We thought that the letter would even gain us support from settlers living
in the large settlement blocs.

So it was important to have public see that we have US support for the large
settlement blocs and this would have been questioned if at the same time we
would have an issue with construction in the large settlement blocs.

So we wanted to put off this matter

A large US team that was to come was cancelled – this was around Jewish New
Years September/October 2004. The formal excuse was the because of Jewish
New Years it was difficult to coordinate the visit of part of the delegation
that included Elliot Abrams.

The visit was cancelled and never renewed.