We Say:

Territorial depth - particularly when measured in single miles rather than in tens or hundreds of miles - is almost insignificant as a buffer in an age of intermediate-range and long-range missiles. Israel's adversaries already have missiles that can reach every corner in the country. Keeping the West Bank does not provide Israel additional meaningful strategic depth with respect to such a threat. Furthermore, Israel doesn't need the West Bank as a buffer to fend off an invasion by foreign armies from the east, through the West Bank.

The probability of a land invasion from the east is extremely low, given the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq and Israel's longstanding peace agreement with Jordan. Even if this threat grew, for example due to an increase in extremist influence in the West Bank, Jordan, or beyond, the actual danger posed to Israel would still be low. The Jordan Valley is an excellent natural barrier, almost insurmountable for invading armies of tanks and mechanized infantry. Israeli military superiority, including the strongest and best-equipped air force in the region, would make any attempt to invade through the Jordan Valley suicidal for the invading forces. Israel's early warning capabilities, including satellites, are such that under no circumstances could Israel be surprised by a land invasion. Moreover, in the context of peace talks, Israel will insist on security arrangements that satisfy its need for early warning stations in key points in the West Bank - something to which Palestinian leaders have in the past indicated they would agree.

We Say:

Nobody is trying to force Israel to accept the 1967 lines as a permanent and official border between the West Bank and Israel. Borders will be the result of negotiations, subject to mutual agreement. There will be no peace agreement unless Israel agrees that it can live with it, including with respect to the defensibility of its borders.

Besides being a red herring - an intentional effort to divert attention from Israel's acute need to end its occupation of the West Bank - the "indefensibility" argument is wrong on its merits. Yes, an Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank will involve some security risks, but these risks do not render the borders of a future two-state agreement "indefensible." Negotiations with the Palestinians can produce a permanent border for Israel that meets its security needs. On balance, the national security benefits for Israel of a future peace agreement with the Palestinians far outweigh the risks.

Moreover, this argument ignores the security sacrifices that Israel is making in order to maintain military control of the West Bank - including harming army morale and leaving Israel's forces unprepared to handle serious external security threats.

Broadly speaking, when considering the defensibility of future borders, one has to distinguish between legitimate concerns and the ubiquitous manipulation of these concerns. Israel has legitimate security concerns. Misrepresenting facts or ignoring overarching Israeli national interests when discussing such concerns is blatant manipulation, generally to advance an ideological "Greater Israel" agenda.

We Say:

No Palestinian leadership, no matter how committed it may be to peace with Israel, will ever sign on to a peace agreement that leaves it a non-viable state, cut to pieces by Israeli settlements, and with no capital in East Jerusalem. Most Israelis understand this.

The reality is that settlements are not only an obstacle to peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state, but that many of those who support settlements do so with this concrete objective in mind.

Unless settlements stop expanding and unless many are removed, a viable, contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with its capital in East Jerusalem, cannot be created. Without the creation of such a Palestinian state, the state of Israel risks becoming either a bi-national state and losing its Jewish character, or becoming an international pariah in which a Jewish minority rules over a disenfranchised Palestinian majority. Either scenario jeopardizes Israel's future.

Settlements are therefore not only a major obstacle to peace but also a threat to Israel's existence and its future.

We Say:

Settlements control almost half of the West Bank's territory, between their built-up areas and other land under their control. They are spread across the entire length and breadth of the West Bank, connected by dedicated infrastructure and bolstered throughout by the Israeli army. They have exclusive authority over almost half the land and form a network of control that makes normal Palestinian life and development virtually impossible throughout the entire West Bank.

The route of Israel's West Bank "separation barrier" demonstrates how meaningless it is to focus on the built-up area of settlements, including in the so-called “settlement blocs.” The barrier, which penetrates deep into the West Bank, de facto annexes 9.5% of the West Bank to Israel. It follows a route that was manifestly guided not by security needs but rather aimed at accommodating settlements and settlement expansion plans. This 9.5% is many times the built-up area of settlements - underscoring the fact that Israeli territorial ambitions across the 1967 lines are not limited to the built-up areas of settlements.

It should be noted, too, that "Settlement bloc" is an informal term, having no legal definition or standing, either under Israeli or international law. The blocs and the settlements they contain are not recognized by the Palestinians or the international community as having any special status compared to other settlements, either now or in terms of a future peace agreement. For its part, Israel has always left the size and borders of the blocs undefined, allowing their informal borders to grow year after year, as construction has systematically thickened the "blocs" and expanded them to include settlements and land located at a greater distance from their centers.

We Say:

The "one percent argument" is a classic example of how supporters of the status-quo use a fraction of the truth to misrepresent the truth on the ground in the West Bank. Yes, the actual built-up area of West Bank settlements takes up only a little more than 1% of the West Bank. But the settlements' built-up area is just the tip of the settlements iceberg. The impact of the settlements goes far beyond this 1%.

Almost 10% of the West Bank is included in the "municipal area," or the jurisdictional borders of the settlements. These borders are so large that they allow settlements to expand many times over onto land that is completely off-limits to Palestinians.

In addition, almost 34% of the West Bank has been placed under the jurisdiction of the settlements' "Regional Councils." That is, more than an additional 1/3 of the West Bank has been placed under the control of the settlers, off-limits to Palestinians.

In total, more than 40% of the West Bank is under the direct control of settlers or settlements and off-limits to Palestinians, regardless of the fact that only a small portion of this land has been built on by settlers.

But the settlements iceberg is even bigger. Israel has taken hundreds of kilometers of the West Bank to build roads that serve the settlements, connecting them to each other and to Israel. They crisscross the entire West Bank, dividing Palestinian cities and towns from each other, and imposing various barriers to Palestinian movement and access. These roads don't only deny Palestinians contiguity; they also occupy a significant amount of land that is off-limits to Palestinians.

In addition, since 1967, Israel has expropriated fully 35% of the land in East Jerusalem as "state land" and used it almost entirely for settlements. Such settlements, and new settlement construction going on today, have the explicit goal of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem - which, in effect, means preventing the two-state solution.

We Say:

Settlements are antithetical to peace. If settlement construction continues, settlements will destroy the very possibility of peace and, with it, sentence Israel to a future where it will no longer be viable as both a Jewish state and a democracy.

Settlements are, at every level, a liability for Israel. It is because of settlements that the route of Israel's "separation barrier" has been distorted, lengthening and contorting Israel's lines of defense. It is because of settlements that Israeli soldiers are forced to act as police within the West Bank, rather than focusing on their real mission - defending Israel. Settlements are also a huge drain on Israel's economy, with the government continuing to fund construction and to provide settlers a wide range of financial benefits.

It is because of settlements that Israel is forced to rule over a huge - and growing - non-Jewish, disenfranchised population, contrary to basic democratic values. Settlement policies and the actions of settlers erode Israel's image in the world as a democratic state that respects the civil rights of all people under its rule. If allowed to block a two-state solution, settlements will ultimately leave Israeli decision-makers with an impossible choice: be a democracy and give full rights to the Palestinians, at the cost of Israel's Jewish character, or deny rights to the majority of the people under Israeli rule - which the Palestinians will soon be - validating accusations that Israel is increasingly an Apartheid-like state.

Settlement expansion extinguishes hope among Palestinians that Israel is serious about peace. It destroys the credibility of Palestinian moderates - Israel's best partners for peace - who reject violence and tell their people that negotiations will deliver a viable state. After nearly five decades of watching settlements grow to take up more and more land and damage the fabric of their lives, Palestinians view settlement construction today as a litmus test of Israeli seriousness about peace.

Many Israeli politicians, from across the political spectrum, acknowledge that most settlements - Israeli civilian neighborhoods built on land occupied by Israel in 1967 - will have to be removed as part of any peace agreement. At the same time, past negotiations suggest that most settlers should be able to remain where they are, as part of a land-swap deal. Existing settlements already make such arrangements complicated; if settlements continue to expand, creating new facts on the ground in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, they will further complicate negotiations and could eventually make an agreement impossible. That, after all, is the goal of the settlements and of those who support them.

We Say:

One would do well to be careful demanding a Jewish "right of return" to Hebron and other parts of the West Bank, given that Palestinians who fled from Israel also claim a "right of return" to the lands they left.

But even for those who support a Jewish presence in Hebron, the question then becomes: what kind of presence? Among the reasons the Hebron settlers are so reviled is that their behavior has often been violent and arrogant in the extreme, destroying property, hounding and harassing Palestinian residents, abusing IDF soldiers sent to protect them, and loudly demonstrating their presence in every way imaginable. As we remember the horrific violence used against the Jewish community of Hebron in 1929, we should not forget that Hebron was also the site of one of the worst acts of Jewish terrorism in memory, when in 1994 Baruch Goldstein, a settler from the settlement of Kiryat Arba, adjacent to Hebron, murdered 29 Muslim worshippers while they were at prayer in the mosque in the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Protecting the security and way of life of some 600 Jewish settlers who have chosen to make their homes in the heart of Hebron - a city of 160,000 Palestinians - would be a heavy burden on the IDF even if the city were not a focal point of violence and hatred. In the current context, achieving this mission has come at the cost of the most basic rights of the Palestinians of the city. Palestinian residents of downtown Hebron have been placed under curfew for months at a time, they are prohibited from accessing parts of the city, their businesses have been shut down, and key traffic arteries have been closed to them entirely. Indeed, in the wake of the Goldstein massacre, the Palestinian population of the city center has nearly disappeared. Apart from the settlers, who enjoy unfettered movement throughout the city, the downtown and old city of Hebron are a ghost town of empty streets and shuttered shops, daubed with the settlers' anti-Palestinian graffiti.

A city with 160,000 residents cannot be held by force indefinitely. Even then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recognized this fact when he ceded control over most of Hebron to the Palestinian Authority in 1997.

We Say:

The Jewish connection to Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs is profound and undeniable, as is the Jewish connection to numerous biblical sites in the West Bank. In many ways, Hebron is the cradle of our religion and our history. It is also true that Jews lived in Hebron from antiquity until recent history. However, even if one accepts the premise that because of this connection Israelis have the right to live in Hebron (indeed, anywhere in the historic land of Israel), it does not follow that this "right" must or should be exercised, or that this "right" should become a pretext to deny Israel peace.

If there is ever going to be peace with the Palestinians, it will require the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state. Keeping the settlements in Hebron at the cost of a negotiated two-state solution - one which guarantees the continued existence and viability of the Jewish state of Israel - would be a Pyrrhic victory for Israel.

We Say:

Jerusalem is the third holiest place to Islam. Muslims, not Jews or Christians, determine what is holy to them, and Muslims have believed in the city's sanctity for many generations, long before it became the geographic focal point of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

While we should not forget the desecration and destruction of Jewish holy sites before 1967, we should seek policies that offer a better future to Jerusalem, not policies that focus on settling the scores of past quarrels. Peaceful coexistence in the city of peace will be achieved only when all sides recognize and respect the legitimacy of each other's religious beliefs and traditions.