The 60 Minutes Report on Growing West Bank Settlements

by Glenn Greenwald
by Glenn Greenwald

The Jerusalem Post reports that, according to a newly released study by Peace Now, "the number of new structures in the West Bank settlements and outposts increased by 69 percent in 2008, compared to 2007" and "the settler population grew from 270,000 in 2007 to 285,000 in 2008." Earlier this week, the leading candidate to be Israel's next Prime Minister, Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu, said that while he "has no intention of building new settlements in the West Bank," he "would let Jewish settlements expand in the West Bank if he's elected prime minister."

When it comes to explanations about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Americans are typically inundated with reports about the indiscriminate, civilian-targeting violence engaged in by Palestinian religious fanatics and other extremists who oppose the very existence of Israel. But they hear little about their Israeli counterparts – the religious extremists and radical nationalists who, with the tacit and sometimes active support of the Israeli Government and military (funded and armed by the U.S.), continue to take over more and more land in the West Bank, imposing ever-harsher and more oppressive conditions on West Bank Palestinians. All of that is making a two-state solution increasingly difficult to envision, if not close to impossible.

Continuing the clear and positive trend of finally having a more balanced discussion of Israel in the U.S. media, 60 Minutes' Bob Simon, on Sunday night, broadcast a very good report focusing on how this settlement expansion occurs, the destructive mentality of the Israeli settlers, the devastating impact which settlement expansion has on the lives of Palestinians, and the ways in which settlement expansions – by design – are making a Palestinian state increasingly inconceivable. It also provides a very clear sense of how difficult is the task of Obama envoy George Mitchell, an outspoken opponent of West Bank settlements, who is in Israel today to begin his mediation efforts. [As he typically does whenever there is criticism directed towards Israeli actions in the U.S. media, the increasingly self-caricaturing Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League immediately sprung into action, angrily denouncing 60 Minutes for what he called a "journalistic hatchet job on Israel."]

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