Contents

• 2.1 Changes in Soviet Jewish Emigration Patterns
• 2.2 Israel's Settlement Policy Since 1967
• 2.2.1 Settlement of the Occupied Territories
• 2.2.2 Annexation of East Jerusalem

• 3.1 Channeling Emigrants to Israel
• 3.2 Encouraging Settlement in the Occupied Territories
• 3.3 The Question of East Jerusalem
• 3.4 Censorship
• 3.5 In Comparison: Family Reunification for Palestinians

• 4.1 The Arab World
• 4.2 The USSR
• 4.3 The USA

• Appendix 1: Israeli Settlement Plans
• Appendix 2:Israeli Investment in Settlements in the Occupied Territories
• Appendix 3: Israeli Government and Non-Govermental Bodies Involved in the Settlement Programme
• Appendix 4: New Israeli Settlements During the Likud-led caretaker Government (March - June 1990)

Appendix 5: Examples of Settlement Expansion July 1990

During 1990 the issue of the emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel made international headlines. The mass influx of Soviet Jewish immigrants to Israel was made possible by the relaxation of emigration restrictions in the Soviet Union and the introduction of immigration quotas in the USA, the country where most Soviet Jews permitted to emigrate during the 1980s had preferred to settle.

The Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole expressed their concern that the large-scale immigration to Israel, facilitated by the superpowers, would reduce the prospects for a negotiated peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states. In particular, attention was focused on the resettlement of Soviet Jews in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 Israeli-Arab war.

At the time of writing (October 1990) the issue remains controversial, and a matter of discord especially between the governments of Israel and the United States respectively. With the wave of immigration precipitating a housing crisis in Israel, the Israeli government requested additional US aid to help in resettling the new immigrants. The US administration pressed for assurances that the new immigrants would be settled only within the pre-1967 borders of Israel and not in the occupied territories. US officials, moreover, called for a freeze to Israel's settlement policy in general.

At the beginning of October 1990, the US finally approved the housing loan after having received the required assurances from Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy. The furor over Levy's letter to US Secretary of State James Baker however, has highlighted the extent to which the US administration and the Israeli government disagree on the settlement of the Soviet Jewish immigrants. While in his letter Levy pledged that Israel would not settle the new immigrants in the occupied territories, Prime Minister Shamir and other government members immediately distanced themselves from this pledge, thus widening the rift between Israel and the US.

The aim of this paper is to examine the issue of Soviet Jewish immigration to Israel in the context of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It is not the large-scale immigration per se which has given rise to the current controversy; rather, the mass influx of immigrants to Israel has exacerbated a situation that has been controversial ever since Israel embarked on the policy of settling its citizens in the occupied territories.

According to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power is not allowed to settle its own civilian population in the territory it occupies.1 Israel, however, in order to further its settlement of the occupied territories, has chosen to misread this stipulation as applying only to the "forcible" transfer of civilians. Ever since the housing of Soviet Jewish immigrants in Israel settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has again focussed international awareness on the illegality of these settlements, Israel has consistently tried to divert attention from this central issue and instead advanced the Soviet Jews' right to live where they want.

Chapter 11 of this paper will provide background information to the current controversy over immigration to Israel and settlement of the occupied territories. A brief historical overview (2.2) will focus on official government policy in support of Israeli settlement of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israeli rule over Arab East Jerusalem will be treated separately (2.2.2) since the case of East Jerusalem is a striking illustration of how Israel implements demographic policy at the expense of the Palestinian population.

Chapter III will discuss the settlement of the Soviet Jewish immigrants in the occupied territories, with particular emphasis on the way the Israeli government minimises its own role in this settlement process. A separate section on Palestinian family reunification (3.5) serves in this context to highlight the double standards the Israeli authorities apply to Jewish immigrants and the indigenous Palestinian population respectively. On behalf of Soviet Jews, Israel usually quotes Art 13.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, according to which "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." While Israel advocates the Soviet Jews' right to emigrate, it is the right to return to their country which, since 1967, Israel has been denying to tens of thousands of Palestinians from the occupied territories. The international response to the settlement of Soviet Jewish immigrants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be the subject of chapter IV.