ABSTRACT
The Israeli settlements in the West Bank is amongst the thorniest and most intractable problems confronting Israeli and Palestinian peace-makers, as they move to implement the September 1993 Declaration of Principles (DOP) and the May 1994 agreement. Between 1949 and 1967 the West Bank was bounded by the armistice lines between Israel and Jordan, with no physical or economic links connecting it with the State of Israel. The settlement map of todays Israel is fundamentally different from that of the 1950s and 1960s; it has been altered by the development of many additional new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, by the internal migration of population to them, and by new priorities of regional development. Already in 1974 Gush Emunim established the settlement of Qeshet on the Golan Heights, and those of Ofra, Shiloh, and Kfar Kedumim in the West Bank.
