Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad (AP)
1992 – 1994: In 1992, as a means to re-secure $10 billion in U.S. housing loan guarantees for new immigrants from Russia, Yitzhak Rabin’s government pledged to freeze settlement expansion. By 1994, however, the government had proposed construction of up to 15,000 new apartments, including the Maale Adumim settlement five miles east of Jerusalem, which now threatens to divide the West Bank in two. In addition, Ehud Olmert, then mayor of Jerusalem, authorized the construction of tunnels to connect Jerusalem to settlements further into the West Bank, such as Gush Etzion.
1995: In January 1995, in an effort to placate the demands of both Palestinian protesters and Israeli settlers, the Rabin-led government agreed to move the construction of 500 apartment units closer to the Efrat settlement and farther from the nearby Arab town of Al Khader. On January 26, the Israeli government announced it would slow the pace but still construct 2,200 new apartments in areas surrounding Jerusalem.
1996 – 1997: In August 1996, one week before his first official meeting with King Hussein of Jordan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lifted the four-year-old official "freeze" on settlements. The Israeli cabinet claimed it would maintain some checks on settlement expansion both to avoid U.S. opposition and to prevent the embarrassment of King Hussein before the meeting in Amman.
In February 1997, just weeks after Netanyahu signed the Hebron Agreement, the Israeli government announced its intention to build 6,500 homes in Har Homa, with about one-third of the units located on private Palestinian land. Har Homa, a stretch of land located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, would join, if completed, other neighborhoods in southeastern Jerusalem in preventing any linkage between Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and nearby Arab towns. The announcement resulted in Palestinian protests and riots which preceded a breakdown in peace talks.
1998: Before Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat headed to Washington for talks, the Israeli government approved an expansion of Beit El, a settlement north of Ramallah. Though Washington called for a “timeout” in building, construction continued on more than 4,700 housing units in 61 of the 140 settlements in the West Bank.
1999: Shortly after coming to power, new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak authorized expanded construction in Maale Adumim, Givat Zeev, Har Adar and Betar Ilit. The move was seen as a continuation of settlement strategy under Netanyahu, an effort to establish Jerusalem and West Bank territories before the conclusion of “final status” peace talks.
2001 – 2003: During the second intifada, Israeli settlers established over 50 outposts without government authorization. On July 22, 2003, under road-map obligations, the Israeli Knesset voted to remove the remaining unauthorized outposts built in the previous two years.
2004: Prime Minister Sharon announced an accelerated timetable for the withdrawal from Gaza, including settlement removal, the first such action since the withdrawal from Yamit in 1982. After months of protest from citizens and political critics, the Israeli government evacuated and dismantled 21 Gaza and four West Bank settlements in August, 2005, removing all settlers from Gaza.
2005: On March 21, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced plans to develop 3,500 new housing units in Maale Adumim, which had grown in population from 18,400 in 1994 to 28,923 in 2004. On March 23, the Bush administration stated that two top envoys, on a previously scheduled visit, would make a clear statement that “there needs to be an end to settlement activity.” While the Bush administration had indicated some adjustments in its policy a year before, when Bush said that Israel might retain control over heavily-populated settlement areas in a final agreement with the Palestinians, and that it might be allowed to expand settlements vertically if it did not increase the territory of the settlements, Israel also had been cautioned on precisely the type of growth and expansion that Maale Adumim represented. Following Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in August 2005, it claimed 400 acres of West Bank land to further expand Maale Adumim.
On March 8, Talia Sasson, a former state prosecutor, delivered to Prime Minister Sharon a report on the issue of unauthorized outposts that he had commissioned. She found 105 outposts, 15 of which were built on Palestinian land. Her report also said that the outposts, often "built with the involvement of public authorities and State bodies, but with no authoritative decision by the Government of Israel," were unauthorized and in direct violation of the law. In response, the Knesset set up a committee and the cabinet voted to remove 24 of the outposts. According to Sasson, as of 2008, none of the recommendations have been implemented and the outposts remain.
2008: While the November Annapolis Summit called for a settlement freeze, Peace Now reported that from August 2007-February 2008, construction took place in 101 settlements. In addition, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice condemned the inconsistency of Israel’s settlement expansion with its road-map obligations. However, on March 31, Jerusalem City Hall officials announced plans for the construction of 1,400 new homes in East Jerusalem and nearby settlements.
