The latest pro-Israeli Settler talking point is that it is unfair to stop settlement growth because it would effectively outlaw ‘natural growth’ occurring through childbirth. Today, it is Charles Krauthammer’s turn to made a stab at this ridiculous argument.

No “natural growth” means strangling to death the thriving towns close to the 1949 armistice line, many of them suburbs of Jerusalem, that every negotiation over the past decade has envisioned Israel retaining. It means no increase in population. Which means no babies. Or if you have babies, no housing for them — not even within the existing town boundaries. Which means for every child born, someone has to move out. No community can survive like that. The obvious objective is to undermine and destroy these towns — even before negotiations.

…The entire “natural growth” issue is a concoction. It’s farcical to suggest that the peace process is moribund because a teacher in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is making an addition to her house to accommodate new grandchildren…

The prohibition against natural growth of the settlements comes from the Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. What does it say about Israeli settlements?

Settlements

* GOI immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001.

* Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).

So, we need to refer to The Mitchell Report to see how they define natural growth. What does the Mitchell report say?

Settlements: The GOI also has a responsibility to help rebuild confidence. A cessation of Palestinian-Israeli violence will be particularly hard to sustain unless the GOI freezes all settlement construction activity. Settlement activities must not be allowed to undermine the restoration of calm and the resumption of negotiations.

On each of our two visits to the region, there were Israeli announcements regarding expansion of settlements, and it was almost always the first issue raised by Palestinians with whom we met. The GOI describes its policy as prohibiting new settlements but permitting expansion of existing settlements to accommodate “natural growth.” Palestinians contend that there is no distinction between “new” and “expanded” settlements; and that, except for a brief freeze during the tenure of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, there has been a continuing, aggressive effort by Israel to increase the number and size of settlements…

…The GOI should freeze all settlement activity, including the “natural growth” of existing settlements. The kind of security cooperation desired by the GOI cannot for long co-exist with settlement activity.

This is all either document has to say on the matter. There is nothing in these documents about not being able to put an extra wing on your house for the children. There is nothing in there about maintaining an absolutely static population level. It simply says that Israel should not expand existing settlements.

But, as a general matter, almost all of these settlements need to be abandoned by the people who inhabit them. So, the world doesn’t really care if they want to put in a swimming pool or turn the basement into a playroom or add a three-car garage. It’s not their property to begin with so they can’t possibly own it.

I don’t have the slightest sympathy for any of the Settlers and I regard them as enemies of peace and the single biggest national security threat that our nation faces. But, regardless of how I feel, Krauthammer is just the latest jackass who wants to lie about what the prohibition on natural growth really means. It doesn’t mean you can’t do renovations to your illegal home. It means that you can’t bulldoze more Palestinian land to build new streets and neighborhoods. Assholes.