In internationally-brokered efforts to resolve these conflicts, the question of the fate of the settlers naturally arose. The answer, across all these very different situations, has always been the same: the settlers stay. Indeed, the only point of dispute has typically been what proportion of settlers receive automatic citizenship in any newly-created state and what proportion merely gets residence status. Thus, when East Timor, for example, received independence in an internationally-approved process, none of the Indonesian settlers were required to leave. The current U.N.-mediated peace plans for Western Sahara and Cyprus not only presuppose the demographically dominant settler population can remain, it gives them a right to vote in referenda on potential deal.
This is not because these settlers are beloved by the surrounding population. The opposite is true. In the Paris peace talks to end the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia, representatives of the latter tried to raise the possibility of expelling the nearly million Vietnamese settlers. Their arguments were familiar: the settlers remind them of the occupation, rekindle ancient hatreds, and destabilize the peace. Yet the Cambodian demands for the mass removal of ethnic Vietnamese was rejected outright by diplomats: One simply cannot ask for such things.
Indeed, uniform international practice shows that the removal of settlers is an obstacle to peace. In those occupations that have been resolved—East Timor, Cambodia, Lebanon—such demands would have been a complete deal-breaker. And those still subject to international diplomacy, however slim the chances of resolution, there would not even be a pretense of negotiation had demands similar to the Palestinians been made.
In short, the Palestinians couching their objection as one about removing “settlers” rather than Jews does not change the harsh reality. There is simply no precedent in international practice for the demand. Whatever term one uses for such a demand, Netanyahu was clearly right to call attention to the extraordinary nature of the demand. It is also disappointing that, instead of exercising moral leadership on this issue, the ADL went against its mission by seemingly excusing singular treatment for Jews.
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