Michael Lynk writes:

In 1982, Meron Benvenisti, former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, spoke to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, D.C., about research that he and other social scientists in Israel were conducting into the political implications of the rapidly expanding Israeli settler population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). That year, there were 22,000 settlers living in the occupied West Bank, with another 76,000 settlers in East Jerusalem and 6,500 in the Gaza Strip. According to an Anthony Lewis article in the New York Times, Benvenisti — an opponent of the settlement movement — said that, given the stated goal of then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to have 100,000 settlers living in the West Bank by 1987, the momentum of the Israeli settler movement was at a “critical mass.” The point-of-no-return, he argued, to forestall Israel’s effective annexation of the West Bank was now at “five minutes to midnight.”

Two years later, AEI published Benvenisti’s “The West Bank Data Base Project,” a comprehensive survey of the West Bank’s rapidly changing demography and landscape. By 1984, there were 37,000 Israelis living in West Bank settlements, a two-year increase of 68%. In the publication, he wrote that the “political, military, socio-economic and psychological processes working towards total annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip outweigh those who are working against it.” In Benvenisti’s view, the maximum territorial objectives of the Zionist movement — full and irreversible control over the entire area of Mandatory Palestine — had been achieved. Ironically, his Data Base Project would be criticized by his fellow liberal Zionists for its pessimism that these demographic trends could be reversed, while celebrated by Israel’s Likudniks for confirming the success of their annexationist aspirations.

That prognosis was issued over 40 years ago. In the decades since, Western political leaders and media influencers have repeatedly asserted the necessity of achieving a two-state solution as the only realistic path forward for Israel and Palestine, while regularly warning that the diplomatic clock for its achievement sat perilously at “five minutes to midnight.” Since Benvenisti’s warnings, the Israeli settler population has exploded. By 2023 (the latest year for official figures), the estimated size of the Israeli settler population in the West Bank alone stood at 503,000 — a net increase of 12,000 to 20,000 settlers annually. Many more are on their way: The far-right Israeli government approved a record number of housing starts (over 47,000 units) in 2025. Another 233,000 Israeli settlers live in East Jerusalem.

Yet, following the familiar script, the proverbial door to a Palestinian state is not yet shut. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking to the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) in April 2025, pleaded with the international community to recognize the urgency of reviving the two-state solution: “We are past the stage of ticking boxes — the clock is ticking. The two-state solution is near the point of no return.”

The purpose, reality and illegality of Israeli settlements are no secret. While Israel attempted to disguise its first civilian settlements in the occupied territory as military bases shortly after it conquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza (along with the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai) in the June 1967 war, it quickly revealed its objectives. By 1969, Yigal Allon, a Labour Party cabinet minister in the Israeli government and a leading architect of the settlement enterprise, publicly proclaimed: “Here, we create a Greater Eretz Yisrael from a strategic point of view, and establish a Jewish state from a demographic point of view.” [Continue reading…]