In the language of the Bible they were called settlements, and the Israelites answered the call of G-d to ‘settle’ the land. In the language of today, they are the ‘suburbs’ Webster’s dictionary defines as ‘outlying residential communities’.
They [the settlements] are closer to Israeli cities and towns than New York suburbs to NY subways.
And for the most part they are closer to Israeli cities and towns than New York suburbs to NY subways, or Los Angeles suburbs to downtown LA.

But Israeli suburbs have served a more critical function than America’s bedroom communities. Along with the army personnel positioned nearby for their protection, they have served as sentinels on the routes that could be used by invading Arab armies on their way to deliver death and destruction to larger Israeli population centers.

Those suburban sentinels and their protectors -- by slowing the progress of would-be invaders and giving Israel’s citizen army the time needed to mobilize – initially served as deterrents to war. And that deterrence contributed to the stability in a volatile Middle East. Today they serve to anchor the buffer zones of Judea-Samaria.

Following the Six Day War in 1967, Israel repeatedly offered to exchange the Sinai, Golan, Gaza, and Judea-Samaria (since relabeled ‘West Bank’) for peace. And to simplify that exchange, the Israeli government initially prevented Jews from building in those areas.

But Israeli control alone was not enough to prevent Arab states from attacking on Yom Kippur of 1973. That war maintained the average of one-war-for-every-six-years that marked the 19-year Arab occupation of those areas. At that rate another six Middle East wars would have taken place by now.

However the Israeli presence -- bolstered by the army units protecting the suburban communities -- has prevented all-out war between Arab states and Israel for nearly four decades. Oft-repeated slogans to the contrary, the Judea and Samaria are suburbs not settlements. And while Tel Aviv and Jerusalem lay securely beyond the suburbs/settlements in the buffer zones of Gaza, the Golan and Judea-Samaria, Arab armies were busy elsewhere.

• Libya warred against Chad... Egypt during Yemen’s civil war, used poison gas against its civilians... Syria’s army warred on its city of Hama killing tens of thousands of its own civilians... Algeria’s army seized control and prevented its democratically elected government from taking office... Iraq known for using poison gas on its Kurds warred first on Iran, then on Kuwait... and more.

• The PLO-trained part of the Arab umma called Palestinians, lacking a real army, were limited to warring on the ground: against Arab Jordanians in 1970... with Saddam’s Iraqi troops against Arab Kuwaitis in the early 1990s... and against the Arab Lebanese in between.

Given the experience of fellow Arabs who lived ‘side-by-side’ with the Palestinians, expecting Jews to fare better in a 2-state, side-by-side arrangement flies in the face of reality. Their Palestine National Covenant threatens death and destruction not to fellow Arabs and their states but to Jews and Israel.

No matter how fair it sounds, a peace process based on ‘two-states for two-people’ is misleading.

Despite the ‘obstacles-to-peace’ fiction, the Jewish settlements and their protectors are proven obstacles-to-war. That makes them, in combination with the buffer
Jewish settlements and their protectors are proven obstacles-to-war.
zones, an integral part of a reality-based peace equation. The transfer of the ‘West Bank’ or Golan Heights from Israeli to Arab hands is not.

Only the continued Israeli presence on the ‘West Bank’ and Golan Heights, bolstered by the suburban sentinels known as Jewish settlements, can ensure that the last 36 years of relative peace between the Arab states and Israel can also be continued.

Let’s get real... In that violence prone Middle East, an absence of all-out war is about as much peace as you get. And the Golden Rule to preserving that peace just may be ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’

Let’s look at the facts... Arab League states already occupy more land than 2300 Gazas plus 2300 West Banks put together.

Let’s really give peace a chance... Welcoming just one Palestinian Arab to each square mile of the Arab League states’ over five million square miles would solve the Arab refugee problem they created by warring on Israel. The U.N. would then be free to address the needs of the more needy, more numerous refugees around the globe.