Ran HaCohen was born in the Netherlands in 1964 and has grown up in Israel. He has B.A. in Computer Science, M.A. in Comparative Literature and he presently works on his PhD thesis. He lives in Tel-Aviv, teaches in the Department of Comparative Literature in Tel-Aviv University. He also works as literary translator (from German, English and Dutch), and as a literary critic for the Israeli daily Yedioth Achronoth . His work has been published widely in Israel. His column appears monthly at Antiwar.com.

And then, last but not least, there is the political significance: by moving Israeli citizens into the territories, Israeli governments increase the number of citizens who have a vested interest (real estate etc.) in keeping, expanding and strengthening the settlements.

Beyond land and contiguity, settlements are meant to steal Palestinian water: from the very beginning, the settlements were located in strategic sites above aquifers. At present, Israel uses about 80% of the water of the Territories, leaving just 20% to their Palestinian inhabitants. Pictures of thirsty Palestinians and drained olive trees next to Jewish settlers indulging in swimming pools are well-known; but only this week did Israels comptroller expose the fact that the national water company had never imposed excess-use charges on the settlers , estimated at $18 million.

O ne must realise that the settlements are not just an appendix to the Israeli Occupation: they are the Occupation itself. They rob the Palestinians of every vital resource and freedom necessary for their life, both as individuals and as a nation. Many people  even those who have been to the occupied territories and seen the settlements  fail to comprehend it. A settlement is never just a fortified group of red-roofed villas on the top of an occupied hill. Only in the first instance do settlements mean confiscated land  sometimes free, sometimes agricultural, sometimes inhabited land whose Palestinian population was deported. A settlements also means Israeli soldiers who join forces with murderous settlers in harassing the Palestinians. It also means checkpoints, and a road  preferably several roads  connecting it with other settlements and with Israel itself. A road, again, is not just land: it is an ever growing "security belt" on both sides of it, belts of Palestinian fields and buildings swept by Israeli bulldozers "to prevent terrorist attacks" on the road. The function of those ever-expanding "by-pass roads" is not so much to serve the settlers (Israeli governments are not interested in drivers: roads in Israel are on a Third World level), but to cut off Palestinian towns and villages from one another, to cantonise the territories and split the Palestinians into minimal separate units that can be manipulated one by one, or even against one another  the good old "divide and rule."

But the Government of Israel will not freeze all settlement activity. Even though the Palestinians have already endorsed the Mitchell Report. Even though Europe endorsed it. Even though the Bush administration hesitantly endorsed it. Even though 62% of the Israelis, according to a recent poll by Israels largest daily Yedioth Achronoth (4.5), support freezing all settlement activity in return for a cease fire. The Government of Israel will not freeze settlement activity, because settlement activity is Occupation, and the Government of Israel is not willing to end the Occupation  in spite of the whole world, including its own electorate.

What is Sharon spinning away? Not Israeli war crimes in the territories. These  like the bombardment by F-16 aeroplanes of the old prison of Nablus last week (attacking prisons is a war crime)  are easily washed away by US-controlled international media. The "cease fire" spin is meant to divert attention from the clearest recommendation of the Mitchell Report: "The Government of Israel should freeze all settlement activity, including the "natural growth" of existing settlements."