Do Israeli Settlements Hinder the Two-State Solution? Reading the Signed Interim Agreement, the Court Records and the Recorded Votes

The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement of 1995 states the connection in its own text: it defines a West Bank settlement as one in Area C, and it names settlements second among seven subjects carved out of the Palestinian Council’s jurisdiction entirely and deferred to permanent status negotiations. The Agreement records that in Area C the Council was to receive only powers “not relating to territory,” so the tie between settlements and partition sits in a signed clause rather than in an inference from a map. What the record does not hold is the measurement the familiar answer runs on: the Agreement records the words “per cent” and “percent” once in its whole main text, in an article on appointments, and nowhere in relation to territory. Around that clause sit the dated records the question turns on: a partition plan from 1937 never enacted, a military order from 1967 with no official English text, and two Israeli judgments that ordered outposts removed on proved private title.

Key Findings

• The Agreement records seven subjects carved out of the Palestinian Council’s jurisdiction at Article XVII(1): Jerusalem, settlements, specified military locations, Palestinian refugees, borders, foreign relations and Israelis. Settlements are second on that list, and Article XII(5) defines them, in the West Bank, as the settlements in Area C.
• The Agreement states, at Article XI(2), that “All civil powers and responsibilities, including planning and zoning” pass to the Council in Areas A and B, while in Area C “Israel will transfer to the Council civil powers and responsibilities not relating to territory.”
• The Agreement records the words “per cent” and “percent” once in its entire main text, in Article IX on appointments to the Executive Authority, and nowhere in relation to territory. Areas A and B are fixed by a red line and shading on attached map No. 1, and Area C residually.
• The Agreement put the interim redeployments on a schedule of 18 months from the Council’s inauguration and required permanent status negotiations covering settlements to open no later than 4 May 1996, at Article XXXI(5).
• The Israeli Supreme Court ruled on 2 August 2011 that the State evacuate the Migron outpost, the State having conceded that the land was registered under private Palestinian ownership and the outpost illegal.

What did the first plan to divide the territory into two states propose?

The Palestine Royal Commission put partition in one sentence at Chapter XXII, paragraph 1: “We return, then, to Partition as the only method we are able to propose for dealing with the root of the trouble.” The report was signed on 22 June 1937 and presented to Parliament the following month.

The reasoning sits two chapters earlier. The Commission recorded, at Chapter XX, paragraph 17, that the obligations Britain had undertaken towards the Arabs and the Jews “have proved irreconcilable; and, as far ahead as we can see, they must continue to conflict,” and closed the same chapter by holding that partition “seems to offer at least a chance of ultimate peace. We can see none in any other plan.”

A Royal Warrant of 7 August 1936 constituted the inquiry and directed it to find the underlying causes of the disturbances that had broken out that April. The Commission reported hearing 60 witnesses at 30 public sessions and 53 witnesses at 40 private sessions, all formal sessions held in Jerusalem.

What it proposed was a treaty system rather than a border. The Mandate for Palestine “should terminate and be replaced by a Treaty System in accordance with the precedent set in Iraq and Syria,” and Treaties of Alliance would declare that “two sovereign independent States would be established, the one an Arab State, consisting of Trans-Jordan united with that part of Palestine which lies to the east and south of a frontier such as we suggest,” the other a Jewish State.

None of it was enacted. The Woodhead Commission found the plan impracticable the following year and the White Paper of 1939 abandoned it, so the earliest official proposal to divide the territory into two states is a recommendation on the record and never an outcome. It is a British government-commissioned review of Britain’s own obligations.

Which office holds the West Bank land no agreement transferred?

Military Order 59 states the power in one sentence: Article 2 provides that the Custodian of Government Property may take possession of government property and take any step he deems necessary to do so. The commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank Area signed the order on 31 July 1967, and Article 7 had commenced it on 7 July 1967, twenty-four days earlier.

Military Order 59 states what the Custodian may reach at Article 1. It fixes the determining day at 7 June 1967 and defines Government Property by who owned it on that day, beginning with property of an enemy state, which the text defines as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan or any other enemy state, including its government, units, branches, authorities and corporations.

Two properties of the document travel with any use of it. The first is that no official English text exists. The Military Advocate General publishes each order in Hebrew and Arabic on facing halves of the page and in no third language, so every English wording of Article 2 in circulation is somebody’s unofficial rendering, including the paraphrase above. The second is that the Military Advocate General records nine amendments to this order, the last of them at booklet 200, page 3221, so the 1967 booklet is not the text in force.

Article 8 names the order for the West Bank Area rather than for Judea and Samaria, because the area had not yet been renamed. The 1967 text carries no declaration procedure, no objection window and no appeals committee: it defines property by ex-Jordanian ownership on a fixed date and gives one office possession of it.

The order is the instrument on the other side of the transfer question. Twenty-eight years before the two sides divided civil powers by area, this office already held land defined that way, and the later Agreement moved territorial jurisdiction over Area C to nobody.

Did Israel’s own court address a settlement meant to outlast military rule?

The Israeli Supreme Court held, unanimously and 5 to 0 on 22 October 1979, that a military administration cannot create within its territory “facts on the ground” for military needs “that were in advance intended to exist past the end of the military rule in that area, when the fate of the territory after the end of the military rule is yet unknown.”

Deputy President Landau stated that ground as one which “stands independently, even without regard to the other reasons I have so far detailed.” The other reasons were narrower and factual. Seventeen Palestinian petitioners, registered owners of about 125 dunams at the village of Rujeib outside Nablus, had challenged an order of possession signed on 5 June 1979 over about 700 dunams, under which Israeli civilians began settling the site two days later.

Three limits sit in the same judgment and belong beside the holding. The Court recorded that requisition of privately owned land for a civilian settlement “is potentially justified under Article 52 of the Hague Regulations,” so the case turned on the finding that the political level had initiated this settlement and the military had supplied a professional opinion afterwards. Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention was expressly left undecided, on the reasoning that treaty-based international law does not bind an Israeli court while the Hague Regulations bind as customary law. And only that one order fell, only as to the petitioners’ registered plots; the separate order covering the access road drew no order at all.

The Court put the respondents on 30 days to comply. What the judgment establishes is a test applied to one requisition on its own facts, by a domestic court measuring its own government’s conduct against the law of occupation. It does not hold that settlement is unlawful, and it does not state the rule, taken by government resolution afterwards, that settlements be built only on state land.

Where does the 1995 agreement place a settlement?

The Agreement states, at Article XII(5), a definition in a single clause: “the Settlements” means, in the West Bank the settlements in Area C. Area C is the one category the same Agreement never draws a boundary for.

The Agreement states the three areas one article earlier. At Article XI(3), “Area A” means “the populated areas delineated by a red line and shaded in brown on attached map No. 1”; “Area B” means “the populated areas delineated by a red line and shaded in yellow on attached map No. 1, and the built-up area of the hamlets listed in Appendix 6 to Annex I”; and Area C means “areas of the West Bank outside Areas A and B, which, except for the issues that will be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations, will be gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction in accordance with this Agreement.”

So two of the three areas are fixed by a line and a colour on one attached map, and the third is whatever is left over. The map is not an illustration. The Agreement records, at Article XXXI(13)(a), that the Preamble and all Annexes, Appendices and maps attached to it “shall constitute an integral part hereof.”

Read as a chain, the three clauses are the finding. A settlement is defined by where it stands; where it stands is Area C; and Area C is defined by subtraction rather than by a boundary of its own. Every later argument about how much of the West Bank that category covers is an argument about a residual, and the instrument that created it supplies no measure of it.

The Agreement is bilateral, between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed at Washington on 28 September 1995 and witnessed by the United States, Russia, Egypt, Jordan, Norway and the European Union. The wording above is quoted from the English text published by a party to the Agreement, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Which powers did the Council receive in Areas A and B only?

The Agreement states, at Article XI(2), that in Areas A and B “All civil powers and responsibilities, including planning and zoning, in Areas A and B, set out in Annex III, will be transferred to and assumed by the Council,” and that in Area C “Israel will transfer to the Council civil powers and responsibilities not relating to territory.”

Planning and zoning is the operative phrase, because it is the power under which a settlement is built, extended and connected. The Agreement put the land itself on the same line: “Land in populated areas (Areas A and B), including government and Al Waqf land, will come under the jurisdiction of the Council during the first phase of redeployment.”

Article XVII states the same division as jurisdiction, three times over. Territorial jurisdiction covers West Bank and Gaza Strip territory “except for Area C,” and “includes land, subsoil and territorial waters.” Functional jurisdiction “extends to all powers and responsibilities transferred to the Council.” Personal jurisdiction applies “to all persons, except for Israelis.” The Agreement adds, at Article XVII(2)(d), that the Council “shall have functional jurisdiction in Area C, as detailed in Article IV of Annex III.”

The Agreement records the residue as plainly as the transfer. Article XVII(4)(a) provides that “Israel, through its military government, has the authority over areas that are not under the territorial jurisdiction of the Council, powers and responsibilities not transferred to the Council and Israelis.”

Put together, the two halves of Article XI(2) answer a narrow version of the settlements question with no measurement at all. A settlement is by definition in Area C; there the Council received powers expressly described as not relating to territory; and territorial jurisdiction, including land and subsoil, stayed where it was. Whatever share of the West Bank Area C turns out to be, the planning power inside it was never among the things the interim arrangement moved.

Which subjects did the agreement carve out of Palestinian jurisdiction?

The Agreement states seven, at Article XVII(1), in the order the text prints them: “Jerusalem, settlements, specified military locations, Palestinian refugees, borders, foreign relations and Israelis.” Settlements are the second item.

Article XXXI states the subjects permanent status negotiations were to cover, and five of the seven appear there too: “Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders.” The list the interim Council could not touch and the list the final talks were to settle are drawn from one pool, and settlements sit on both.

Source: the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, 1995, Articles XII, XVII and XXXI, in the English text published by a party to the Agreement, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Agreement records where the excluded powers went. Article XVII(4)(a) leaves authority over areas outside the Council’s territorial jurisdiction, over powers not transferred, and over Israelis with Israel, through its military government. What became of the deferred subjects since is walked, file by file, in the Institute’s report on the five unclosed final-status files.

How long was the interim arrangement written to run?

The Agreement put the interim arrangement on 18 months. Annex I provides three further redeployments, “each to take place after an interval of six months,” to be completed “within 18 months from the date of the inauguration of the Council,” and Article XXXI required permanent status negotiations to commence “not later than May 4, 1996.”

The schedule is stated twice and named in a third place. Article XI(2)(d) of the main Agreement and Article I(9) of Annex I both carry the six-month intervals and the eighteen-month completion, and Appendix 1 to Annex I labels the three Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3.

Two further clauses were written to hold the position while the clock ran. The Agreement records, at Article XXXI(7), that “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations,” a sentence symmetrical on its face. At Article XXXI(6) it preserves each side’s case, providing that neither Party “shall be deemed, by virtue of having entered into this Agreement, to have renounced or waived any of its existing rights, claims or positions.”

Annex I records what was to happen to the standing administration. At Article I(5): “After the inauguration of the Palestinian Council, the Israeli Civil Administration will be dissolved and the Israeli military government will be withdrawn.”

Every date and interval above is what the instrument promised. That the redeployments did not complete, that the Civil Administration was not dissolved and that the interim period did not end are facts about the decades since, established by other records and not by this text. The Agreement fixes the deadline; it cannot report what happened to it.

Does the agreement state how much of the West Bank is Area C?

The Agreement records the words “per cent” and “percent” exactly once in its main text, in Article IX on appointments to the Executive Authority, and nowhere in relation to territory. Areas A and B are fixed by a red line and shading on attached map No. 1, and Area C as whatever lies outside them.

The share that carries the public version of this question is a later measurement, and this report cannot name who took it. Alaa Mahajna states that Area C and its surroundings “comprise around 60 percent of the West Bank” and “were supposed to be transferred gradually from Israeli administration to Palestinian control by 1997” (Mahajna, 2026). The author is a Jerusalem-based human rights lawyer, the piece is labelled Policy Analysis by Arab Center Washington DC and dated 7 May 2026, and it is an argument rather than a measurement. It attributes that share, and three others it reports, to no register, survey or agency a reader could open: 18.4% of Area C registered as state land before 1967, 24.5% declared afterwards, and around 57% remaining. The two Israeli government decisions of February 2026 behind the analysis are treated in the Institute’s report on land registration in the West Bank.

B’Tselem, accessed in 2026, publishes its West Bank settlement count and its count for the annexed East Jerusalem neighbourhoods as two separate series, while the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reports the same neighbourhoods inside one Israeli total. That convention is what this report takes from the monitoring organisation; its numbers are not used here, because they are recorded as unconfirmed on a live read after direct retrieval failed.

So the absence is specific rather than general. Somebody measured Area C, the figure is repeated everywhere, and the instrument that created the category prints no share at all. A neighbouring absence on the population side, where no official series measures territorial contiguity, sits in the Institute’s report on the West Bank population record.

Has a court ever ordered a settlement removed, and at what scale?

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled on 2 August 2011: “We have therefore decided to issue a final order requiring the State to evacuate the Outpost of Migron,” with the deadline set “until March 31, 2012.” It ordered the whole Amona outpost removed on 25 December 2014, within two years, and refused a further delay on 14 November 2016.

The scale of the first is in the record because the State put it there. The State reported to the Court that Migron held some 45 families and some 250 residents as of February 2009, describing it as the largest outpost in Judea and Samaria and recording it as established in May 2001 without any government resolution; in June 2006 the site held some 60 prefabs, one permanent building and 43 families.

The Court recorded the ownership as undisputed. The State did not dispute that the lands were “registered lands under private Palestinian ownership,” within the confines of the villages of Burqa and Dir Dabwan, or that the outpost “is illegal.” The Court held that the erection of the outpost and its continued expansion “constitute blatant and defiant violations of the law and of the Palestinian landowners’ property rights.”

Two limits belong with the pair. A judgment date and an evacuation date are different facts: Migron was petitioned on 30 June 2006, heard five times between February 2007 and July 2011, and on 25 March 2012 the Court refused a request to delay to 2015 and reset the deadline instead. Nothing about the category follows from either case: the only quantities here describe one outpost at two dates, so no outpost count, no settler population and no land area may be derived from them.

What the two judgments do establish is that removal has a domestic answer with a docket number attached. Where private title was registered and proved, an Israeli court ordered removal, set a date, and declined to move it again.

How did the World Court’s judges vote on settlements in 2024?

The International Court of Justice recorded fourteen votes to one on the obligation “to cease immediately all new settlement activities, and to evacuate all settlers,” at paragraph 285, subparagraph (5) of its advisory opinion of 19 July 2024.

The two subparagraphs most often quoted alongside it carry the narrowest majority in the opinion. The Court recorded eleven votes to four on subparagraph (3), concerning the unlawfulness of the continued presence, and the same margin on subparagraph (4), concerning bringing it to an end as rapidly as possible. On both, the Court recorded dissents by Judges Tomka, Abraham and Aurescu and by Vice-President Sebutinde.

The rest of the dispositif divides again. Jurisdiction was unanimous. The decision to comply with the request, and the obligation to make reparation, were each adopted by fourteen votes to one. The duties of non-recognition and non-assistance addressed to all States and to international organizations, and the paragraph directing the General Assembly and the Security Council to consider further action, were each adopted by twelve votes to three.

So nine separately voted subparagraphs carry four different majorities, and a single margin quoted for the opinion as a whole describes one of them and not the others. The settlement subparagraph sits among the widest; the two about the presence itself are the narrowest.

The instrument type matters as much as the count. This is an advisory opinion delivered on a request from the General Assembly rather than a judgment between parties, and it binds nobody. The Court stated its own authoritative language, the opinion being done in English and in French with the English text authoritative. What it fixes on the record is how the judges divided, subparagraph by subparagraph, on a stated date.

Which qualifications of statehood does a treaty text actually name?

The Convention states four, at Article 1 of its English column: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.”

The instrument is the Convention on Rights and Duties of States, signed at Montevideo on 26 December 1933 by the delegations of nineteen American republics. It is the text reached for whenever the qualifications of statehood come up, and three of its properties are usually left behind.

The English says “should possess,” not must. The word “effective” appears nowhere in Article 1, so the familiar phrase about an effective government is a gloss from the commentary literature rather than the treaty. And the Convention names no organ to decide whether any entity satisfies the four qualifications. The Convention states, at Article 3, that “The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states,” and at Article 6 that recognition, once given, “is unconditional and irrevocable.”

One further article bears directly on territory. The Convention records, at Article 11, “the precise obligation not to recognize territorial acquisitions or special advantages which have been obtained by force.” Two signatories qualified it on the record: the delegates of Brazil and Peru stated “That they accept the doctrine in principle but that they do not consider it codifiable.”

The English and the Spanish are parallel columns of one printed text, both authentic, and they do not carry equal force: the Spanish reads that a state “debe reunir” the requisites, a stronger word than “should possess.” Nineteen American republics signed, and the Convention binds each party from its own ratification, so it is regional rather than universal. It names the qualifications and names nobody to apply them, and that is where its own text stops.

Methodology and limitations

This report reads instruments, judgments and one policy analysis, each labelled by type. Primary and official records: the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of 1995, bilateral between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization and read in the English text published by a party to it, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Military Order 59 of 1967 as published by the issuing military authority; the report of the Palestine Royal Commission of 1937; the Convention on Rights and Duties of States of 1933 as published by the depositary; and three judgments of the Israeli Supreme Court, HCJ 390/79, HCJ 8887/06 and HCJ 9949/08. Think-tank policy analysis: Mahajna, 2026. The advisory opinion of 19 July 2024 is named in prose with its date and its recorded votes, and no figure here rests on it.

Five limitations bear on the reading. Military Order 59 has no official English text in any state publication, the Hebrew governs, and the issuing authority’s index carries nine amendments, so the 1967 booklet is not the text in force. The Elon Moreh judgment is read in an unofficial English translation and decides one requisition on its own facts; its companion case of 1978, which upheld a requisition for a civilian settlement on the same Article 52 reasoning, is not in the record read here, so nothing is claimed about how that test operates generally. The Amona judgment has no official English text, and the evacuation dates in both outpost cases are events reported elsewhere rather than holdings of either court. Annex I, Appendix 6 of the Interim Agreement lists the Area B hamlets without a running total, and no total, area figure, settler count or outpost count is derived anywhere here. The Montevideo Convention’s English and Spanish columns are both authentic and differ in force.

Two absences are part of the finding rather than gaps in the reading. No instrument read here states a share of the West Bank for any of the three areas, and the source that supplies the familiar share names no measuring body for it. And no source read here measures how the settlements framing relates to antisemitism, so no such figure appears.

Conclusion

The question was whether Israeli settlements hinder the two-state solution, and the Agreement of 1995 answers a narrower version of it in its own words: settlements were placed, by definition, in the one area whose territorial jurisdiction was never transferred, and put on the list of subjects the interim arrangement could not touch and the final talks were to settle.

The rest of the record is equally specific and rather more assertive taken together. The Palestine Royal Commission proposed partition in 1937 in a single sentence, and Britain never enacted it. A military order signed in July 1967 gave one office possession of land defined by who owned it on 7 June that year, and no official English text of it exists. The Israeli Supreme Court held in October 1979, unanimously, that a military administration cannot build facts intended to outlast military rule while the fate of the territory is unknown, and left the Geneva question undecided in the same judgment. The Agreement gave the Council planning and zoning in Areas A and B and, in Area C, powers expressly not relating to territory, on a schedule of 18 months that ran out three decades ago. Two Israeli courts ordered outposts removed where private title was registered and proved. Fourteen judges of fifteen at the World Court voted in 2024 for an obligation to cease new settlement activity, in an opinion whose subparagraphs on the presence itself split eleven to four.

What none of it contains is the number the public argument is actually conducted in. The share of the West Bank that Area C covers is quoted constantly, appears in no clause of the Agreement that created the category, and reaches the reader from a lawyer who names no body that measured it. So when the next answer to this question reaches for a percentage instead of an article number, which record is it standing on, and who would have to publish the survey behind it before anybody could check?

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Interim Agreement mean by a settlement?

Article XII(5) defines “the Settlements” as meaning, in the West Bank, the settlements in Area C. Area C is itself defined residually at Article XI(3), as the areas lying outside Areas A and B, which are marked by a red line and shading on the map attached to the Agreement.

Which body measured Area C as around 60% of the West Bank?

No source read for this report names one. The figure appears in a 2026 policy analysis for Arab Center Washington DC as the author’s own statement, with no register or survey behind it, and the Agreement that created the category prints no territorial percentage.

Do settlements hinder a two-state outcome under the Agreement’s own terms?

The Agreement never uses that word. Its text locates settlements in Area C, withholds planning and zoning there from the Palestinian Council, and places settlements among the seven subjects reserved for permanent status talks. Whether that hinders an outcome is not a quantity any clause reports.

Did the Elon Moreh ruling make settlements unlawful?

No. The Israeli Supreme Court recorded that requisitioning private land for a civilian settlement is potentially justified under Article 52 of the Hague Regulations, left Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention undecided, and struck down one order of possession as to the petitioners’ own plots.

Why is there no official English text of Military Order 59?

The issuing military authority publishes its orders in Hebrew and Arabic and in no third language, so the state record holds no English version. Every English wording in circulation is an unofficial rendering, which is why this report paraphrases Article 2 rather than quoting it.

Is an advisory opinion of the World Court binding?

No. An advisory opinion is delivered on a request, here from the General Assembly, rather than as a judgment between parties, and it binds nobody. What it fixes is how the judges divided: the Court recorded four different majorities across the nine subparagraphs of its opinion of 19 July 2024.

Sources

• Commander of IDF Forces in the West Bank Area, 1967. Military Order 59, Order Concerning Government Property, signed 31 July 1967, Collection of Proclamations, Orders and Appointments, booklet 5, page 162. Official record (security legislation as enacted, published by the issuing authority; no official English text).
• Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, 1995. The Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Oslo II), signed at Washington DC, 28 September 1995, text as published by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Official record (treaty text, published by a party to it).
• Israeli Supreme Court, 1979. HCJ 390/79 Dweikat v. Government of Israel (the Elon Moreh case), judgment of 22 October 1979, Supreme Court of Israel sitting as High Court of Justice. Official record (court judgment; unofficial English translation).
• Israeli Supreme Court, 2011. HCJ 8887/06 al-Nabut v. Minister of Defense (Migron), judgment of 2 August 2011, Supreme Court of Israel sitting as High Court of Justice. Official record (court judgment).
• Israeli Supreme Court, 2014. HCJ 9949/08 Hamad v. Minister of Defense (Amona), judgment of 25 December 2014, with the refusal of further delay of 14 November 2016. Official record (court judgment; no official English text).
• Mahajna, A., 2026. Annexation Through Law: Land Registration and Palestinian Dispossession in the West Bank. Arab Center Washington DC, 7 May 2026. arabcenterdc.org. Think-tank policy analysis.
• Palestine Royal Commission, 1937. Report of the Palestine Royal Commission (the Peel Commission), Cmd. 5479. His Majesty’s Stationery Office, London. Official record (government-commissioned review).
• Seventh International Conference of American States, 1933. Convention on Rights and Duties of States (the Montevideo Convention), signed at Montevideo, 26 December 1933, Organization of American States treaty A-40. Official record (treaty text on the depositary’s site).