Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Obama Was Shocked By Map Showing Growth Of Israeli Settlements

As the Obama administration was nearing its end, senior State Department official Frank Lowenstein produced a map that showed large sections of West Bank territory off-limits to Palestinian development and filled with Jewish settlements, outposts and areas between them, the New Yorker reported. It was quite different than the other maps Obama seen, where the Jewish settlements and outposts looked tiny compared to the areas where the Palestinians lived.

His team took a closer look: When the settlement zones, the illegal outposts and the other areas off limits to Palestinian development were grouped, they covered almost sixty percent of the West Bank.

Secretary of State John Kerry showed the maps to Barak Obama and his advisers. Ben Rhodes, one of Obama’s longest-serving advisers, said the President was shocked to see how “systematic” the Israelis had been at cutting off Palestinian population centers from one another through settlement growth, according to the New Yorker.

Alarmed by the maps, Obama decided to abstain on a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the settlements, clearing the way for its passage.

Slightly over 60% of the West Bank is filled up by what the 1995 Oslo II Accords designates “Area C,” which is controlled administered by the Israeli government. Areas A and B are under the civil control of the Palestinian Authority.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.