Translated by Sabrin Qadah 

Israel's successive governments have invested billions of dollars to build and expand settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the June 1967 war, to be the beginning of occupation and settlements building in the Palestinian territories, Israel Channel 2 said.

It added: "There is no comprehensive official figure on the amounts spent on settlement since 1967, but the Ministry of Finance, which publishes each year part of the amounts invested, talked about spending 3.5 billion from 2003 to 2015 in the West Bank alone."

It also mentioned that these amounts do not include the enormous cost of infrastructure, such as settler bypass roads or security measures surrounded by settlements, and do not take into account settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel, which it considered to be its eternal capital.

The number of settlers is more than 600,000, including 400,000 in the West Bank. Their presence is a source of ongoing friction and tension with 2.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank and the occupied East Jerusalem.

The international community considers settlements to be contrary to international law. Many countries consider it a major obstacle to reaching a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. However, it has continued under all Israeli governments.

"Israel has invested $ 20 billion in settlement activity over the past 50 years, and the total area of ​​settlement building in the West Bank has increased by 100 percent over the past 18 years," said Robert Natanson, director of the Macro Center for Political Economics. Moreover, and to encourage Settlement Expansion, Every settler receives aid and government subsidies three times higher than the Israelis who live in Israel receive. "

He pointed out that the scenario of evacuation of 100 thousand settlers is "completely possible", provided that this can be done in two or three years, but the problem in his opinion "is not economic; it is political in the first place."

Shlomo Svirski of the non-governmental organization "Adva Center" estimated the cost of settlements at about $ 15.2 billion for the period from 1988 to 2015, pointing out that these expenses represent a burden on the state, which contributes to deepening social differences, as they are spent on settlement building and defense rather than on social projects. "

Despite enormous expenditures, many NGOs supporting the establishment of an independent Palestinian state see that "continuing settlements is not inevitable".

Former adviser to former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and one of the founders of the non-governmental organization “Blue White Future”, which is an advocate of "the Jewish and democratic nature of Israel, Gilad Sher," said he was confident that the Israeli economy could save $ 10 billion, which are the cost of moving and transferring 100,000 Israeli settlers.

He pointed out that these are the residents of the isolated settlements in the West Bank, which could be evacuated within the framework of an agreement reached as the outcome of negotiations with the Palestinians on land sharing. In contrast, there is consensus in Israel to annex the major settlement blocs.

"We have put in place a detailed and feasible plan to evacuate 100,000 settlers," he said, because the government refused to do so, despite an official report issued in 2010 calling for a similar plan. "Our conclusions are clear: we cannot say that the situation is unchangeable; there are economic options to apply a Two-state solution ".