It was all part of the plan - Yousef Munayyer
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/2013814124635977169.html
What has changed dramatically is the reality on the ground, represented by both the number of settlers and settlements. Another change, clearly traced below, has been in the position of the United States toward the settlement issue.
In the early 1990s, Secretary of State James Baker led the Bush Administration’s charge and was “negotiating with Arab countries on the wording of a new United Nations Security Council resolution that would criticise Israeli settlements in occupied Arab territories as a breach of international law.”
Baker took an almost unrecognisably strong position with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in comparison with Secretary Kerry today. At the time, Baker’s position was that “all growth in new and existing settlements in the occupied territories must halt before the United States would consider guaranteeing $400m in desperately needed loans for new Soviet immigrant housing.”
That was the last time a US Secretary of State actually conditioned US aid on Israel changing its colonial behavior.