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Source: Wikipedia
Occupied by Spain in the late 19th century, the Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since 1963 after a Moroccan demand. It is the most populous territory on that list, and by far the largest in area. In 1965, the UN General Assembly adopted its first resolution on Western Sahara, asking Spain to decolonise the territory. One year later, a new resolution was passed by the General Assembly requesting that a referendum be held by Spain on self-determination.
In 1975, Spain relinquished the administrative control of the territory to a joint administration by Morocco (which had formally claimed the territory since 1957) and Mauritania. A war erupted between those countries and the Sahrawi national liberation movement, the Polisario Front, which proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) with a government-in-exile in Tindouf, Algeria. Mauritania withdrew in 1979, and Morocco eventually secured de facto control of most of the territory, including all the major cities and natural resources.
Since a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire agreement in 1991, two thirds of the territory (including most of the Atlantic coastline) has been under de facto control by Morocco and the remainder by the SADR, strongly backed by Algeria. Internationally, countries such as the United States and Russia have taken a generally ambiguous and neutral position on each side's claims, and have pressed both parties to agree on a peaceful resolution. Both Morocco and Polisario have sought to boost their claims by accumulating formal recognition, essentially from African, Asian, and Latin American states in the developing world. The Polisario Front has won formal recognition for SADR from 37 states, and was extended membership in the African Union. Morocco has won recognition or support for its position from several African governments and from most of the Arab League. In both instances, recognitions have, over the past two decades, been extended and withdrawn according to changing international trends. As of 2006, no other member state of the United Nations has recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Sahara
Every single Israeli settlement is explicitly built in places that would make a Palestinian state less viable. They all command important geographical features, control resources or just simply hem in Palestinian settlements. If the Palestinians would have been allowed to build new communities in the last 50 years, they would have been where some of the settlements are now.
I have looked very carefully at the map of the West Bank, and there isn't a single settlement that could remain without negative consequences for a Palestinian state. Besides, wouldn't a swap be better if the area was at least of equal value and of use for Palestine? For example, in East Jerusalem the settlements have formed a ring around the Arab neighbourhoods so they can't expand. How would a swap with some worthless land in the Negev alleviate that problem? Land in East Jerusalem could only be swapped with land in Western Jerusalem to make a Palestinian capital there viable. It's the same problem with every square inch that Israel wants to keep in the West Bank - there's no way to alleviate the problems caused by the swap with worthless land "somewhere else".
Israel caused the problem with the settlements, and frankly, I don't think the settlement project can be undone. There hasn't even been any serious attempts to formulate a fair swaps, governmental or otherwise. Israel has been advised since the start that the settlements were a good idea, but nobody listened.
If you actually think that swaps could be possible, then I dare you to find a single settlement that wouldn't be an obstacle to an independent Palestinian state.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
The Jordanians didn't think that land was valuable enough to build anything there for the 19 years they occupied that land.
Once the Jews built there, all of a sudden they built in the best areas.
As demonstrated ....The criticism however was....
