One of the most effective tools of the hawk / liberal hawk consensus on Israel policies is to portray policies which in reality are controversial and debatable as instead representing a complete and unified consensus among the Israeli Jewish population.

In the case of Israeli Jewish settlers on contested, occupied lands, this is all the easier since they have been long supported by the formerly significant Labor governments and the Likud governments, often more rapidly expanded under Labor but with more softening rhetoric.

Yet though they are anything but dominant in government, many Israelis regularly dissent against a settler movement which they decry as dangerous, as provocative, as authoritarian, and often as largely populated by Americans who come as a show of commitment to the tune of hundreds of thousands.

Right now the propaganda phrase being used to justify expanding settlements on non-Israeli territories is "natural population growth".

Religious right party Shas, on whom the attempt to govern by Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni failed, said this regarding cabinet pressures to limit settlement:

Shas will not accept the settlements being "dried out," Shas chairman Eli Yishai told Haaretz on Tuesday.

"We did not agree to join a government headed by Tzipi Livni, who refused to pledge to protect the unity of Jerusalem and to continue building, and therefore we intend to work in this government to build as much as possible in the settlements in order to meet natural growth," the interior minister told Haaretz.

"The American demand that settlement construction meant to meet natural growth be halted essentially means another expulsion from the settlements. Now we are in the government, and we will not lend a hand to another expulsion," Yishai said.

Housing Minister Ariel Atias (Shas) has told associates privately, "This is the worst period for the settlement blocs. Olmert talked but built; we now have a right-wing government but a total freeze ... We'd expect a right-wing government at least not to behave like a left-wing government."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090009.html

Two points: One is to note the simple statement of the controversial nature of settlements within Israel, yet the matter is mostly discussed here as only mattering with regard to Palestinian objections (albeit both correct and internationally supported objections).

Settler religious leaders urge IDF soldiers to refuse orders if said lawfully orders send them to evacuate settlers from occupied territories. This is not looked upon happily by Israelis, particularly secular ones, insisting that the settler community be lawful.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088739.html

The second is the hammer-down on this 'natural population growth' notion.

While the government is expected to respond to U.S. pressure on the outposts, it seems Netanyahu and Barak are closer to the Yesha Council's point of view when it comes to natural growth in the older settlements.

The two have repeated Israel's claim that it is impossible to stop natural growth such as the building of another kindergarten or when someone puts up a new home next to his parents' house.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088798.html

A bit from Haaretz on that, too:

Nothing natural about it

By Akiva Eldar | Haaretz

According to Col. (res.) Shaul Arieli's calculations, even a hypothetical doubling of the Jewish population's growth rate in Israel would not account for the boom in the settlements.

The myth of "natural population growth" doesn't impress Col. (res.) Shaul Arieli, nor do the stories about little children from good Jewish homes who are left without a kindergarten.

Arieli, who in the late 1990s served as deputy military secretary to former prime minister and incumbent Defense Minister Ehud Barak, did the calculations and found that one third of Israelis living in the territories (not including East Jerusalem) settled there during the Oslo years and another third after the peace process was suspended.

Expressed in numbers:

From 1992-2001, the number of Jewish settlers increased by approximately 93,000 and four settlements were added; in the period from 2001-2009, another 95,000 settlers were added to the population and 100 additional outposts established.

As for East Jerusalem, 45 percent of Israelis living in East Jerusalem moved there after the Oslo agreement.

And now for the total:

While 32 settlements (not including East Jerusalem) were established in the territories between 1967 and 1977, housing some 6,000 settlers, today 127 Jewish settlements can be found in the territories, alongside another 100 outposts, housing a total of 295,000 settlers.

It doesn't take a demographer to deduce from Arieli's figures that "natural population growth" - even at a record 3.4 percent per annum (which is twice the national average among Jews) - cannot explain a 100 percent growth to the settlers' population in 2001-2009.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1089777.html

So, this entirely controversial, internationally unsupportable, rabidly right wing, religious fundamentalist movement to drastically expand settled occupation within occupied territories, which is strongly debated within Israel (though strongly supported by the Israel government as a logical arm of the hawkish policies of gaining territories in occupied lands) will instead be discussed in the gentle terms of natural population growth to explain the explosion of settler numbers over just the past few years.

Instead of talking about these harsh, provocative, and severely damaging moves which really are about nothing but establishing 'facts on the ground' with which to hold occupied territories, instead the subject will be largely discussed by the supporters of hawkish Israeli policies as having to do with an extra kindergartens and crowded apartment flats.

If it's allowed, this is another way to take calculated, cold, rational, controversial, and widely debated policies and turn them into undiscussed fait accompli which are merely the product of 'natural' human proclivities.