Facts on the ground

Facts on the ground is a diplomatic term that means the situation in reality as opposed to in the abstract.

The term Facts on the ground has been in common use English since at least the middle 1920s. It was popularised in the 1970s over discussions of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, where it was used to refer to Israeli settlements built in the occupied West Bank, which were intended to establish permanent Israeli footholds in Palestinian territory.

Writing in 2010, Rashid Khalidi notes:

One reason Israel continues to build settlements is that, according to the so-called Clinton parameters laid down in 2000, a final Israeli–Palestinian agreement would grant sovereignty over Jewish-occupied areas to Israel, and Palestinian-inhabited areas to the new Palestinian state. Indeed, well over a decade of failed negotiations have only led to an acceleration of Israel’s land grab in the Holy City. Israeli planners have spent this time pushing settlers into heavily Arab-inhabited areas of the city, such as Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, and Abu Dis, in order to create fresh "facts on the ground"—a tactic used by the Zionist movement for over a century in order to obtain control over more and more of Palestine.

Gershom Gorenberg, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, Macmillan, 2006

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