About those 'illegal' Jewish settlements
With President Obama the first American President since Jimmy Carter to call Israeli 'settlements' in Judea and Samaria 'illegal' or illegitimate, Commentary has a lengthy article this month with a legal analysis of why the 'settlements' are neither.Here's their conclusion:
The idea that the creation of new settlements or that the expansion of ones already in place is an act of bad faith on the part of various Israeli governments may seem without question to those who believe those settlements constitute an obstacle to the ever elusive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Whether this argument is well-founded or not, the willingness of Israel’s critics to assert that these communities are not merely wrong-headed but a violation of international law escalates the debate over their existence from a dispute about policy into one in which the Jewish state itself can be labeled as an international outlaw. The ultimate end of the illicit effort to use international law to delegitimize the settlements is clear—it is the same argument used by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the Jewish state entirely. Those who consider themselves friends of Israel but opponents of the settlement policy should carefully consider whether, in advancing these illegitimate and specious arguments, they will eventually be unable to resist the logic of the argument that says—falsely and without a shred of supporting evidence from international law itself—that Israel is illegitimate.Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:59 PM
1 Comments:
There are no settlements now in Gaza and there were none in Judea and Samaria between 1948 and 1967. Israel didn't control east Jerusalem then either. Yet the Arabs rejected peace with Israel just as they do today. If every last settler was gone from the West Bank tomorrow, there still would be no progress towards a peace agreement. No new settlement has been built in 16 years and there is no reason in the world the Palestinians can't come to sit down and talk to Israel. Yet they do. It has nothing to do with where Jews live but why Jews live in Israel at all.
Its Israel's existence they reject, not a few settlement blocs over the so-called Green Line.
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