Full Answer
Are the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian territory legal?
ISBN 978-90-04-15027-0. the establishment of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has been considered illegal by the international community and by the majority of legal scholars. Barak-Erez, Daphne (2006). "Israel: The security barrier—between international law, constitutional law, and domestic judicial review".
Why are Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal?
Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal because technically that land is not in Israel, and thus it legally can’t have towns and villages which are administered under Israeli law — for Israeli Jews — while the Arab parts are still under (harsh) military occupation.
Are Israeli settlements illegal under international law?
The question remains, however, whether this is of any practical value. In other words, given the view of the international community that the Israeli settlements are illegal under the law if belligerent occupation, what purpose does it serve to establish that an additional breach of international law has occurred?
Are the Israeli settlements in the Sinai Peninsula legal?
The position of successive Israeli governments is that all authorized settlements are entirely legal and consistent with international law, despite Israel's armistice agreements all being with High Contracting Parties.
How did Israel legalize settlements?
Israel legalises such outposts or settlements by deploying a draconian interpretation of the Ottoman law that if the land was not cultivated for several years in a row it would become the property of the state.
Why are Palestinian lands confiscated?
Palestinian lands are also confiscated in the name of archaeological and tourism purposes , and if they are bought from Palestinians it is almost always through coercive measures, Peace Now noted.
Why are there outposts in Palestine?
Analysts say all outposts are a backdoor to keep claiming Palestinian land after Israel committed to freezing settlements in the Oslo Accords in 1993. In early May, more than 50 Jewish families packed their bags and moved to a hilltop in the West Bank in the occupied Palestinian territory.
What law does Israel use to claim land?
Israel uses the Absentee Property Law to claim the lands it forced the Palestinians to abandon in the 1948 and 1967 wars. It also deploys a range of tactics to declare all unregistered lands – left out by the Ottoman and British occupiers and believed to be two-thirds of the West Bank – as possible “state” land.
What percentage of land does Israel control?
It said the Israeli state controlled 93 percent of all land, including in East Jerusalem, and has delegated the task of managing these lands to a state agency – the Israel Land Authority. But this body is dominated by the Jewish National Fund whose “explicit mandate is to develop land for Jews and not any other segment of the population”.
What was the promise made to the settlers?
Instead of being reprimanded by the state for illegally confiscating land that did not belong to them, the settlers were made a promise.
Where is the land of Jabal Sabih?
The land is also strategically located. It lies south of Nablus in an area called Jabal Sabih in the villages of Beita and Yatma that is expected to be a part of the future state of Palestine. A settlement here would break Palestinian territorial contiguity.
Where are the Israeli settlements?
Israeli settlements currently exist in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in the Syrian territory of the Golan Heights. East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have been annexed by Israel, so residents are treated equivalently to the rest of Israel under Israeli law.
What are the settlements in East Jerusalem?
East Jerusalem settlements (2006) Golan Heights settlements (1992) Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Jewish ethnicity, built in violation of international law on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israeli settlements currently exist in ...
How many settlements were there in the Gaza Strip?
Before Israel's unilateral disengagement plan in which the Israeli settlements were evacuated, there were 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip under the administration of the Hof Aza Regional Council. The land was allocated in such a way that each Israeli settler disposed of 400 times the land available to the Palestinian refugees, and 20 times the volume of water allowed to the peasant farmers of the Strip.
How was Kiryat Arba established?
According to a secret document dating to 1970, obtained by Haaretz, the settlement of Kiryat Arba was established by confiscating land by military order and falsely representing the project as being strictly for military use while in reality, Kiryat Arba was planned for settler use.
What territories did Israel control?
It took over the remainder of the Palestinian Mandate territories of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, from Jordan which had controlled the territories since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, which had held Gaza under occupation since 1949. From Egypt it also captured the Sinai Peninsula and from Syria it captured most of the Golan Heights, which since 1981 has been administered under the Golan Heights Law .
How does settlement affect the economy?
Settlement has an economic dimension, much of it driven by the significantly lower costs of housing for Israeli citizens living in Israeli settlements compared to the cost of housing and living in Israel proper. Government spending per citizen in the settlements is double that spent per Israeli citizen in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, while government spending for settlers in isolated Israeli settlements is three times the Israeli national average. Most of the spending goes to the security of the Israeli citizens living there.
When did the settlement division move to the PMO?
In 2009, the Netanyahu Government decided to subject all settlement activities to additional approval of the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister. In 2011, Netanyahu sought to move the Settlement Division again under the direct control of (his own) PMO, and to curtail Defense Minister Ehud Barak's authority.
When did Israel legalize settlements?
During the 1970s, Israel's Supreme Court regularly ruled that the establishment of civilian settlements by military commanders was legal on the basis that they formed part of the territorial defense network and were considered temporary measures needed for military and security purposes.
What was the Israeli law in 1967?
Shortly after independence, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the fundamental principles of international law, accepted as binding by all civilized nations , were to be incorporated in the domestic legal system of Israel. In the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. Theodor Meron, at the time the Israeli government's authority on the topic of international law and legal counsel to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, was asked to provide a memorandum regarding the status in international law of proposed settlement of the territories, which he subsequently addressed to the Foreign Minister Abba Eban on 14 September 1967. He concluded that short-term military settlements would be permissible, but that "civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention," adding that the prohibition on any such population transfer was categorical, and that "civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention ." It follows from the presence on files of these notes, Gershom Gorenberg argues, that the Prime Minister at the time, Levi Eshkol, knew that Israeli settlements in the territories Israel had just occupied would violate international laws and that by that time Eshkol had been actively engaged in exploring the possibility of settling the newly conquered region. Meron's unequivocal legal opinion was marked top secret and not made public.
What did Ronald Reagan say about the settlements?
Notwithstanding the Hansell opinion, the official US position had been that the settlements are "an obstacle to peace". In February 1981, Ronald Reagan announced that he didn't believe that Israeli settlements in the West Bank were illegal. He added that "the UN resolution leaves the West Bank open to all people, Arab and Israeli alike". Hoping to achieve a peace deal, he nevertheless asked Israel to freeze construction calling the settlements an "obstacle to peace". The permissive attitude taken by America accelerated the pace of Israel's settlement programme. Reagan's view on the settlements legality was not held by the State Department. The George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations did not publicly comment on the legality of Israeli settlements, but spoke publicly against them. Since the Clinton administration, the U.S. has continued to object to the settlements, calling them "obstacles to peace" and prejudicial to the outcome of final status talks. Although President Barack Obama and diplomatic officials in his administration have stated, "the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," in February 2011 the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have declared the settlements illegal. In December 2016, the U.S. abstained on a Security Council Resolution that declared that Israeli settlements are illegal and deemed their continuing construction a "flagrant violation" of international law. In abstaining, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power stated, "Today the Security Council reaffirmed its established consensus that the settlements have no legal validity. The United States has been sending a message that settlements must stop privately and publicly for nearly five decades." This position was United States policy and had been stated by Secretary of State John Kerry and by the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Obama administrations. In November 2019, the Trump administration expressly repudiated the Hansell opinion and stated that the United States considered the status of the settlements as being "not inconsistent with" international law. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said: "The hard truth is that there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace." However, Pompeo added that "the United States Government is expressing no view on the legal status of any individual settlement."
What article of the Geneva Convention is against the settlements?
Hansell concluded that the settlements are "inconsistent with international law", and against Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Hansell Memorandum found that " [w]hile Israel may undertake, in the occupied territories, actions necessary to meet its military needs and to provide for orderly government during the occupation, for the reasons indicated above the establishment of the civilian settlements in those territories is inconsistent with international law."
Why did Israel take control of the West Bank?
It has been argued that Israel took control of the West Bank as a result of a defensive war. Former Israeli diplomat Dore Gold writes that:
Which country has always affirmed the de jure applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention?
The International Committee of the Red Cross in a declaration of December 2001 stated that "the ICRC has always affirmed the de jure applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the territories occupied since 1967 by the state of Israel , including East Jerusalem".
When did the Israeli Supreme Court rule on settlements?
In 1978 and 1979 the Israeli Supreme court, prompted by the new government policies, ruled on two important cases that set out the requirements for Israeli settlement legality under international law.