The legal tsunami gathering strength in Israel will soon engulf the world. A report is soon to be released that says, the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) does not apply to Judea and Samaria aka West Bank and that Israel has every right to build settlements there.
In January of this year, PM Netanyahu set up the Levy Committee to investigate the legal status of unauthorized West Bank Jewish building. The Committee was headed by Supreme Court Justice (ret) Edmund Levy. It included Tel Aviv District Court Judge (Ret.) Tehiya Shapira and Dr. Alan Baker an international law expert, who was part of the team that devised the Oslo Accords.
It found that the settlements are not illegal. To reach this conclusion it first found that the Fourth Geneva Convention which applies “to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party” does not apply to Judea and Samaria because “Israel does not meet the criteria of ‘military occupation’ as defined under international law” … as “no other legal entity has ever had its sovereignty over the area cemented under international law.”
Furthermore it found that there was no provision in international law which prohibited Jews settling in the area.
The UN and the EU have for decades repeated the mantra that the land is occupied and the settlements are illegal, both pursuant to the FGC but there has never been a binding legal decision on which they based their assertions. The US has been more cautious and considers the settlements “an obstacle to peace” or “illegitimate.” Nevertheless, it leads the chorus in demanding an end to Israel’s settlement construction.
In 2010, Nicholas Rostow wrote in the American Interest regarding the legality of the settlements:
“On February 2, 1981, President Reagan stated that the settlements were “not illegal,” although he criticized them as “ill-advised” and “unnecessarily provocative.” Throughout the Reagan Administration the U.S. government did not question the legality of the settlements; rather, it criticized the settlements on policy grounds as an obstacle to the peace process. In the United Nations, the United States voted against resolutions describing Israeli settlements as illegal.” President George Bush followed suit and so did President Obama. The US will have to acknowledge that since President Reagan, it has considered the settlements to be “not illegal” but only, ”ill-advised.”
The Left in Israel are screaming blue murder and referring to the Report as “born in sin” and a “political manifesto.”
Where does that leave the international community? The foundation of their attacks on Israel will have been destroyed. It will be hard to ignore the Report and harder still to ignore a confirming decision by Israel’s High Court. It will no longer be able to claim with a straight face that the lands are “occupied Palestinian lands” or that the settlements are illegal.
Congress will no doubt strongly endorse the Report with or without a decision of the Supreme Court of Israel.
The upshot of all this will be that Israel will end the de facto building freeze and start construction of settlements in earnest. It will also signal the end of the pursuit by Israel of the two-state solution. The Israeli center will no longer believe that Israel is an occupier and instead will believe that the land is theirs, which it is.
Presently there is a significant movement in Israel advocating Israeli sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria, even if that means making citizenship available to qualifying Arabs.
Israel must decide between two risky alternatives; either accept the two-state solution based on ’67 lines with swaps or annex the land and contend with an extra 1.5 million Arabs within its borders. With the latter alternative, the Jews would be left with a stable 2:1 majority. Israelis are already trending to the latter and this Report will accelerate that trend.
The Arabs in Judea and Samaria will not accept such a two state solution because it will preclude the “right of return” and will require them to recognize Israel as the Jewish State. Furthermore it will require them to sign an end-of-conflict agreement which they will never do. If Israel chooses to claim sovereignty, the Arabs will have to decide whether to push for citizenship or to accept autonomy.
This tsunami will change the political landscape for the better and forever.
Source: jewishpress.com
