Any other conception would lead to the conclusion, for example, that France should have acted in Alsace-Lorraine according to rule 42–56 of the Hague Rules of 1907, until the signing of a peace treaty. Three US Ambassadors to the UN have stated that Israeli settlements are illegal: George H. W. Bush (later US president) on 25 September 1971, William Scranton on 25 May 1976,[78] and Samantha Power on 23 December 2016. A practice known as “Circular Deals”, involving government bodies and private entrepreneurs, came into shape in the early 1980s, probably in order to avoid the difficulties of the registration process, which requires revealing the name of the seller and involves an extensive inspection for forgery and frauds. [101] The human rights groups Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B'Tselem have reiterated their view that Israeli settlements as violations of international law.[102][103][v]. ", After the decision, Paul de Waart argued that "the existence of the Palestinian people as the rightful claimant to the OPT is no longer open to question. They added that the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were recognised as legitimate by the Mandate for Palestine adopted by the League of Nations, and that the only administration that completely prohibited Jewish settlement was that of Jordan from 1948 to 1967. And as the President has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements". This was done in 1922. The permissive attitude taken by America accelerated the pace of Israel's settlement programme. [108] William M. Brinton, an American publisher with a background in international law, held that Israel was "at least quasi-sovereign with respect to both areas [the West Bank and Gaza Strip] under principles of customary international law", and deemed the settlements legal. The international community considers the establishment of Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories illegal on one of two bases: that they are in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, or that they are in breach of international declarations. [30][31] After Likud came to power in 1977, using land on the basis of the 1907 Hague Regulations, which implied a temporary nature of Israeli presence, was not employed anymore as the new government declared land in the West Bank "state land". [6] In a 2004 advisory opinion to the UN General Assembly, the International Court of Justice stated that Article 2 of the Convention applied to the case of Israel's presence in the territories captured during the 1967 war. According to the Ottoman law code, which Israel makes use of in the West Bank, all lands are considered “State Land” unless proven otherwise. Nevertheless, in at least one case – that of Ma’ale Adummim – 1,000 hectares of Palestinian land were confiscated for the settlement. ", 'The Israeli Foreign Ministry has also contributed a rationale for rejecting Israel's de jure obligation to uphold the Fourth Convention, arguing that the Convention only prohibits civilian transfers compelled by the government, not voluntary transfers undertaken by the civilians themselves. [i] Levi Eshkol informed Washington it would return Syrian and Egyptian territory in exchange for peace, but there was no mention of returning the West Bank,[29] though secret talks with Jordan did take place over possible forms of accommodation between the two countries regarding it. However, unlike in the case of confiscation for military purposes, these confiscations should benefit the entire population, Palestinians as well, and not only the occupying powers. There are two disputes regarding the Fourth Geneva Convention: whether the convention applies to the territories in question and whether the Convention forbids the establishment of Israeli settlements. Since the Oslo Accords leave the issue of settlements to be negotiated later, proponents of this view argue that the Palestinians accepted the temporary presence of Israeli settlements pending further negotiation, and that there is no basis for declaring them illegal. The settlers made clear that their intention was to establish a permanent civilian settlement, founded for ideological and political purposes. [93], Israel contends that the Geneva Convention only applies in the absence of an operative peace agreement and between two powers accepting the Convention. [159], In May 2009, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that over two dozen illegal outposts in the West Bank had been "declared as such by the Talia Sasson Commission", and would be dismantled.[160]. Article 2 extends the Convention to "all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties" and "all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party". Article 49 (1) specifically covers "individual or mass forcible transfers", whereas the Israelis who live in the settlements have moved there voluntarily. So why all the fuss about Iraq? Under the UN Charter there can lawfully be no territorial gains from war, even by a state acting in self-defense. [115], The applicability of the fourth Geneva Convention to "all the territories occupied by Israel in 1967" is held with "a remarkable degree of unanimity" among international actors. for: the emphasis on the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war in Resolution 242 is of general application and, in sharp contrast to the Withdrawal Phase, is not limited to territories occupied in "the refent conflict". Beginning in 1993 with the Oslo peace process, Israel recognizes "the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people", though Israel does not recognize the State of Palestine. [155], The report found "blatant violations of the law" by officials and state institutions. Israel has consistently argued that the settlements are not in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention since, in its view, Israeli citizens were neither deported nor transferred to the territories, and they cannot be considered to have become "occupied territory" since there had been no internationally recognized legal sovereign prior. This is apparently how a private settler organization got hold of the lands of Matityahu East in Modi’in Illit. [66] He added that "the UN resolution leaves the West Bank open to all people, Arab and Israeli alike". Those who reject the application of Article 49 to the situation in the Israeli-held territories argue that even if the Convention did apply, it should be read only in the context of the World War II forcible migrations. ", "Israel would withdraw from the Occupied territories and be replaced by UN forces. [148], However, international law scholar John Quigley has written, "... a state that uses force in self-defense may not retain territory it takes while repelling an attack. "[23] 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. This has been the longstanding position of previous administrations of both parties over the course of many decades,".[81]. As we noted, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and … Hilltop settlements are built within certain boundaries in an attempt to minimize trouble with Palestinians. ', "there is an overwhelming (and rare) international legal consensus that the territories are occupied, that the law of belligerent occupation applies, and that the settlements are illegal and indeed constitute a grave breach of the GC IV,". ", "In fact, this resolution simply reaffirms statements made by the Security Council on the legality of settlements over several decades. During this time, negotiations would be held between the Arab states and Israel, with the aim of achieving a permanent peace. Military necessity had been an afterthought in the planning portions of the Elon Moreh settlement. [26] Israel announced that it accepted Security Council Resolution 242 and was ready to negotiate with each Arab state on each element in that resolution. Before 1917 it belonged to the Ottoman Empire and so on. The Israeli government's essential position is that rather than being "occupied territory," the West Bank is "disputed territory." For years, Israel said it was prepared to make "painful concessions" for peace - code for withdrawal from occupied territory and an accompanying removal of some smaller settlements… Numerous UN resolutions and prevailing international opinion hold that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are a violation of international law, including UN Security Council resolutions in 1979, 1980,[8][9][10] and 2016. The United States has been sending a message that settlements must stop privately and publicly for nearly five decades. According to the report, some of the outposts were established on private lands owned by Palestinians with the help of Housing Ministry architects, the Housing Ministry funded many of the trailers used to start the outposts, and Defence Ministry officials allocated such private land to the quasi-official Jewish Agency. To formally register land as private property, one must cultivate it for at least ten years. "[72] This position was United States policy and had been stated by Secretary of State John Kerry[73] and by the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter,[70] and Obama administrations. 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. [87], Israel considers its settlement policy to be consistent with international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, while recognizing that some of the smaller settlements have been constructed "illegally" in the sense of being in violation of Israeli law. Over the years, Israel has used a number of legal and bureaucratic procedures in order to appropriate West Bank lands, with the primary objective of establishing settlements and providing land reserves for them. The last procedure available to the State is to begin a process of registering the land under its name in the land registry. The only case Peace Now knows of in which the procedure of initial registration of land was used as a means to turn land into state land is the case of the three orders issued in July 2008 for the purpose of expanding the settlement of Efrat. Between 1968-1979, Israeli military commanders issued dozens of such seizure orders, confiscating almost 47,000 dunams of private land. ", "The ICRC publicly stated that the building of Jewish settlements in the territories, the Israeli use of collective punishments, the destruction of Arab houses as punishment, the expulsion of Arabs from the territories, and the seizing of Arab lands and resources without compelling military necessity, inter alia, all violated the Fourth GC. [98] In December 2012, William Hague, the British foreign secretary stated that all Israeli settlements were "illegal under international law". Attempts have been made to claim that the settlements violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which forbids a state from deporting or transferring "parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies". According to the applicable law in the West Bank, the government is entitled to confiscate private land for public needs(roads, public gardens, etc.). In other words, given the view of the international community that the Israeli settlements are illegal under the law if belligerent occupation. A special order gives the State the power to manage these properties and actually to occupy them until the owners’ return (which, since Israeli stopped the policy of family reunification, can happen only in extremely rare cases). Yes, Israel has withdrawn from settlements on a few different occasions. Given Israel’s democratic and egalitarian nature, civilian settlements—and not just a professional full-time army—have always played a central role in the defense of the country. On the other hand, there are some settlements that are unsanctioned by Israel’s government, are not built on land legally owned by those living on it and are not recognized as legitimate settlements by the Israeli government. [24] Meron's unequivocal legal opinion was marked top secret and not made public. This right is based on Article 6 of the Mandate, which states: "The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands not required for public use". Tom Farer called it 'a global consensus', and it would seem to reflect the views of the overwhelming majority of states". Since the Oslo Accords leave the issue of settlements to be negotiated later, proponents of this view argue that the Palestinians accepted the temporary presence of Israeli settlements pending further negotiation, and that there is no basis for declaring them illegal. State Lands are public property and should benefit the entire local population, yet since 1967, the State has completely denied the Palestinians their right to use these lands, and has allocated them only for the establishment and expansion of settlements. Israeli settlement, any community of Israeli Jews built after 1967 in the disputed territories captured by Israel in the Six-Day War. 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. But they invariably grow in size, which is justified by a … Private Jewish parties who purchase land in the West Bank also have to undergo a process of Initial Registration in the land registry, before initiating construction of settlements. In contrast to an “expropriation,” in which ownership of the land is transferred to the State, “military seizure” leaves the official ownership of the land under the name of its original owners, but transfers total control of the land, for a designated period of time, to the military. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 15 to none. By repeatedly pointing to "occupation", they manage to reverse the causality of the conflict, especially in front of Western audiences. In order to understand this mechanism, we must understand the situation of land ownership in the West Bank in 1967. The owners of the land petitioned the High Court of Justice, arguing that the seizure was illegal, since the IDF based it on security needs, while the seized land was actually being used for a new settlement. It lists four preconditions that must be fulfilled in each case. But due to what was later termed "communication failure", the President did not see the text of the resolution, and Secretary Vance was ordered by him to authorize Ambassador McHenry to support it, while issuing a "strong reservation" on the dismantling clause. [20][151], The Court determined in the 1979 Elon Moreh case that only the military commander of an area may requisition land according to article 52 of the Hague regulations. [56][o], The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) holds that the establishment of Israeli settlements violate Fourth Geneva Convention. It does not break new ground. The fourth precondition is that the bounds of jurisdiction of the settlement must be determined in advance by order of the Commander of the area. Tìm kiếm các công việc liên quan đến How does israel justify settlements hoặc thuê người trên thị trường việc làm freelance lớn nhất thế giới với hơn 19 triệu công việc. Since 1967, Israel has allowed and even encouraged its citizens to live in the new settlements established in the territories, motivated by religious and national sentiments attached to the history of the Jewish nation in the land of Israel. The High Contracting Parties reaffirmed "the illegality of the settlements in the said territories and of the extension thereof". Many of the more than 100 outposts investigated added at state expense paved roads, permanent housing, power lines and other infrastructure. The question remains, however, whether this is of any practical value. Article 2 concerns the applicability of the Convention whereas article 49 concerns the legality of population transfers. [citation needed] The United Nations Human Rights Council has also called the Israeli settlements and related activities a violation of international law. Ambassador Samantha Power stated, "Today the Security Council reaffirmed its established consensus that the settlements have no legal validity. [h] Successive Israeli governments have argued that all authorized settlements are entirely legal and consistent with international law. [11][12] UN Security Council Resolution 446 refers to the Fourth Geneva Convention as the applicable international legal instrument, and calls upon Israel to desist from transferring its own population into the territories or changing their demographic makeup. The Israeli notary Howard Grief argued that, according to Article 6 of The Anglo-American Treaty of 1924, Jewish Settlements are not illegal. Circular Deals involve the declaration of a given area as State Land, while concealing the fact that an Israeli developer claims that he has already purchased the land from its Palestinian owner on the private market. ", "The international community has taken a critical view of both deportations and settlements as being contrary to international law. "[106] International law expert Julius Stone, Professor of Jurisprudence and International Law at the University of Sydney, and Eugene Rostow, Dean of Yale Law School, argued that the settlements are legal under international law, on a number of different grounds, among them that "settlements are the voluntary return of individuals in towns and villages from which they or their ancestors have been ousted.. Israel has valid claims to title in the territory based..on historic and religious connection to the land". [99], In 2003, The Non-Aligned Movement declared Israeli settlements as illegal, stating, "the main danger to the realization of the national rights of the Palestinian people and the achievement of a peaceful solution is the settler colonialism that has been carried out in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, through land confiscation, settlement building and the transfer of Israeli nationals to the Occupied Territory. The first and primary means used by the State in order to take hold of private lands was “seizure for military purposes”. [45], Since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, numerous United Nations resolutions, including 446, 452, 465, 471 and 476 affirm unambiguously that Israel's occupation is illegal,[46] and, since Resolution 446 adopted on 22 March 1979, have confirmed that its settlements there have no legal validity and pose a serious obstacle to peace. [161][162], Arguments based on UNSC Resolution 242 and the British Mandate, Arguments based on property rights and private ownership, "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. If Israel had acted in self-defense, that would not justify its retention of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. His view is that when the partition proposals were immediately rejected and aborted by Arab armed aggression, those proposals could not, both because of their inherent nature and because of the terms in which they were framed, operate as an effective legal re-disposition of the sovereign title. Indeed, a remarkable degree of unanimity prevails on this matter. [88][89] In 1998 the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs produced The International Criminal Court Background Paper. [16] In practice, Israel does not accept that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies de jure, but has stated that on humanitarian issues it will govern these areas de facto by its provisions, without specifying which these are. All 13 judges were unanimous on the point. He quotes Former State Department Legal Advisor Stephen Schwebel, who later headed the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and wrote in 1970 regarding Israel's case: Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title. The Anti-Defamation League disagrees, asserting that the statement that "settlements are a violation of international law" is inaccurate, and providing activists with a list of responses for maintaining that they do not violate those laws. Over the years, many additional seizure orders have been issued in order to create “secure zones” around the settlements, as well as to build the separation fence. Allows Censure Over Settlements", "Israel putting any two-state peace deal at risk, says EU", "UN security council's EU members to condemn Israeli settlements expansion", "Analysis: US consistent against settlements — and against UN as appropriate venue", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=International_law_and_Israeli_settlements&oldid=1016974982, Wikipedia extended-confirmed-protected pages, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2013, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from November 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. that a double standard appears to apply with regard to Israel's violations of UN resolutions and comparable violations by some other countries. [136] According to John B. Quigley, as signatory to the Geneva Convention, Israel's position that it does not apply to the West Bank and Gaza Strip because before its occupation those territories were not governed by a sovereign power, and therefore constitutes a different case, has been universally rejected "because the Convention also states that it applies 'in all circumstances' (Article 1), and 'to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict' (Article 2)". [17][18] The majority of legal scholars hold the settlements to violate international law, while others have offered dissenting views supporting the Israeli position. However, this allegation has no validity in law as Israeli citizens were neither deported nor transferred to the territories. [161][162] During the tour, Yishai stated that the outposts are not illegal: The people of Israel should know that these settlements [outposts] are legal. In response, settlers from the Elon More group submitted a memorandum rejecting the interpretation that the seizure was temporary and for military purposes. That situation did not fulfill the precise strictures laid down in the articles of the Hague Convention, so the Court ruled the requisition order had been invalid and illegal. This policy has also been justified in terms of security interests, taking into consideration the dangerous geographic circumstances of Israel before 1967 (where Israeli areas on the Mediterranean coast were potentially threatened by Jordanian control of the West Bank ridge). [33][citation needed], In subsequent cases, such as the Ja'amait Ascan case regarding a project to link West Bank towns to Jerusalem with a four-way highway network, the Court ruled that Article 43 of the Hague IV Convention is a mandatory planning consideration for approval of building projects in the West Bank.