US says Israeli settlements are no longer illegal
The US says Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are not inconsistent with international law. …
Image copyright AFP The US has shifted its position on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, no longer viewing them as inconsistent with international law.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the status of the West Bank was for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate.
Israel welcomed the move – a reversal of the US stance under President Donald Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
Settlements are communities established by Israel on land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
They have long been a source of dispute between Israel and the international community, and the Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority said the US decision was “completely against international law”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the policy shift “rights a historical wrong”, and called on other countries to do the same.
What is the Jewish settlements controversy?
The issue of Jewish settlements is one of the most contentious between Israel and the Palestinians, who see them as an obstacle to peace.
About 600,000 Jews live in about 140 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
The Palestinians have long called for the removal of all settlements, arguing that their presence on land they claim for a future independent Palestinian state makes it almost impossible to make such a state a reality.
What US position is Pompeo overturning?
In 1978, the Carter administration concluded that the establishment of civilian settlements was inconsistent with international law, although in 1981 the late President Ronald Reagan disagreed with that conclusion, saying he did not believe the settlements were inherently illegal.
For decades, the US described the settlements as “illegitimate”, refraining from calling them “illegal” and sheltering Israel from condemnatory resolutions on the issue at the United Nations.
However one of the last acts of the Obama administration, at the end of 2016, was to refrain from usual US practice by not vetoing a UN resolution that urged an end to illegal Israeli settlements.
President Trump’s administration has displayed a much more tolerant attitude towards settlement activity than Mr Obama’s.
Mr Pompeo said the Trump administration had studied all sides of the debate and agreed with Reagan, adding: “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.”
Where are the West Bank settlements?
About The Author
