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Diplomatic and Legal Aspects of the Settlement Issu

(Institute for Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Jeffrey Helmreich - One may legitimately support or challenge Israeli settlements in the disputed territories, but they are not illegal, and they have neither the size, the population, nor the placement to seriously impact upon the future status of the disputed territories and their Palestinian population centers. Settlements make up less than 2 percent of the West Bank, according to Peace Now, which opposes Israeli settlement in the territories. Settlements simply do not comprise enough land to be serious obstacles to any political or geographic eventuality Settlements do not block the eventual establishment of a contiguous Palestinian entity. Close to 80 percent of settlers live in communities such as Elkana, Maale Adumim, Betar, and Gush Etzion, located close to, if not contiguous with, pre-1967 Israel, and which can be connected geographically to the "Green Line" without involving Palestinian population centers. Most settlements are in areas that, for security reasons, Israel cannot afford to cede. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin coined the term "security settlements" to describe those communities. Israel cannot afford to withdraw from these small but strategic points even if they were entirely unpopulated. Settlements are not illegal. The last binding international legal instrument in the West Bank and Gaza was the League of Nations Mandate, which explicitly recognized the right of Jewish settlement in all territory allocated to the Jewish national home in the context of the British Mandate. The West Bank and Gaza are disputed, not occupied, with both Israel and the Palestinians exercising legitimate historical claims. Jews have a deep historic and emotional attachment to the land and, as their legal claims are at least equal to those of Palestinians, it is natural for Jews to build homes in communities in these areas, just as Palestinians build in theirs. The territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was captured by Israel in a defensive war. The Jordanian occupation of the West Bank from 1947 to 1967, by contrast, had been the result of an offensive war in 1948 and was never recognized by the international community, including the Arab states. The official U.S. position has been over the years that settlements are legal. The Carter administration for a short time held that settlements were illegal, a position overturned by the Reagan administration. The Oslo agreements allow settlement growth as well as the growth - and creation - of Palestinian communities. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset on October 5, 1995, we "committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth."
2003-01-20 00:00:00
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