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A Double Standard on the West Bank versus Western Sahara

(Wall Street Journal) Prof. Eugene Kontorovich - The U.S. has recognized Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara as part of a U.S.-brokered peace deal between Jerusalem and Rabat. The territory had been a Spanish colony, but when Madrid abandoned it in 1975, Mauritania and Morocco invaded. Hundreds of thousands of Moroccan settlers followed. The Polisario Front, a Saharawi rebel movement, also claims the territory. Traditionally, the law of occupation applies only to sovereign territory of foreign states. This does not cover some post-colonial transitions where there is a gap in sovereign control. When Israel took the West Bank in 1967, it wasn't the territory of a foreign country. The West Bank had itself been occupied by Jordan in 1948, at the end of British administration. The UN and much of the international community use the term "occupation" to describe Israel's presence. Yet Israel's territorial claim on the West Bank is stronger than Morocco's claim on Western Sahara. Only a few countries have recognized the purported Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic of the Polisario. Yet self-determination in international law doesn't typically mean the right of a people to have its own country. It can be satisfied by some degree of self-governance, and autonomy in internal matters. The Palestinians today have vastly more autonomy than the Saharawi would have in the Moroccan plan. The PA and Hamas, for better or worse, govern the daily lives of their people. The writer is director of George Mason University Law School's Center for the Middle East and International Law and a scholar at the Kohelet Policy Forum.
2020-12-21 00:00:00
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