Last month, another nail was struck into the coffin of the Israel-Palestine peace talks. On 18 November, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration was reversing decades of foreign policy regarding the US stance on the legality of the settlement project in West Bank. “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements [in West Bank] is not, per se, inconsistent with international law,” stated Mr. Pompeo. Up until the swearing in of Mr. Trump, the US had described Israeli settlements as “illegitimate”. The Trump administration also overturned long standing foreign policy by recognizing Israeli sovereignty over two disputed territories at the heart of the conflicts- Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. This has cemented the security of Jewish settlements on such lands.
So, what exactly are settlements?
Settlements are communities established by Israel on land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. Since then, about 130 formal settlements have been set up in West Bank. A similar number of smaller, informal settlement outposts have gone up since the 1990s, without government authorization but usually with some authoritative support.
More than 400,000 Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank alongside over 2.6 million Palestinians. Some of the settlements are home to religious Zionists-believers in a Jewish state- who claim that the West Bank, which Israel refers to by its biblical names of Judea and Samaria, is their biblical birthright. Many secular and ultra-Orthodox Jews also moved there largely for cheaper housing, a result of direct subsidization by the Israeli government in order to encourage increased settler movement. Furthermore, some settlements were strategically located in line with Israel’s security interests, creating a border wall to keep out helpless Palestinians. Other, more isolated communities were established for ideological reasons, including an effort to prevent a neighboring Palestinian state.
Palestinians say the presence of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - land they seek for a future state - make such a state with adjoining territory impossible. They have demanded Israel freeze all settlement activity as a precondition for resuming peace talks. Israel says the Palestinians are using the issue of settlements as a pretext to avoid direct talks as under the 1993 Israel-Palestinian Oslo peace accords, the issue of settlements was to be deferred until final status talks - a reason why Israel objects to such pre-conditions and UN resolutions on the matter.
Most of the international community, including the UN and the International Court of Justice, say the settlements are illegal. The basis for this is the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention which forbids the transfer by an occupying power of its people to occupied territory. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and has occupied the territory ever since.
However, Israel says the Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply de jure to the West Bank because, it says, the territory is not technically occupied. Israel says it is legally there as a result of a defensive war and did not take control of the West Bank from a legitimate sovereign power. Israel argues that a Jewish presence has existed on the West Bank for thousands of years and was recognized by the League of Nations in 1922. Jordan’s rule over the territory, from 1948 to 1967, was never recognized by most of the world, so Israel also argues there was no legal sovereign power in the area and therefore the prohibition on transferring people from one state to the occupied territory of another does not apply. The International Court of Justice rejected that argument in an advisory opinion in 2004, ruling that the settlements violated international law.
How will the policy reversal impact settlement presence in the West Bank?
The Trump administration’s declaration may be seen by supporters of the settlement enterprise as giving a green light to Israeli annexation plans. However, while the policy reversal may shift public perception regarding settlements and create a larger influx of settlers from across the globe, the legal status of the settlements de jure remains the same. However, the validation to the settlers from the policy shift should not be undermined to any extent. Apart from larger influx rates, Israel now has grounds to strengthen its military presence in the West Bank and further diminish the already fragile flames of hopes of a greater neighboring Palestinian state. While most blueprints for a peace agreement envisage a land swap — Israel retains the main settlement blocs, where most of the settlers live, and hands over other territory to the Palestinians — the more remote and populated the settlements become, the harder that becomes.
Jabir Mahmood Chowdhury
Editor-in-Chief