Life is beyond the line. Israeli settlement through the eyes of a Russian. photo review. Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip Israeli settlements in Palestine

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UN No. 2334, which demanded that Tel Aviv immediately stop settlement activities in the West Bank, the problem of the occupied Palestinian territories remains unresolved. Of the 3 million people living in the West Bank today, including East Jerusalem, approximately 20% are Israeli citizens. And this number continues to grow. TASS recalls the history of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories and explains why the actions of the UN and the international community cannot put an end to expansion and the conclusion of a peace treaty between Israelis and Palestinians.

How it all began

From 1922 to 1948, what is now Israel and Palestine was under the British Mandate. However, then, against the background of the aggravation of the Arab-Jewish conflict in this territory, it was decided to divide the lands, creating two states: Israel for the Jews and Palestine for the Arabs. On November 29, 1947, the newly created United Nations (UN) adopted the Partition Plan for Palestine, and the creation of the State of Israel was proclaimed on the end of its mandate, May 14, 1948.

However, Israel's neighbors, the Arab states, who viewed the emergence of this country as another manifestation of European colonial policy, were dissatisfied with this decision. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen declared war on Israel. It lasted until 1949, and during this time Israeli troops managed to occupy more territory than provided for in the original UN plan. During peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, a ceasefire line was drawn. Green paint was used to draw it, so the border was called the “green line”. Subsequently, the so-called separation barrier ran along its contour - a 703-kilometer fence separating Israel from the West Bank.

The fragile ceasefire lasted until 1967, when the Six-Day War broke out. In the short period from June 5 to 10, Israeli troops captured not only the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but also East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. Israel was faced with the question of what to do with the West Bank:

annex him, by granting Israeli citizenship to the 1.1 million Arabs living there at the time;

return back under the control of his enemy - Jordan;

allow local residents create their own autonomous state - Palestine.

This issue has become the subject of widespread debate in Israel. Many citizens viewed the victory in the Six-Day War as a sign that Jews were destined to reclaim the territory where the history of the Jewish people began - we are talking about Judea and Samaria, which makes up most of the West Bank. Amid these discussions, thousands of Israelis began to move into the West Bank without any permission from the state or international organizations. However, it was no longer possible to stop them, and from then on any political discussions about the ownership of the West Bank had to take into account the Israeli presence in these territories.

The UN called the settlements illegal, which was recorded in 1979 in the corresponding Security Council resolution No. 446, which read: “Israel’s policy and practice of establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab occupied territories since 1967 has no legal basis and represents a serious obstacle to the establishment of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East." As a result, two points of view regarding settlements were formed: the Israeli one, according to which Jews are only moving to previously uninhabited lands that they conquered during the war and are of great spiritual significance to them; and international, according to which Israel is expanding and colonizing territory that does not belong to it.

Divide and populate

In subsequent decades, more and more branches of government in Israel began to support settlement of the West Bank, mobilizing public opinion on their side. The country's Ministry of Construction, together with the Ministry of Defense, developed and implemented a plan for the development of the region, one of the main points of which was the creation of road infrastructure to connect settlements into one transport network. Thus, from several scattered settlements, the Israeli settlers became an institutionalized group, fully supported by Tel Aviv. Of course, this state of affairs did not suit the Palestinians, who protested against expansion, including using force.

To end the violence, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, US President Bill Clinton and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, a document that established Palestinian self-government and divided the West Bank into three zones:

A, where Palestine has full political and military control (this is approximately 19% of the West Bank);

B, where Palestine has political but not military control (22%);

C- a zone under full political and military control of Israel (59–60% of the territory). It is in Area C that Israeli settlements are located, connected to the rest of the country by a road network. Water and mineral resources are also concentrated there, as well as the most suitable land for agriculture. Palestinians have limited access to all these resources, which greatly impacts their economic potential.

Another wave of resettlement sentiment swept the country in August 2005, when Israel evacuated 8.5 thousand Jews from Gaza and the northern part of the West Bank (northern Samaria). As the number of settlers grew, the infrastructure in the colonized territories also improved: new houses and schools, hospitals and even their own university appeared. In the 50 years since Israel gained control of the West Bank in 1967, Israel has built some 120 settlements in the area. They are considered one of the main obstacles to the resumption of the peace process. In addition to these 120 settlements, there are about 100 more illegal, even according to the Israeli authorities, outposts and buildings in the West Bank, which occupy a total of 800 hectares of private Palestinian land and represent 4 thousand housing units.

The current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also consistently taking steps to continue the construction of settlements in the Palestinian territories. This is also why he reacted so emotionally to the UN resolution demanding that Israel immediately stop settlement activities. “According to the information we have, this resolution was, without a doubt, initiated by the Obama administration, which stood behind the scenes, prepared the language and demanded its adoption,” the prime minister said. “The Obama administration not only failed to protect Israel from this conspiracy at the UN, but also entered into it behind the scenes." At the vote on December 23, 2016, the document was supported by 14 members of the UN Security Council, including Russia (the US representative abstained from voting).

American factor

After the 2016 resolution, Israel stated that it would not comply with the provisions of the UN resolution: settlement activities would continue, and existing settlements would not be evacuated. Prime Minister Netanyahu promised to do “everything possible to ensure that Israel is not harmed by this shameful resolution.” In particular, it was announced that the country would reconsider its relations with the UN: first of all, regarding the size of Israel’s contributions to the UN and the activities of its units in the country. According to the Israeli publication Haaretz, the first concrete act of reaction to the resolution was the cancellation of the visit of Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladimir Groysman to Israel (Kyiv also supported the resolution).

Much in the future will depend on the behavior of Israel's main ally, the United States. The anti-settlement resolution was passed during the administration of President Barack Obama, whose relationship with Netanyahu was frosty. The White House explained the decision to abstain from voting at the UN by saying that Netanyahu’s settlement policy did not lead to progress in the negotiation process.

Donald Trump is considered to be a supporter of a more pro-Israel position: even during the election race, he promised to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, whose status within the UN is disputed by the vast majority of Islamic countries. The views of Trump and the current leadership of Israel also coincide in the fact that they both have mistrust regarding the Iran nuclear deal (the Israeli prime minister spoke in the US Congress in March 2015 against the agreement on the Iran nuclear program, which was promoted by the Obama White House). At the same time, Trump intends to make peace in the Middle East by resuming negotiations between Israel and Palestine. UN sanctions, according to the politician, hinder the peace process.

"Yesterday's big defeat for Israel at the UN will make peace negotiations much more difficult. It's sad, but we will get there anyway."

Settlement activity received a new impetus after Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state on December 6, 2017. Just a month later, the human rights organization Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) reported that the Planning Committee of the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank, a special agency of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, had approved plans for the construction of 1,122 apartments and single-family houses in 20 settlements, and also published tenders for the construction of 651 housing units in the West Bank. In addition, the Israeli government announced its intention to legalize the status of the illegal settlement outpost of Havat Gilad in the West Bank in response to the January 9 killing of its resident Rabbi Raziel Shevach.

So it is possible that under the “pro-Israeli” President Donald Trump, the expansion of the Palestinian territories will continue with renewed vigor, which means that the conclusion of a peace treaty will be delayed again.

"Deal of the Century"

The road map for a Middle East settlement (or the “deal of the century,” as the Americans call it) states that the US administration approves the annexation of large Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank and Jerusalem. At the same time, according to available data, Netanyahu proposed to include 15% of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, Trump insists on only 10%. The White House intends to officially unveil these plans by April. On Tuesday, February 20, the United States notified the UN Security Council that a draft Palestinian-Israeli settlement was under development.

In the meantime, there are fierce international discussions surrounding the situation with Israeli settlements. In January 2018, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley accused the Palestinian leadership of not being sufficiently committed to a peaceful resolution to the conflict. In response, the official representative of the State of Palestine in negotiations with Israel, Saeb Erekat, demanded that she “shut up<...>and realize that the problem is the Israeli occupation and the policy that it [Israel] will continue to pursue." To this, the US permanent representative to the UN stated that she would continue to "tell the harsh truth", the meaning of which: only the path of compromise that allowed Egypt and Jordan making peace with Israel in 1994 and returning its occupied territories would lead to a resolution of the conflict.

However, the intransigence of positions prevents the achievement of this compromise. The Palestinians are ready for a minor exchange of territories with Israel, but at the same time they demand full recognition of the state with its capital in East Jerusalem. The Israelis are not going to cede the occupied territories, and also reject the possibility of dividing Jerusalem. According to the special coordinator of the Middle East peace process, Nikolai Mladenov, the situation is aggravated by the fact that the negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians are unequal, since the latter are under military occupation.

In these conditions, Russia could play a mediating role between all parties to the conflict, Nabil Shaath, adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, is convinced. But, according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia does not have a ready-made recipe for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement. Moscow believes that Israeli settlement activity in the Palestinian territories is illegal, and the chances of achieving a just and lasting peace in the Middle East are becoming less and less every day.

Arthur Gromov

Israeli settlements are settlements established after 1967 in territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War, whose inhabitants are Israeli citizens, mostly Jews. Currently, these settlements exist in the West Bank, which is under Israeli control (part of the West Bank territory is administered by the Palestinian National Authority).

There is broad consensus in the international community that the existence of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories is contrary to the Geneva Convention. International intergovernmental organizations such as the Conference of the Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the UN and the EU have repeatedly stated that these settlements are a serious violation of international law. Non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also described the creation of settlements as a violation of international laws. Israel does not agree that the rules of the Geneva Convention apply in this case, since, according to it, the occupied lands did not previously belong to any state.

As of 2007, the number of residents of Israeli settlements in the West Bank (including areas of Jerusalem located east of the 1948 division line, such as Neve Yaakov, Pisgat Zeev, Gibeah Tsarfatit, Gilo, Ar-Homa) was 484 thousand people.

Terms

Major historical events

• Until the 13th century BC. e. On the territory of the western bank of the Jordan River there were several city-states of various Canaanite peoples.
• During the XIII-XII centuries BC. e. these territories were taken over by Jewish tribes and have since become part of the Land of Israel. The name “Judea” was given to the territory that went to the tribe of the Jews (in Jewish terminology - the tribe of Judah).
• In the 11th century BC. e. this territory became part of the united kingdom of Israel, the capital of which was first the city of Hebron, and then became Jerusalem.
• After the collapse of the united Kingdom of Israel in the 10th century BC. e. two kingdoms were created on its former territory - Judah and Israel. The Israeli kings founded the new capital of their kingdom - the city of Samaria (Hebrew: שומרון‎). The territory adjacent to the new capital began to be called Samaria.
• Jewish statehood was finally destroyed by the Roman Empire during the period of Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD. e. The land of Israel was renamed by the Romans into the province of Palestine, after the name of one of the people of the sea (Philistines, (Hebrew: פלישתים‎) who lived in it in the past.
• Over the next 18 centuries, this territory was part of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Arab Caliphate, the Crusader states, the Mameluke states, the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate and Jordan. The territories of Judea and Samaria returned to the newly formed state of Israel in 1967, as a result of the Six-Day War.

In 1967, as a result of the Six Day War, Israel gained control over a number of new territories.

• From Jordan, the West Bank of the Jordan River, including the eastern part of Jerusalem (East Jerusalem), which was located within Jordan before the war, came under Israeli control.
• The Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip passed from Egypt to Israeli control.
• The Golan Heights came under Israeli control from Syria and were annexed by Israel in 1981.
• In 1967, Jerusalem's municipal boundaries were expanded to cover the old city and East Jerusalem. Residents of the former Jordanian part of the city were offered the choice of Israeli citizenship (with some exceptions) or a residence permit (if they wished to retain Jordanian citizenship). Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem has not been recognized by any country in the world.
• Sinai, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank received the status of occupied territories. Their residents were not offered Israeli citizenship or residency. Although initially, they de facto had the opportunity to work in Israel and cross the Green Line.
• In 1981, Israel evacuated all its settlements from the Sinai Peninsula, in connection with the return of this territory to Egypt under the Camp David Peace Treaty. As part of this agreement, Egypt renounced its claims to the Gaza Strip.
• In 1994, as a result of a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, the latter renounced its claims to the West Bank.
• In August 2005, Israel evacuated its settlements from Gaza and the northern West Bank (northern Samaria) under the Unilateral Separation Plan.

Population

For years, the Israeli government encouraged Israelis and new Jewish immigrants from other countries to move to the settlements. Those who moved there had tax benefits (7% on monthly income up to 10,000 shekels, the benefit was canceled in 2002 [ source not specified 280 days]), subsidies and preferential loans for the purchase of housing, etc. The table shows how population growth occurred in Israeli settlements:

The population continues to grow due to internal migration, external migration (an average of 1,000 Jewish foreign citizens arrive in the settlements per year), as well as due to the high birth rate (in the settlements the birth rate is approximately three times higher than in Israel as a whole. which is due to the high percentage of religious settlers).

Status of the Settlements from the point of view of Orthodox Judaism

The situation in which the legality of the Jews' liberation of the Land of Israel and its settlement will be disputed by the peoples of the world was described by Rashi, a famous Jewish commentator on the TaNaKh and Talmud, back in the 11th century AD. e., 900 years before the Jews returned to their land. In a commentary on the first words of the Torah, “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth,” Rashi writes: “Rabbi Isaac said: “The Torah should begin with (the verse) “This month is for you the head of months” [Exodus 12, 2], which is the first commandment given (to the children of) Israel. Why does (it) begin with the creation of the world? Because “He showed the power of His works to His people, to give them possession of the tribes” [Psalms 111, 6]. For if the nations of the world say to Israel: “You are robbers, who have seized the lands of seven nations,” then (the sons of Israel) will say to them: “The whole earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He. He created it and gave it to whomever pleased Him. According to His will He gave it to them (for a time), according to His will He took it away from them and gave it to us.”

Status of Settlements from the point of view of international law

Article 49 of the “Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War” states

The occupying power will not be able to deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.

Evacuation of settlements

List of settlements in Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

(Israeli settlements are Israeli territory [ source not specified 336 days] . They are also included in the list of cities in Israel)

• Alon (Hebrew: אלון‎)
• Alpheus-Menashe (Hebrew: אלפי מנשה ‎)
• Ar-Adar (Hebrew: הר אדר‎)
• Ar-Gilo (Hebrew: הר גילה‎) Considered an Israeli settlement. From the point of view of Israeli legislation, it is actually one of the districts of Jerusalem.
• Ariel (Hebrew: אריאל‎)
• Ateret (Hebrew: עטרת‎)
• Bat Ayn (Hebrew: בת עין‎)
• Beit Aryeh (Hebrew: בית אריה ‎)
• Beit El (Hebrew: בית אל‎)
• Beitar Ilit (Hebrew: בית"ר עילית ‎)
• Givat Zeev (Hebrew: גבעת זאב‎) - (literal translation - wolf hill, wolf hill). Considered an Israeli settlement. From the point of view of Israeli legislation, it is actually one of the districts of Jerusalem.
• Ephrata (Hebrew: אפרתה‎)
• Jerusalem (East Jerusalem, El Quds) (Hebrew: ירושלים ‎) (Arabic: القدس ‎‎) (city status is still controversial)
• Kedar (Hebrew: קדר‎)
• Karmei-Tzur (Hebrew: כרמי צור ‎)
• Karnei Shomron (Hebrew: קרני שומרון‎)
• Kdumim (Hebrew: קדומים‎)
• Kiryat Arba (Hebrew: קרית־ארבע‎) - (literal translation - village of four) Considered an Israeli settlement, in fact the Jewish part of the city of Hebron.
• Kiryat Luza (Neve Kedem) (Heb. (קרית לוזה (נווה קדם ‎) It is considered an Israeli settlement, in fact the Jewish part of the city of Nablus (Shomron, Nablus).
• Kfar Etzion (Hebrew: כפר עציון‎)
• Maale Adumim (Hebrew: מעלה אדומים‎)
• Maale Amos (Hebrew: מעלה עמוס‎)
• Maale Ephraim (Hebrew: מעלה אפרים ‎)
• Meitzad (Hebrew: מיצד‎)
• Migdal-Oz (Hebrew: מגדל עוז‎)
• Modiin Illit (Hebrew: מודיעין עלית ‎)
• Nokdim (El-David) (Hebrew (נוקדים (אל דוד)‎)
• Neve-Daniel (Hebrew: נווה דניאל ‎)
• Oranit (Hebrew: אורנית‎)
• Pnei-Kedem (Hebrew: פני קדם ‎)
• Rosh Tzurim (Hebrew: ראש צורים‎)
• Tekoah (Hebrew: תקוע‎)
• Halamish (self-name “Neve-Tsuf”,

Relations between the Israeli government and the Barack Obama administration have become strained recently over the issue of Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank. Currently, 300 thousand Israelis live there, as well as about 2.5 million Palestinians. Intense disputes over the settlements involve religious and historical claims, local and international laws, and, of course, political differences. Settlements range in size from makeshift outposts of plywood shacks to cities with populations in the tens of thousands.

The international community believes that more than 100 of these settlements are illegal under international law. Despite calls from the United States for a complete moratorium on settlement expansion, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that while Israel would not build any new settlements and would dismantle unauthorized outposts, it would still allow construction in already existing settlements. existing settlements.

The photographs collected here were taken in the West Bank over the past few months.

Palestinian workers work at a construction site in Ma'ale Adumim in the West Bank on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem, Monday, May 18, 2009. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty) MegaPol's premium power trowels are the best for smoothing concrete surfaces.

13) Palestinian workers walk past a billboard for a new housing project in the Jewish settlement of Ma'ale Adumim in the occupied West Bank on June 7, 2009. (MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)

20) A Jewish settler restores the Shvut Ami fortification on May 31, 2009 near the West Bank city of Nablus. An unauthorized settler fortification in the occupied West Bank was destroyed by Israeli forces earlier this week. In such a place, there is clearly a need for burglar-resistant safes for home and office. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

22) An Israeli soldier watches as a bulldozer destroys a canal built by a Palestinian on his land near the Jewish settlement of Qiryat Arba in Hebron in the occupied West Bank on June 8, 2009. Israeli troops arrested the landlord and destroyed the canal, which was allegedly illegally built near Jewish settlement (HAZEM BADER/AFP/Getty Images)

23) An Israeli police officer closes a car door after arresting a Palestinian for building a canal near the Israeli settlement of Qiryat Arba in Hebron in the occupied West Bank on June 8, 2009. (HAZEM BADER/AFP/Getty Images)

29) Near the West Bank settlement near the city of Nablus, Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers stand at a tower in the Ramat Gilad settlement, as settlers prepared for a possible evacuation by Israeli police early in the morning, June 1, 2009. During an attack by Jewish settlers the day before, several Palestinian workers were injured, and one of them requires hospital treatment because... suffered a fractured skull. Dozens of masked settlers threw rocks at the Palestinian workers' cars. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)31) An Israeli policeman watches a bulldozer demolish a makeshift structure in the informal settlement of Ramat Migron, near the West Bank city of Ramallah on June 3, 2009. A place like this clearly needs safes for homes and offices. (REUTERS/Baz Ratner)33) Israeli border police leave after demolishing the Ma'otz Esther outpost (part of which is visible in the background) near the Jewish settlement of Kochav Hashahar, in the northeastern West Bank city of Ramallah May 21, 2009. According to Israeli police, border guards in That day, they destroyed an unauthorized settler outpost in the occupied West Bank and bulldozed seven makeshift shelters. (REUTERS/Baz Ratner)35) A Jewish settler rebuilds his settlement after Israeli police destroyed it June 3, 2009 in Ramat Migron, east of Ramallah. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)37) A Palestinian worker walks through the construction site of a new West Bank housing project in the Jewish settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, near Jerusalem, Sunday, June 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

ISRAELI MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Attempts to portray Jewish settlements in the West Bank (ancient Judea and Samaria) as illegal and “colonial” in nature ignore the complexity of the issue, the history of the land, and the unique legal circumstances of the case.

Historical context

"The Palestine Administration, while ensuring impartially the rights and conditions of other sections of the population, shall encourage Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency referred to in Article 4, the dense settlement of lands by Jews, including public lands not claimed for public purposes." use".

Many modern Israeli settlements have been virtually re-established on sites that were home to Jewish communities in previous generations, realizing the Jewish people's deep historical ties to this land - the cradle of Jewish civilization and the location of key events in the Hebrew Bible. A significant number of them are located in places from which previously Jewish communities were forcibly displaced by Arab armies or brutally murdered, as was the case of the ancient Jewish community of Hebron in 1929.

For more than a thousand years, the only administration that prohibited Jewish settlement in these areas was the Jordanian occupation administration, which, during its nineteen years of rule (1948-1967), made the sale of land to Jews a crime punishable by death. The right of Jews to establish houses in these areas and the legal right to private ownership of the acquired land cannot be legally abrogated by the Jordanian occupation, as a result of its illegal armed invasion of Israel in 1948, which was never internationally recognized as legal, and such rights remain in force to this day.

The attempt to portray Jewish communities in the West Bank as a new form of “colonial” settlement of the lands of another sovereign is both hypocritical and politically motivated. At no point in history were Jerusalem and the West Bank under Palestinian Arab sovereignty. The right of Jews to live in their ancient homeland, along with Palestinian Arab communities, as an expression of the bond of both peoples to this land is a matter up for debate.

International humanitarian law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip

As the official commentary to the Convention of the International Red Cross confirms, this principle was intended to protect local populations from displacement, including that threatening their existence as a race, as happened with the forced displacement of the population of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary before and during the war.

Quite apart from the question of whether the Fourth Geneva Convention applies de jure to a territory such as the West Bank, which does not belong to any previous legitimate state, cases in which Jews voluntarily establish their homes and communities in their ancient homeland, adjacent to Palestinian communities, do not comply with forced population transfers provided for in Article 49(6).

As Professor Yuri Rostow, former US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, writes:

“The right of the Jews to inhabit the territory is at least equivalent to the right of the local population to live there” (Ajil, 1990, Vol. 84, p. 72).

In this regard, it should be noted that Israeli settlements in the West Bank were established only after an exhaustive investigative process, led by the Israeli Supreme Court, and were confirmed not to be illegally established on private land.

Just as the settlements do not violate the terms of Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, they do not constitute a “flagrant violation” of the Fourth Geneva Convention or “war crimes,” as some have argued. In fact, even though these settlements were considered to be contrary to Article 49(6), the observation that such contradictions constituted a "gross violation" or a "war crime" was introduced (as a result of political pressure from Arab states) only in the Additional Protocols to the 1977 Geneva Conventions, to which leading states, including Israel, are not party, and which therefore do not reflect customary international law.

From a legal perspective, the West Bank is better viewed as a territory that has mutual claims, and those claims should be resolved through peace negotiations. In fact, both the Israeli and Palestinian sides have committed to follow this principle. Israel has valid claims to the name of this territory, based not only on historical Jewish ties to the land and long-term residence on it, its designation as part of the Jewish state under the League of Nations Mandate and Israel's legally recognized right to secure borders, but also on the fact that this territory was not previously under the legal sovereignty of any state and came under Israeli control in a defensive war. At the same time, Israel recognizes that the Palestinians also have claims to the area. It is for this reason that both sides agreed to resolve all outstanding issues, including the future of the settlements, in direct bilateral negotiations, the need for which Israel continues to affirm.

Israeli-palestinianagreements

Point out that the prohibition of unilateral steps contained in the Interim Agreement (Article 31(7)) that change the “status” of the West Bank and Gaza Strip implies a ban on settlement activities. This provision is unfounded. This ban was adopted in order to prevent any steps parties that would seek to change the legal status of that territory (for example, by annexation or unilateral declaration of statehood), pending the outcome of negotiations on a permanent status.If this prohibition were to apply to construction, given that the provision is formulated equally for both parties, it would lead to the dubious interpretation that neither side would be allowed to build houses for the needs of their communities until permanent status negotiations had been successfully concluded.

In this regard, Israel's decision to dismantle all of its settlements in the Gaza Strip and some settlements in the northern West Bank in the context of the 2005 disengagement were unilateral Israeli steps and not compliance with legal obligations.

conclusions

• Attempts to portray Jewish settlements in ancient Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as illegal and "colonial" in nature ignore the complexity of the issue, the history of the land, and the unique legal circumstances of the case.

• Jewish communities in this territory have existed since time immemorial and express the deep connection of the Jewish people with the land that represents the cradle of their civilization, as confirmed by the Mandate for Palestine of the League of Nations, and from which the Jews or their ancestors were forcibly expelled.

• The prohibition on the forced transfer of civilians into the territory of an occupied State, in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention, is inconsistent with the circumstances of voluntary Jewish settlement in the West Bank on legally acquired lands that did not belong to the former legitimate State, and which were intended to be part of the Jewish State. according to the Mandate of the League of Nations.

• The Israeli-Palestinian bilateral agreements specifically emphasized the fact that settlements are subject to the agreed and exclusive Israeli jurisdiction, pending the outcome of peace negotiations, and they do not prohibit settlement activities.

• Israel remains committed to peaceful negotiations without preconditions in order to resolve all outstanding issues and mutual claims. He continues to ask the Palestinian side to respond in kind. He expresses the hope that such negotiations will lead to a negotiated, secure and peaceful settlement that will give legitimate expression to the ties of both Jews and Palestinians to this ancient land.