by Times of Israel Staff
Official document distributed to Israeli diplomats says Jewish communities beyond Green Line are ‘not colonization’
Illustrative photo of a security fence around a Jewish settlement in the West Bank (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
The construction and
establishment of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is legal under both
Israeli and international law, as well as justified on historical and
ethical grounds, according to a new document drafted by the Foreign
Ministry.
The
document, presented in a Channel 2 report Thursday, was issued under
the directive of Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely and distributed
to Israeli diplomats across the globe. It states that Israel has “valid
property claims” to West Bank territory, as “Jewish affinity” with the
region and in cities such as Hebron is thousands of years old.
According to the document, “These are not new
communities, and not ‘colonization,'” and therefore, the “section of the
Geneva Convention which prohibits the transfer of a population to
occupied lands does not apply” in the case of the West Bank. “Never at
any point of time in history were Jerusalem or the West Bank under
Palestinian Arab sovereignty,” according to the document.
The document notes that Jewish communities
beyond the Green Line “were established in a judicial proceeding under
the supervision of [Israel’s] Supreme Court.” It further argues that
Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005 was a “unilateral
political decision,” and does not exhibit a “realization of any sort of
legal obligation.”
From
a vantage point near the Temple Mount, Tzipi Hotovely waves the Israeli
flag, with the Dome of the Rock in the background, May 1, 2014.
(Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
However, the document does concede that Israel
“recognizes that the Palestinians also have claims in the area,” and
that for that reason, “the two parties expressed an explicit agreement
to settle all outstanding disputes, including the future of the
settlements, within the framework of direct bilateral negotiations.”
The document was drafted at Hotovely’s behest
after she discovered that the Foreign Ministry’s directives on the
country’s official stance on the West Bank had not been updated in 14
years, Channel 2 reported.
The Prime Minister’s Office would not comment on the new directive.
A majority of Western legal scholars outside
of Israel view the establishment of West Bank settlements as illegal
under international law, as the state has deliberately refrained from
annexing most of the territory captured during the 1967 Six Day War, and
has not granted Palestinians in the region Israeli citizen rights.
One result of Israel’s refusal to annex the
West Bank has been the creation of a territory trapped in a legal limbo
under the officially temporary legal jurisdiction of the IDF’s Central
Command. The military governor of the West Bank, who is also the IDF’s
OC Central Command, is empowered to issue military directives related to
civilian life in the area — including labor protections, regulation of
commerce and the like.
The West Bank settlement of Kochav Yaakov. (CC BY-SA Jonathan Caras/Wikimedia Commons)
Last month, Israeli officials confirmed that
Foreign Ministry cadets would tour West Bank settlements and learn how
to defend their legality, as well as hear lectures on Judaism and tour
the City of David archaeological site in East Jerusalem. The new
additions to the cadet course were made in a joint effort of Hotovely
and Foreign Ministry director Dore Gold, a confidant of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hotovely, a hawkish lawmaker in Likud, was
recently reprimanded by Netanyahu for saying that she “dreams” of
building the Third Temple at the Temple Mount.
Last year, the government reportedly decided
to adopt certain recommendations of a report that asserts that Israel is
not occupying the West Bank. The report, authored by the late Supreme
Court justice Edmund Levy in 2012, two years before his death, concluded
that the establishment of settlements in the West Bank does not breach
international law, and that Jews can legally make their homes there. It
also stated that “Israel does not meet the criteria of ‘military
occupation’ as defined under international law” in the West Bank, and
therefore the settlements and outposts are legal, since there is no
provision in international law prohibiting Jewish settlement in the
area.
The Levy Report recommended easing regulations
on Jewish settlement in the West Bank by regulating zoning and
planning, halting scheduled demolitions and planning building in
accordance with population growth.
The findings of the Levy report are at odds
with previous legal opinions, most notably the 2005 report by attorney
Talia Sasson compiled for prime minister Ariel Sharon, which found that
some 120 West Bank outposts were illegal.
JTA contributed to this report.
Times of Israel Staff
Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/west-bank-settlements-are-legal-foreign-ministry-asserts/
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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