Eric Rozenman
Opinion/L.A.Times
11 December 09
President Obama asserts, seconded by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements" in the West Bank. Both have praised the 10-month freeze on new residential building -- excluding eastern Jerusalem -- that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late last month.
Netanyahu now calls for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resume negotiations or take the blame for lack of progress when the "one-time-only" freeze expires. Abbas' precondition -- adopted after Washington's pronouncements -- is that all Israeli construction, including in eastern Jerusalem, must cease permanently.
Too bad international diplomacy doesn't have a replay button. If it did, the parties could look back at history, which would show that Israeli settlements not only are legitimate under international law but positively encouraged.
The basic relevant provision, the League of Nations' 1922 British Mandate for Palestine, Article 6, encourages "close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not required for public use." Most Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been built on land that was state land under the Ottomans, British, Jordanians and, after the 1967 Six-Day War, under the Israelis, or on property that has been privately purchased.
(Continue article)
.
Posts
My home in the "west bank" has been built on privately purchased property and it is registered in the TABU.
ReplyDeleteIf Arab civil and religious rights are protected under Israeli law, then how is it that a foreign government like the US can break its own treaty, and then force Israel to break its own local laws as well, by depriving me of my right to my legally purchased and built home?
Other people who purchased properties here and are waiting to build their homes are of course being cheated by this double betrayal. And the workers are idle and unemployed.