The US Trump Administration’s declaration that it no longer considers Israeli
settlements in the West Bank illegal marks another step away from the
principles of international law.
The illegality of the settlements by Israeli citizens on Palestinian
land is quite clear from Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention:
“The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own
civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
The 600,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have
already colonized much of Palestine, fragmenting its territory — over
which the Israeli occupier retains complete military control —
criss-crossing it with roads barred to Palestinian users, stealing much
of the most fertile land and depriving the Palestinian population of
most of the available water.
The Israeli towns that have been planted across Palestinian territory
are a serious barrier to the independent Palestine to which almost all
countries, including the US and Israel, remain technically committed —
though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown up how hollow
this commitment is by repeatedly stating explicitly that there will
never be a Palestinian state on his watch.
The pro-forma international condemnation has not halted the settlement
programme nor prompted any Israeli government to consider meeting its
obligations towards Palestine under the Oslo Accords.
The US has also regularly used its veto to block UN resolutions condemning
the settlements even while officially viewing them as illegal.
It’s also against international law to apply sanctions with the aim of
changing the government in the targeted country.
The US Trump Administration decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s
capital, is in fact encouraging ever more reckless and aggressive ethnic
cleansing of
Palestinians by the Israeli Right-Wing authorities and assures them that
racist
legislation such as the Nation State Law, reducing Israeli Arabs to
second-class citizens, will not affect the enormous economic and
military sponsorship they receive from the US.
Relying on Israeli allies to rein in its expansionist government has
never worked. A US thumbs-up to illegal settlements makes that clearer
than ever.
Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas, said: "The United States is neither qualified nor is
authorised to negate international legitimacy resolutions, and it has no
right to give any legitimacy to Israeli settlement."
Palestinian
militant groups also weighed in, calling it the official funeral of the
Oslo peace process - which laid the foundations for Palestinian
self-rule in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip - and urging
stepped-up resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Bottom-line: the US Trump Administration has basically ripped-up the
Oslo Agreement of which the US was a co-signer and is now applying the
"Trump doctrine of the jungle"
EU-Digest
