How settlements became 'illegal'

Many experts accepted Israel's right to "occupy" and settle its historic homeland.One organization, however - the International Committee of the Red Cross - disagreed.

May 29, 2012 10:30


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Two years later, amid growing civil war, the UN proposed a division of Palestine between Jews and Arabs - changing the terms of the Mandate; the Jews accepted, the Arabs launched a war of extermination.

When Britain ended the Mandate and left, the State of Israel was proclaimed and local mobs who had been attacking Jews for years were joined by five Arab armies. The armistice in 1949 - for Jews, independence, for Arabs, nakba (tragedy) - did not result in a Palestinian state, because the Arabs did not want it. Arab leaders never accepted Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state - most refuse to do so today.

Pressured by Russia and the Arab states, the Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which spoke of Israel's military withdrawal from some - not all - of these conquered territories in the context of a final peace agreement. The question of sovereignty remained elusive and problematic.



FOR SOME, this is not a "legal" issue, but a moral one: Jews should not rule over ("occupy") others. So Israel withdrew unilaterally from nearly all "Palestinian" cities, towns and villages and turned over vast tracts of land to the PA/PLO as part of the Oslo Accords in 1994 and a few years later in the Wye and Hebron agreements.

When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, it became a bastion of Hamas. "Land for peace" in reality means "land for terrorism."

Influenced by these events, incited by Islamists, encouraged by Israeli concessions and seeking to undermine the state, Israeli Arabs identify as "Palestinians," demanding an end to "Jewish occupation" and discrimination, and the destruction of the state itself.

Others contend that "Israel's Jewish and democratic" nature will be threatened if it continues to include large numbers of Arabs who are not loyal and do not identify with the state. But nearly all "Palestinians" live under PA, not Israeli rule. The dispute now, therefore, is over territory, not people.

Predictions of an "Arab demographic time bomb" have not proven realistic or accurate. Moreover, allowing Arab residents full civil and humanitarian rights, without political rights, as exist in most other countries, could be considered in conjunction with resettling Arab "refugees" in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc., dismantling UNRWA camps and ending terrorism and incitement against Israel.

That a second (or third) Arab Palestinian state would be an existential threat to Israel seems obvious. "Land for peace" has failed. Why then promote it?



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