Major Israeli Population Centres in the West Bank are Legal
The term “major Israeli population centres” is used by Israel and the US to refer to large settlement blocs illegally built on Palestinian land in the West Bank. The term “neighbourhood” is usually used by Israel to refer to illegal settlement blocs built in East Jerusalem. “Outposts” refer to empty structures such as tents and caravans erected by the settler movement to use as a tool for negotiations or public relations. Palestinians prefer to use the term “colonies” to refer to all settlements illegally built on their territory. The term “settlements” is used by the international community.
On 14 April 2004, US President George W. Bush gave then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a letter which he read out aloud at a televised press conference in the White House. The letter included the following controversial passage:
“As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”
Within days, this letter was universally condemned by the European Union, the Arab world, and British and American diplomats because it seemed to prejudice final-status issues (Jerusalem, settlements, borders, water, security and refugees).
In response, 52 former British diplomats wrote a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair calling the announcement by Sharon and Bush one-sided and illegal (“A Letter to Blair: Your Middle East Policy is Doomed, say Diplomats,” The Independent, 27 April 2004).
More than 50 former and current US diplomats also expressed deep concern over Bush’s endorsement of Sharon’s unilateral plan to retain five large settlement blocs in the occupied Palestinian territories. They said the plan defied UN Security Council resolutions calling for Israel’s return of occupied territories.
However, from a cursory glance at this passage, it is evident that the language is non-committal and non-binding. Michla Pomerance, Emilio Von Hofmannsthal Professor of International Law in the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was quick to point out that the letter was merely “a presidential statement couched in unequivocal language” (“The case against disengagement”, Jerusalem Post, 28 April 2004).
Pomerance queried whether the Israeli public was not buying bogus merchandise, and noted that “settlement blocs, (i.e. “existing major Israeli population centers”) too, were not taken off the table.” She noted that “Bush’s implicit references to them were so hedged as not to qualify even as statements of present intentions.”
On 26 May 2005, Bush seemed to contradict what he wrote to the Israelis over a year earlier when he said the following on settlements and final-status issues at a press conference in the Rose Garden:
“Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes road map obligations or prejudice final status negotiations with regard to Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem. Therefore, Israel must remove unauthorised outposts and stop settlement expansion … Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice lines must be mutually agreed to. A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity of the West Bank, and a state of scattered territories will not work … This is the position of the United States today, it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status negotiations.”
It becomes immediately apparent that in contrast to his letter of assurances to the Israelis, the language used in this speech (such as “must”) is affirmative, direct and positive. As Dr. Robert Satloff - executive director of the right-wing America think-tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy - noted in his article “Deciphering the Bush-Abbas Press Conference” (Peace Watch # 503, 31 May 2005):
“Both the nature and context of the president’s statements to Sharon and [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas were fundamentally different. Last year, in his letter to Sharon, Bush merely offered an observation, an analytical comment that refuted a hypothetical. It had no prescriptive content and, contrary to the exaggeration of Israeli officials and observers, did not specifically state a U.S. position on final-status issues. Conversely, in his comments to Abbas, Bush specifically committed the United States to a certain final-status position: the 1949 armistice lines are the starting point, from which any change must be mutually agreed.”
The official US position on settlements - as determined by its legal advisors, statements by US officials and by its vote in the UN Security Council - clarifies that contrary to popular belief, the US government does not support Israeli settlement activity in any occupied Arab territories, and has never done so. In fact, since the 1970s successive US governments have publicly opposed Israel’s settlement policy.
On 21 April 1978, the State Department’s Legal Advisor Herbert J. Hansell wrote a letter “concerning the legality of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories” to Congressmen Donald M. Fraser and Lee H. Hamilton, in which he concluded that:
“While Israel may undertake, in the occupied territories, actions necessary to meet its military needs and to provide for orderly government during the occupation … the establishment of the civilian settlements in those territories is inconsistent with international law.”
On 30 April 2001, Senator George J. Mitchell - former member and majority leader of the US Senate, and chairman of the Report of the Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee - reiterated official US policy as follows (at pp. 15 - 16):
“During the half-century of its existence, Israel has had the strong support of the United States. In international forums, the U.S. has at times cast the only vote on Israel’s behalf. Yet, even in such a close relationship there are some differences. Prominent among those differences is the U.S. Government’s long-standing opposition to the GOI’s polices and practices regarding settlements. As the-then Secretary of State, James A. Baker, III, commented on May 22, 1991:
‘Every time I have gone to Israel in connection with the peace process, on each of my four trips, I have been met with the announcement of new settlement activity. This does violate United States policy. It’s the first thing that Arabs - Arab Governments, the first things that the Palestinians in the territories - whose situation is really quite desperate - the first thing they raise when we talk to them. I don’t think there is any bigger obstacle to peace than the settlement activity that continues not only unabated but at an enhanced pace.’
“The policy described by Secretary Baker, on behalf of the Administration of President George H. W. Bush, has been, in essence, the policy of every administration over the past quarter century.”
In support of this stance, the Fact-Finding Committee referred to statements made by Cyrus Vance (US secretary of state under President Jimmy Carter, 1977-1980), former US Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, and officials from both Bush administrations. In March 1980, the US voted in favour of UN Security Council resolution 465 which determined in the operative paragraphs that:
“all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
Resolution 465 also deplored the “continuation and persistence of Israel in pursuing those policies and practices and calls upon the Government and people of Israel to rescind those measures, to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem.”
It also called upon “all States not to provide Israel with any assistance to be used specifically in connection with settlements in the occupied territories.”
It is therefore crystal clear that “major existing Israeli population centres” in the West Bank are illegal. Journalists should make this point clear.