The Regulation Law and Peace in the Middle East

American Thinker ^ | February 26, 2017 | Michael Curtis

[Kaslin]

Critics of Israel persist in the contention that the existence of Israeli settlements is a core, even the main, impediment to peace and to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Once again, in the U.N. Security Council's Resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016, which was passed by a vote of 14-0, with the U.S. abstaining and therefore allowing it to pass, the settlements were held to be illegal. They have been held innumerable times, though incorrectly, in international forums to be violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49, and The Hague Convention of 1907.

Ignoring the refusal of Palestinians to enter into peace negotiations from 1949 to the present, and their provocative proclamations to exterminate the State of Israel, international declarations declare the settlements the obstacle to peace, as well contrary to international law.

With the passage of an Israeli law on Monday, February 6, 2017, there is an opportunity to examine the complicated problem of the settlements in objective fashion. On that day, the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, by a vote of 60 to 52, passed the Regulation Law, Hok Hahasdara, sponsored by the Jewish Home Party, the religious nationalist party, led by Naftali Bennett and generally regarded as right-wing, and by some members of the Likud Party.

The controversial Regulation Law appears to break the traditional official attitude on the settlements built in the disputed territories. Since the settlements began after the 1967 Six-Day War, the numbers have expanded. Today, there are 121 officially recognized Israeli settlements containing 400,000 settlers in the West Bank and 375,000 in east Jerusalem. Under both Labor and Likud governments, there was agreement that settlements be built on state or public land, largely for reasons of security, and not on private land, with some exceptions.

[SJackson]

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