Why does Israel continue to build cities and villages in the West Bank when it is illegal under international law ?
Simply because Israel doesn’t care about international law. Anyone saying otherwise is a lying hypocrite.
“Do you support the violent dispossession of me and my family?” replied Mohammed El-Kurd when asked by a CNN reporter whether he supports some of the protests in support of residents of Sheikh Jarrah that have turned violent. El-Kurd is one of several Palestinians facing the risk of forcible dispossession of their homes in Sheikh Jarrah. Thousands of Palestinians have been injured and many killed as a result of violence at Al-Aqsa mosque and Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. Despite Israel agreeing to a ceasefire, human rights violations against the Palestinian people continue. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has found that Israel is committing two crimes against humanity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT): apartheid and persecution. These findings are discussed in a 213-page report titled “ A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution ’” published in April 2021. This article seeks to summarise the legal arguments made in the HRW report and provide contextual background to the violence unfolding in the OPT. Overall, this discussion demonstrates how Israel’s actions violate international law. THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES The OPT refers to the territories illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. This comprises of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem in 1967. However, as HRW’s report makes it clear, East Jerusalem is still considered an occupied territory under international law. Further, despite Israel unilaterally withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it still controls most of its borders , including its airspace and territorial waters . APARTHEID AND PERSECUTION HRW’s report recognises that while the term “apartheid” is historically associated with segregationist policies in South Africa from 1948 until the 1990s, HRW refers to Israel’s policies constituting “apartheid” from an international law perspective. These arguments have been raised against Israel for a long time. When the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, passed its Nation-State Law in 2018, declaring Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish people,” Arab Parliamentary members ripped up copies of the bill, whilst shouting “apartheid”. The law also declared the right to self-determination within Israel, being “unique to the Jewish people.” In 2020, an Israeli human rights organisation, Yesh Din, concluded in a legal opinion that Israel was an "apartheid state," where the "perpetrators are Israelis, and the victims are Palestinians". Unlike the HRW report, Yesh Din's analysis was restricted to Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank, which was described as a "gargantuan colonization project". Later that same year, Israel’s proposal to annex parts of the West Bank and Jordan Valley was labelled a “21st century apartheid” in a statement signed by forty-seven independent Special Procedures mandates appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. THE HRW REPORT In the report, HRW co Previous Next The situation in the OPT is primarily governed by two international legal regimes: international humanitarian law (including the rules of the law of occupation) and international human rights law. International criminal law is also relevant as some serious violations may constitute war crimes. STATUS OF SETTLEMENTS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in occupied Palestinian territory and displacing the local population contravenes fundamental rules of international humanitarian law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”. The extensive appropriation of land and the appropriation and destruction of property required to build and expand settlements also breach other rules of international humanitarian law. Under the Hague Regulations of 1907, the public property of the occupied population (such as lands, forests and agricultural estates) is subject to the laws of usufruct. This means that an occupying state is only allowed a very limited use of this property. This limitation is derived from the notion that occupation is temporary, the core idea of the law of occupation. In the words of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the occupying power “has a duty to ensure the protection, security, and welfare of the people living under occupation and to guarantee that they can live as normal a life as possible, in accordance with their own laws, culture, and traditions.” The Hague Regulations prohibit the confiscation of private property. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the destruction of private or state property, “except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations”. As the occupier, Israel is therefore forbidden from using state land and natural resources for purposes other than military or security needs or for the benefit of the local population. The unlawful appropriation of property by an occupying power amounts to “pillage”, which is prohibited by both the Hague Regulations and Fourth Geneva Convention and is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and many national laws. Israel’s building of settlements in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, does not respect any of these rules and exceptions. Transferring the occupying power’s civilians into the occupied territory is prohibited without exception. Furthermore, as explained earlier, the settlements and associated infrastructure are not temporary, do not benefit Palestinians and do not serve the legitimate security needs of the occupying power. Settlements entirely depend on the large-scale appropriation and/or destruction of Palestinian private and state property which are not militarily necessary. They are cre