Settlements
Phyllis Bennis sums up the problem with settlements, writing -
“The fundamental problem of the settlements, of course, is not just the creeping expansion — it’s their very existence. All Israeli settlements in the West Bank or Arab East Jerusalem — not only the tiny propaganda-driven “outposts” but the huge city settlements like Ariel or Ma’ale Adumim or the oldest settlements long described as “neighborhoods” of Jerusalem — are illegal. The 4th Geneva Convention Article 49(6) prohibits the occupying power from transferring any of its own population into the occupied territory — settlers don’t become legal just because they live in giant cities of 35,000 or 40,000 people or because they stay for more than 40 years. The existence of the settlements represents a continuing violation — and even if Obama managed to impose a full freeze on all settlement activity, there is no indication yet of what (if anything) he intends to do about the 480,000 illegal Israeli settlers continuing to occupy those (however frozen) Jews-only settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem. ”
Bennis discusses Obama’s call to freeze settlements -
“Netanyahu completely rejected Obama’s call for a settlement freeze. “We have no intention to build new settlements or set aside land for new settlements,” Netanyahu said. So all expansion of existing settlements — not only for the so-called “natural growth” which Netanyahu and President Obama openly tussled over — will continue. Palestinian land, therefore, will continue to be “set aside” — a polite euphemism for “stolen” — to expand any or all of the existing Jewish settlements as far as any nationalist or religious extremists (or, for that matter, any of the yuppie settlers who make up the majority of the settler population) may wish to build them. ”