Trump administration declares Israel’s settlements not illegal
Caroline Glick believes this is a big deal:
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement Monday that Israeli settlements are not illegal per se is the most significant shift in U.S. Middle East policy in the past generation…[T]he issue of the legality of Israeli settlements has been the defining issue of much of the international discourse on Israel for a generation.
In the vast majority of cases, the discourse has revolved around the widely held allegation – with no basis in actual law – that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are illegal. This allegation has served as the justification for a continuous barrage of condemnations of Israel in international arena and for anti-Israel legal verdicts in international courts…
Pompeo made two revolutionary assertions in his statement. First, he said that “after carefully studying all sides of the legal debate,” like the Reagan administration before it, the Trump administration has concluded, “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.”
Second, Pompeo noted, the near ubiquitousness of the false assertion that settlements are illegal has not advanced the prospects for peace. To the contrary, it has harmed the chances of getting to peace…
Pompeo’s statement, and indeed the Trump administration’s decision to publish its position now represents a complete rebuke of the European Union…
Since taking office, Trump has worked consistently to align U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and beyond to the world as it is, rather than to the world as “experts” imagine it to be. In the Middle East, this realignment of U.S. policy has provided the nations of the region – including Israel and the Palestinians – with the first chance of reaching genuine peace they have ever had.
Will this matter, though? I can’t imagine that the EU or the international community will do an about-face because Trump says so. On the other hand, the old way wasn’t working at all. Those “experts” often haven’t been doing us any favors, and as we can see in the current impeachment drama, they are hopping mad about Trump’s defiance of their ways.
Liel Leibovitz, TabletMag: FORTY YEARS? Debunking the latest claptrap on American policy and Israeli settlements
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This is a big deal because…
A. NO Republican is going to be able to go back on this move.
B. Moderate/not insane Democrats are going to be pushed hard by the anti-Israel left and they’ll either have to fight back or publicly capitulate.
C. This move is a direct assault on what appears to be the accepted view in Europe and American college campuses, which is that the Palestinians are this innocent group of native Arabs who were just minding their own business when the Israelis crept up on them in the dead of night and stole their land.
Mike
When a paradigm does not work, one must change the paradigm. This is not rocket science but mere problem solving common sense. The reason it has not been done until now is probably a mish-mash of antisemitism; reliance on Arab oil; realpolitik;etc. Plus, Trump is the first guy with the guts to stand up to the world at large so this move is right up his alley.
IMO, most common sense people who have studied the situation have long known that Pompeo is correct; as have many first rate legal minds. The first big clue in all this is how Israel gets pretty much all the condemnation at the UN and elsewhere while nasty dictatorships and theocracies get a wink and a nod and when no other country extant would be accused of anything if they took severe action and reprisal after being subject to 300 or so rockets in a few days. Fire 300 rockets at the USA, Russia or China and you are going to be turned to dust fairly quickly.
Mike: like the dodo, Moderate/not insane Democrats no longer exist. At least not in significant numbers (say, higher than 5 or so.)
Practically, it doesn’t mean anything. Yet.
Not sure what the President has in mind. From a distance, one might suggest that moving the embassy and this new declaration are both gestures of indifference or contempt for the menu of p’s and q’s parties in the Arab world have insisted upon for 70 years. If you stop co-operating with the crazy man’s delusions, he’s a tad more likely to realize they are delusions.
I used to have access to the database Polling the Nations, which allowed me to review survey research undertaken on the West Bank and Gaza between 2002 and 2009. Pretty depressing. You could glean that north of a third of the Arab population had as a stated requirement for a solution to the trouble that Israel cease to exist as a political entity. Another 30% didn’t insist on that, but indicated that any solution must include a franchise for a fuzzily-defined 7-digit population of Arabs to settle in Israel at their discretion. These are conditions you place on people to whom you can dictate a settlement, and they’ve been fairly unusual even in those circumstances the last 200-odd years. Of course, various Arab parties haven’t in a over a century been in such a position vis a vis the Jews or anyone else, but prefer the pretense because they cannot bear the reality (the costs of which they’re insulated from by UNRWA).
I love the smell of pushback against the ever-so-genteel repackaged as hip 1950’s restricted neighborhood country club Jew hatred in the morning. And afternoon. And night.
C. This move is a direct assault on what appears to be the accepted view in Europe and American college campuses, which is that the Palestinians are this innocent group of native Arabs who were just minding their own business when the Israelis crept up on them in the dead of night and stole their land.
It’s good to stick your thumb in the eye of people who’ve earned it. Jeremy Corbyn has.
I love the smell of pushback against the ever-so-genteel repackaged as hip 1950’s restricted neighborhood country club Jew hatred in the morning. And afternoon. And night.
????
Art: shorter Cappy: Cappy likes what Trump did.
Yep. What Fred said.
Sometimes people don’t know if I’m serious or sarcastic.
My answer: yes.
This is part of a broader strategy that the Trump administration started implementing more than a year ago. The idea is to avoid the mistake Clinton made when Arafat and Israeli PM met at Camp David. Clinton summarized the summit as, Arafat showed up here said no to everything. I am guessing Clinton thought that his charm offensive would work on Arafat.
Kushner has been spending time in Middle East trying to avoid this mistake by getting a basic agreement hammered out before anything is done in public. The idea seems to be to turn the financial screws on the Palestinians. Trump started this by cutting of payments to agencies that in turn provide aid to Palestinians, as well as direct bilateral aid, in 2018 to the tune of approximately $500 million. Just the other day Netherland did the same by cutting $1.5m/year. Not much, but slowly prepping the field and softening up the Palestinians.
This declaration is merely another step in that strategy.
So, we decided to build this road. Some call it a “road to nowhere,” but that’s a lie. It begins at Podunk and will end at Puddleduck.
We budgeted $ 20 bn for it. At this point — 15 years after starting the 75-mile project — the foundation is half-laid and we’ve only spent $ 15 bn.
Some nay-sayers are pushing the idea that the whole project is unnecessary, was never necessary, and should be scrapped.
After we’ve spent all that money! We might as well have thrown it into the incinerator! And we’ve put 15 years into it — more sunk cost!
I s’num*, I don’t see how some folks can be such cheapskates! Don’t think ahead a-tall. ‘Twould be throwin’ all that money away!
*Me, in a shy whisper:*
We’ve been doing it this way for
4015 years! We’re not gonna quit now just because it’s not working!.
* “I snum”: Historical American Regionalism, meaning “I swear.”
https://epdf.pub/the-facts-on-file-dictionary-of-american-regionalisms-facts-on-file-library-of-a.html
pdf Page 263.
Unfortunately nothing will change the over two millennia of hatred toward the Jews by Europe.
Be nice if President Trump told NATO recognize Judea and Samaria as legitimate parts of Israel or learn how to speak Russian.
It matters very much here in Israel – where the Clowns of Oslo still control the media, courts, and academia (as demonstrated by the attempted lynching of Bibi).
It matters especially now: as in the Oslo years, the Israeli Left have corralled a politically naive general (then Rabin, now Ganz) into to lead them with stern photos, saber rattling… and not much else, For most of this year we are without a government because The General garnered enough votes to stop the Likud from forming a government, and the opportunistic Liberman exploited anti-religious sentiment in a personal vendetta against Bibi.
Now Ganz and the others will have to put down their markers on this issue instead of being vague. This is a very clever way to help Bibi in a difficult time.
It is also a smack-smack to the Europeans – who just this week ruled that Israeli products from the West Bank must be labeled as “occupied territory”.
The Palestinians have never agreed on a border, and never had an “internationally recognized” border with Israel.
Because they hope, and believe, that their non-recognition will eventually mean Israel ceases to exist. I don’t think that will happen in my life, nor that of my kids.
This is a good time for Israel to be tougher on the Palestinians, and more pushy about them recognizing Israel and trying to create two successful states, rather than the Muslims trying to murder the Jews.
A partial fantasy is that Trump Jr. goes around and gets agreement from the other Palestinian donors on what a border should be with Israel, probably the current Wall plus some settlement issues, and sharing Jerusalem. Once the donors agree, offer it to the Palestinians. When (if? ha!) they refuse, the donors cut off funds, and the Israelis ask for MORE land.
Palestinians need to lose something before they accept losing their dream of killing Israel. Hong Kong, with 11 million people, has 423-428 sq miles.
Gaza has 139, West Bank has 2,263 = 2,402 sq miles for Palestine.
Not sure how much is partially settled by Israeli Jews.
Some 21% of Israelis are Arab, 1,890,000. These Arabs can and do live “in peace” with Israelis, even those many Arabs who oppose the existence of the Zionist state. I don’t think there are any Arab Muslim countries with even 1 million Jews left — they’ve been ethnically cleansed.
I’m sick of the ethnic cleansing by the Arabs. It’s not Israel that’s stopping Palestinians from leaving if they don’t like it where they’re at — tho Israel DOES stop them from coming into Israel.
The increasing Jew hate throughout the world is terrible.
I don’t think there are any Arab Muslim countries with even 1 million Jews left —
The Muslim country with the largest current Jewish population (per the Jewish Virtual Library) is Turkey, with 15,000. Iran has 8,500 Jews remaining. Azerbaijan has 7,800.
Notable Jewish populations in Latin America are those of Argentina (180,000), Brazil (93,000), Mexico (40,000), Chile (18,000), Uruguay (16,000), and Panama (10,000),
South Africa, a wretchedly crime-ridden middle-income country, has 69,000 Jews.
This has some history & legal information.
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/294359/israels-rights-in-the-west-bank-under-international-law