Judea and Samaria - Status According to Israel
Some in Israel aspire to expand geographically in the Arab region according to the concept of the Promised Land and Greater Israel. Israel’s felt need for a geographical depth requires the annexation of the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza and the imposition of Israeli sovereignty over them. This is supported in this by evangelical Christian Zionists who link the establishment of Greater Israel to the return of Christ. These goals can only be implemented by military force. Ideological dimensions, regardless of their validity, remain a motivation for those who believe in them.
The Israeli dilemma is that the number of Palestinians inside historical Palestine has become close to the number of Jews, that is, about seven million Palestinians, compared to seven million Jews. This is, of course, without taking into account the number of Palestinians outside Palestine, whose number also amounts to about 7 million. In May 2018, the then - Deputy Head of the Israeli Civil Administration, Uri Mendes, presented to the Knesset a forecast for Palestinian population growth by 2050, indicating that the number of Palestinians in the area between the sea and the river will reach more than 13 million in 2050, compared to about 10.6 million Jews.
Israeli plans to deal with the demographic challenge that favors the Palestinians seem to include forcibly displacing the Palestinians or the largest number of them, as had happened since 1948, which is what the occupation seemed to be seeking in the Gaza Strip in 2024. This is done in the West Bank by restricting the livelihood of Palestinians, confiscating their agricultural lands , and depriving them of security through settlement expansion and doubling the number of settlers who practice the most heinous types of violations against Palestinian civilians; killing and destroying their property. If Israel does not succeed in displacing the Palestinians who are showing steadfastness and adherence to their land despite the humanitarian catastrophe they are experiencing as a result of the occupation, its army and its settlers, then Israel will be forced to accept the Palestinians and deal with them as an Arab minority, and not as citizens with equal political rights with the Jews in the State of Israel. Donald Trump expressed his sympathy with Israel during the 2024 election campaign in terms of expanding its geographical borders, at the expense of the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, if not at the expense of Arab lands in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. This was not surprising, as he is the author of the “Deal of the Century” that he presented in January 2020 , which calls for annexing large areas of the West Bank to Israel and imposing Israeli sovereignty over them, and forming a Palestinian entity without an army and without sovereignty or control over its land, air and sea borders in favor of Israel, not to mention his recognition of a unified Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel, and Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan. What increased the concern in this direction was that the figures nominated to form the next Donald Trump administration, whether at the level of Secretary of State, Defense, National Security Advisor, National Intelligence, or the US Ambassador to Israel, are Zionist figures who support Israel’s control over the West Bank with geopolitical and evangelical theological dimensions as well. Yechiel Leiter, a staunch defender of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and vocal advocate for the war in Gaza, is set to become Israel’s new ambassador to the US. His appointment by Netanyahu comes just days after Trump’s re-election – signalling a policy shift aligned with renewed debates over annexation. The former government aide and right-wing writer had established himself as a prominent figure in conservative circles. For some, the move reflects Netanyahu’s expectation that a second Trump term will be more permissive of Israel when he takes office on January 20 – the same day Leiter will become Israel’s new US envoy.
Leiter’s activism in the Jewish Defense League is what brought him to move to the Israeli settlement of Eli in the occupied West Bank, north of Ramallah. In his former years spent in the organisation, Leiter was part of a settler activist subgroup who eventually all moved into West Bank settlements. Leiter also participated in the public campaign against the Oslo Accords in the 1990s and has continued to voice his criticism of the widely celebrated peace deal that he says was “made to be breached”.
During a eulogy Leiter gave at his son Moshe’s funeral in November 2023, he addressed the US president directly. “There are rumours that you are putting pressure on Israel to hold off,” he told listeners at the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem. “I respectfully ask of you, here on my son’s grave, to cease and desist. ... This is a war of light against darkness, of truth against lies, of civility against murderous barbarism,” he continued. “Take it from one plain-speaking Scrantonian to another – we’re going to win this one, with you or without you.”
Michael Omer-Man, the director of research on Israel-Palestine for Democracy for the Arab World Now, described Leiter as “somebody who is ideologically aligned with the most radical streams of Israeli settlement intellectual thought and ideological movement”. Hadar Susskind, CEO of Americans for Peace Now, a non-profit dedicated to finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict, told Haaretz on November 8. “Sending a Kahanist settler to Washington is a clear sign that Netanyahu and his government are moving toward their goal of annexation and doing so openly.”
"Even before the President-elect picked Mike Huckabee to be his Israel envoy, far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich and other post-election partygoers in Israel were openly talking about Trump's second term as an opportunity to permanently 'take the land' from Palestinians" Allison Kaplan Somme wrote 12 November 2024. Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on 11 November 2024, he stood before a meeting of his Religious Zionism party and declared that "2025 is the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria." The far-right finance minister said "The new Nazis need to pay a price through land that will be permanently taken from them, both in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria... We were just a step away from applying sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], and now the time has come to do it".
Steffen Seibert, Ambassador of Germany to Israel, stated "The demand by Minister Smotrich to "apply sovereignty" over the Westbank is an open call for annexation. Any preparation to implement this goal is in full breach of international law. We strongly condemn this announcement which threatens the stability of the entire region."
Netanyahu's government coalition agreement begins with a declaration that the Jewish people have a "natural right" to the entire Land of Israel, and includes a commitment to advance policies within whose framework the West Bank will be annexed. Netanyahu himself is on the record as desiring annexation of much – if not all – of the West Bank.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on 03 November 2024 stated that the Palestinians are an Arab minority or community living in the State of Israel, and they must forget their national identity; that is, they are not a people or a nation and have the right to self-determination. Palestinians can live as residents in an autonomous area expressed as municipal rule/municipalities. They are entitled to civil rights according to Israeli standards, but without the political eligibility that would allow them equality with Israeli Jews in the State of Israel, meaning that they are not entitled to be members of the Knesset or partners in government. He added in his clarification that whoever accepts this can live under Israeli sovereignty, and whoever refuses will be displaced or treated as a terrorist, i.e. killed. Orit Struck, the Minister of Settlement in Benjamin Netanyahu's government, stated 14 November 22024 that she is working hard to declare Israeli sovereignty over the largest possible area of the West Bank, and that no strategy should be developed to exit the Gaza Strip. This occupation vision for both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, through settlement expansion and the declaration of Israeli sovereignty over them, does not represent the personal vision of this minister or that official in occupied Israel, or its extreme right-wing government, but rather expresses policies and legislation adopted in the entity. The Knesset (parliament) passed a law in July 2024 rejecting the Palestinian state by an overwhelming majority, with 99 out of 120 Knesset members voting in favor of the law. Donald Trump announced 12 November 2024 evangelical Christian Mike Huckabee would be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee, a former Governor of Arkansas, is a proponent of Greater Israel, and has had close relations with Israeli settlers and the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization of municipal councils of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, throughout the course of his political career. Huckabee called on Trump to endorse West Bank annexation prior to the announcement of the Abraham Accords, while stating that the Palestinians' refusal of the Jared Kushner-authored "Deal of the Century" proved that the Palestinians have "no interest in reaching some type of conclusion."
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas said 12 November 2024 that Smotrich's remarks confirmed that the Israeli government intends to annex the West Bank in violation of international law, and criticized, "Israel bears full responsibility for the reaction caused by such a dangerous policy, and the United States, which has continued to support Israel's aggression, is also responsible."
Less than a month after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and must end “as rapidly as possible”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country will not relinquish control over the occupied West Bank. “It’s part of our homeland. We intend to stay there,” Netanyahu said of the occupied Palestinian land in an interview with TIME Magazine, published on 08 August 2024. “We don’t rule their land. We don’t run Ramallah. We don’t run Jenin,” Netanyahu said, referring to Palestinian towns in the West Bank. “But we go in and take action when we have to prevent terrorism.”
The International Court of Justice on 19 July 2024 called on Israel to stop settlement activity in the Palestinian territories. Israel's occupation of parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is contrary to international law and must be stopped as soon as possible, the court said . Its ruling also referred to the "illegal occupation" of the Gaza Strip. The case is related to a request from the UN General Assembly, which was received even before the start of a major Israeli army operation in the Gaza Strip against the radical Palestinian group Hamas. Since 1967, when the Israelis took control of the areas, including East Jerusalem, following the Six-Day War, Israel has built some 160 settlements, housing some 700,000 Jews. Now the court in The Hague has ruled that the settlements are illegal, that all their residents must leave, and that the Palestinians must pay reparations for the damage caused by the occupation.
The ICJ determined that all states and international organizations have "an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," including Gaza.It points to the fact that Israel's creation of hundreds of Jewish-only colonies on Palestinian land is inherently tied to a programme of ethnic cleansing. It reaffirms the legal reality that Israel has no "right of self-defence" when its annexation is a permanent and overt act of aggression against the Palestinian people. Netanyahu lashed out at what he called the ICJ's "lies" saying "the Jewish people do not occupy their own land." Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said the ruling was "antisemitic" and added that the time for annexation is now. Israel's Foreign Ministry rejected the ruling, which it called "blatantly one-sided."
The General Assembly’s request concerned a bilateral dispute between Palestine and Israel, and the latter has not consented to the jurisdiction of the Court to resolve that dispute, as evidenced by Israel’s vote against resolution 77/247 and its written statement in the present proceedings. A State is not obliged to allow its disputes to be submitted to judicial settlement without its consent.
In February 2023, after considerable political wrangling, the Settlements Administration, responsibile for monitoring illegal construction in the occupied West Bank, came under far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in an illegal settlement himself. Meaning that illegal settlement or outpost construction would be ignored and eventually approved, while Palestinian construction would be subject to intense scrutiny over permits, and often demolished. Since he entered government, Smotrich had pushed openly for more Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank – illegal under international law – as steps towards annexation.
According to international law, the occupying power cannot move its citizens into occupied land. Israel’s Supreme Court confirmed this in 2005. That did not stop Israelis from building illegal settlements on stolen land. And it did not stop Israeli settlers – supported by security forces sometimes – from attacking Palestinians to force them off even more land.
Israel’s government is implementing a fundamental shift in the way it manages the civil administration of Judea and Samaria by transferring authority from military to civilian hands. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the Religious Zionism Party, described the advances that had been made, and their significance, to a gathering of leaders from Judea and Samaria at Shacharit Farm, an Israeli community in western Samaria, on 09 June 2024. Smotrich said it was critical that control of civilian matters in Judea and Samaria be taken out of military hands to energize the growth of Jewish communities and block a carefully laid Palestinian Authority plan for statehood via P.A. land seizures under the Fayyad Plan.
Salaam Fayyad, P.A. prime minister from 2007 to 2013, devised a plan to take over Judea and Samaria’s Area C, a region defined by the Oslo Accords as fully under Israeli control. “We came to settle the land, to build it, and, heaven forbid, to prevent its division and the transfer of areas of the Land of Israel to our enemy, and [to prevent] the establishment of a Palestinian state that will endanger the State of Israel,” Smotrich said. The New York Times framed its reporting as an exposé revealing a carefully hidden plan.
Jewish settlement in the territory of ancient Judea and Samaria ("the West Bank") is often presented as merely a modern phenomenon. The Israeli Government maintained Jewish presence in this territory had existed for thousands of years and was recognized as legitimate in the Mandate for Palestine adopted by the League of Nations in 1922, which provided for the establishment of a Jewish state in the Jewish people's ancient homeland.
After recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and "the grounds for reconstituting their national home", the Mandate specifically stipulated in Article 6 as follows: "The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands not required for public use".
Some Jewish settlements, such as in Hebron, existed throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule, while settlements such as Neve Ya'acov, north of Jerusalem, the Gush Etzion bloc in southern Judea, and the communities north of the Dead Sea, were established under British Mandatory administration prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, and in accordance with the League of Nations Mandate.
Many contemporary Israeli settlements have been re-established on sites which were home to Jewish communities in previous generations, in an expression of the Jewish people's deep historic and abiding connection with this land - the cradle of Jewish civilization and the locus of the key events of the Hebrew Bible. A significant number are located in places where previous Jewish communities were forcibly ousted by Arab armies or militia, or slaughtered, as was the case with the ancient Jewish community of Hebron in 1929.
For more than a thousand years, the only administration which has prohibited Jewish settlement in these areas was the Jordanian occupation administration, which during the nineteen years of its rule (1948-1967) declared the sale of land to Jews a capital offense. The right of Jews to establish homes in these areas, and the private legal titles to the land which had been acquired, could not be legally invalidated by Jordanian occupation - which resulted from their illegal armed invasion of Israel in 1948 and was never recognized internationally as legitimate - and such rights and titles remain valid to this day.
The Israeli Government maintained the portrayal of Jewish communities in the West Bank as a new form of "colonial" settlement in the land of a foreign sovereign is as disingenuous as it is politically motivated. At no point in history were Jerusalem and the West Bank subject to Palestinian Arab sovereignty. At issue is the right of Jews to reside in their ancient homeland, alongside Palestinian Arab communities, in an expression of the connection of both peoples to this land.
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) or the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) prohibits the transfer of segments of the population of a state to the territory of another state which it has occupied as a result of the resort to armed force. This principle, which is reflected in Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), was drafted immediately following the Second World War and as a response to specific events that occurred during that war.
As the International Red Cross' authoritative commentary to the Convention confirms, the principle was intended to protect the local population from displacement, including endangering its separate existence as a race, as occurred with respect to the forced population transfers in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary before and during the war. Quite apart from the question of whether the Fourth Geneva Convention applies de jure to territory such as the West Bank over which there was no previous legitimate sovereign, the case of Jews voluntarily establishing homes and communities in their ancient homeland, and alongside Palestinian communities, does not match the kind of forced population transfers contemplated by Article 49(6).
As Professor Eugene Rostow, former US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs has written: "the Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there" (AJIL, 1990, vol. 84, p.72). The Israeli Government maintained the provisions of Article 49(6) regarding forced population transfer to occupied sovereign territory should not be seen as prohibiting the voluntary return of individuals to the towns and villages from which they, or their ancestors, had been forcibly ousted. Nor does it prohibit the movement of individuals to land which was not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state and which is not subject to private ownership.
The Israeli Government maintained that Israeli settlements in the West Bank had been established only after an exhaustive investigation process, under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Israel, and subject to appeal, which is designed to ensure that no communities are established illegally on private land.
The Israeli Government maintained that just as the settlements do not violate the terms of Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, they do not constitute a "grave breach" of the Fourth Geneva Convention or "war crimes", as some claim. In fact, even according to the view that these settlements are inconsistent with Article 49(6), the notion that such violations constitute a "grave breach" or a "war crime" was introduced (as a result of political pressure by Arab States) only in the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, to which leading States including Israel are not party and which, in this respect, does not reflect customary international law.
The Israeli Government maintained that in legal terms, the West Bank may be regarded as territory over which there are competing claims which should be resolved in peace process negotiations - and indeed both the Israeli and Palestinian sides have committed to this principle. Israel has valid claims to title in this territory based not only on the historic Jewish connection to, and long-time residence in this land, its designation as part of the Jewish state under the League of Nations Mandate, and Israel's legally acknowledged right to secure boundaries, but also on the fact that the territory was not previously under the legitimate sovereignty of any state and came under Israeli control in a war of self-defense. At the same time, Israel recognizes that the Palestinians also entertain claims to this area. It is for this reason that the two sides have expressly agreed to resolve all outstanding issues, including the future of the settlements, in direct bilateral negotiations to which Israel remains committed.
The bilateral agreements reached between Israel and the Palestinians, and which govern their relations, contain no prohibition on the building or expansion of settlements. On the contrary, it is specifically provided that the issue of settlements is reserved for permanent status negotiations, reflecting the understanding of both sides that this issue can only be resolved alongside other permanent status issues, such as borders and security. Indeed, the parties expressly agreed - in the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement of 1995 - that the Palestinian Authority has no jurisdiction or control over settlements or Israelis and that the settlements are subject to exclusive Israeli jurisdiction pending the conclusion of a permanent status agreement.
It has been charged that the prohibition, contained in the Interim Agreement (Article 31(7), against unilateral steps which alter the "status" of the West Bank and Gaza Strip implies a ban on settlement activity. The Israeli Government maintained this position is unfounded. This prohibition was agreed upon in order to prevent either side from taking steps which purport to change the legal status of this territory (such as by annexation or unilateral declaration of statehood), pending the outcome of permanent status negotiations. Were this prohibition to be applied to building - and given that the provision is drafted to apply equally to both sides - it would lead to the dubious interpretation that neither side is permitted to build homes to accommodate for the needs of their respective communities until permanent status negotiations are successfully concluded.
In this regard, Israel's decision to dismantle all settlements from the Gaza Strip and some in the Northern West Bank in the context of the 2005 Disengagement Plan were unilateral Israeli measures rather than the fulfilment of a legal obligation.
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