{Originally posted to author’s website, FirstOneThrough}
Many people have argued that it is illegal for Israelis to live beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines (east of the Green Line, EGL/Judea and Samaria/West Bank). The question of “legitimacy” (not legality) has been repeated often by the USA’s Obama Administration. Those comments are more harsh towards Israel than prior American administrations that simply viewed new settlements as “unhelpful” to a peace agreement between Israel and the Arab states. Jimmy Carter was the only US president that actually called the settlements “illegal”. Below is a review of the international laws that apply towards the settlements.
Fourth Geneva Convention
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention deals with the treatment of “occupied territory“. It is unclear whether it applies to territory obtained in both offensive and defensive wars, but this review will assume that the law stands in either case.
The majority of Article 49 is about the treatment of the inhabitants of the occupied territory and not about the “Occupying Power” transferring in its own population. The opening paragraph:
“Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”
This paragraph does not relate to Israelis living in EGL for several reasons:
The language is about people from the occupied territory, not to the occupied territory. It underscores the flagrant illegal eviction of Jews from Judea and Samaria by the Jordanians in 1949. As the Arabs living in EGL were not forcibly transferred to any country, Israel did nothing counter to this law.
The next paragraphs deal with exceptions to the main directive stated above for military reasons:
“Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased.”
The law permits operations involving security. This clause allows the building of the security barrier inside the West Bank that Israel erected in reaction to the Second Intifada, and relocation of people impacted to construct such barrier.
“The Occupying Power undertaking such transfers or evacuations shall ensure, to the greatest practicable extent, that proper accommodation is provided to receive the protected persons, that the removals are effected in satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, and that members of the same family are not separated. The Protecting Power shall be informed of any transfers and evacuations as soon as they have taken place. The Occupying Power shall not detain protected persons in an area particularly exposed to the dangers of war unless the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand.”
These paragraphs seek to protect people, even in the case of a necessary evacuation. The only Arabs that Israel moved out of the West Bank were people who were arrested and therefore not relevant to this clause.
As seen above, almost the entirety of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention has to do with the local population- in this case, a theoretical transfer of Arabs out of EGL/Judea and Samaria/West Bank. Only the last paragraph addresses the civilians of an “Occupying Power”.
“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”