Israel is ignoring “the condemnations of its allies and moved” to “advance plans for new West Bank settler homes, for what is expected to be a total package of 10,000 new units.” An article from the Jerusalem Post states:
The rising international anger over settlements, with condemnations from the European Union as well as neighboring Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, has not determined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the pursuit of settlement activity, which he and his government view as a response to the rising terror attacks.
In stark contrast to the Trump administration once again, the latest pressure on Israel to acquiesce to Palestinian demands is coming from the Biden administration:
US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday said that the Biden administration was working together with Israel’s allies to jointly express their collective displeasure over settlement activity.
Israel is a sovereign nation that has been under threat of obliteration from the day of its birth and has courageously demonstrated its unwillingness to surrender to foreign interference, including that of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is often used as a legal source with which Israel can be beaten down. However, as a free country with an independent judiciary, “Israeli courts have confirmed the legality of certain settlement activities.”
Despite the global gang-up against Israel, which only encourages jihad terror against Israeli citizens, not all international scholars agree with the ICJ’s opinion that the settlements violate international law. An American jurist, international judge, counsel and arbitrator, Stephen Schwebel, asserts that “Israel had a more legitimate claim on Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip than its adversaries.” Schwebel is also a former president of the International Court of Justice. Northwestern University Professor of Law Eugene Kontorovich, a renowned expert in constitutional law and international law, also makes a sound legal case for Israel’s position on settlements. He notes that Israel is not “an unlawful occupying power—certainly not according to any binding international laws.” He also takes into consideration “the historical complexities of the issue and the legal circumstances,” while noting the hypocrisy of the international community:
Kontorovich noted the double standards that have politicized international law, and undermined its integrity. Only Israel’s actions in the West Bank are deemed unlawful and worthy of boycott, even as plenty of other countries—including America—have occupied territories and enabled their citizens to live in them. Kontorovich points to over a dozen other cases (e.g., Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara; Turkey’s occupation of Northern Cyprus) along with a few that are less well known, like the U.S. occupation of West Berlin which ended in 1990.
The ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have firmly defended Palestinian interests. The ICJ is a civil tribunal that hears disputes between countries, while the ICC is a criminal tribunal that prosecutes individuals. The Palestinians secured their influence in both, underhandedly, long ago. For instance, on December 31, 2014, the Palestinians announced that they were joining the ICC with the specific intention to pursue war crimes investigations and charges against Israel. Their announcement came a day after the UN Security Council voted down a resolution setting a three-year deadline for the establishment of a Palestinian state on lands that the UN regards as “occupied” by Israel. In response to the disappointment, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated: “We want to complain. There’s aggression against us, against our land. The Security Council disappointed us.” Then came the ploy to join the ICC, and only three months later, it was a done deal. The Palestinians “formally joined” the ICC, an act that the BBC described as “a key step towards being able to pursue Israelis for alleged war crimes.”
The Trump Administration firmly stood by Israel. On November 18, 2019, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo stated in reference to so-called illegal settlements, with regard to the ICJ:
The idea that settlements are illegal derives primarily from UN resolutions and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is an arm of the UN. The UN does not make legal determinations, only political ones. The ICJ “does not have jurisdiction over all disputes between UN member-states,” according to the Congressional Research Service. In fact, “with the exception of ‘advisory opinions,’ which are non-binding, the ICJ may only resolve legal disputes between nations that voluntarily agreed to its jurisdiction.”
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan, is now calling “on the international community to condemn the latest terror attacks against Israeli civilians in the strongest and unequivocal terms. Those abhorrent crimes are being encouraged and applauded by the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and PFLP among others.”
Yet the condemnation of Israel that is coming from America, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom encourages jihad aggression. It empowers the jihadi cause and the false belief that Israel has no right to build on its own ancient land. Whenever jihadists strike Israel with rocket fire and murder its citizens, the message is sent that the jihadists were provoked by Israeli enormities. Israel’s critics, however, will prove to be on the wrong side of history. Every major political organization that is governing the Palestinians plainly states its intention of obliterating Israel. This is consistent with an Islamic vision of full conquest of the Middle East. At the United Nations in 2018, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) foreign ministers adopted a statement demanding respect for Islam. The Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, is now not unexpectedly stirring up even further international animosity against Israel, and demanding action against Israel from the UN Security Council. The UN long ago established firm ties with the OIC. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has declared that ties linking the UN and the OIC are based on a “shared belief in cooperation, dialogue, solidarity.” Those ties have strengthened in the past few years, reflected in vigorous antagonism against Israel.
In 2021, the OIC went to the UN and called upon it to “take serious measures to hold Israel accountable.” Then in March 2022, the UN designated March 15 the “International Day to Combat Islamophobia.” As Iranian Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali Reza A’arafi, who is currently a member of the Guardian Council and also a member of the Assembly of Experts, put it: “Palestine has turned into a symbol of Islamic unity and resistance.”
Israel has no other choice but to defend its interests in the face of enemies which have effectively waged an international propaganda campaign against it.
The UN condemns Islamaphobia! Why don’t they condemn Jewaphobia?
I fear for my own country Australia as our lesbian Foreign Minister has also condemned Israel.
Obviously they don’t know what God says in the Bible re Israel – “I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse”
It doesn’t condem “JUDEOPHOBIA” because its members are JUDEOPHOBES.
Like it or not,Anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not ,moral or otherwise,equivalents.Check out any commonly used dictionary,except maybe the Zionist Dictionary,Revised Ed.
Being a lifetime,actually six million lifetimes,away from the holocaust,Jews,and Humanity,generally,would be fools to ignore the scourge of antisemitism.Of course,we need to be vigilant.
Jews had their eyes open when they Occupied the Palestinian Homeland.Jews had their eyes open when they Displaced and Ethnically Cleansed Palestinian Christians and other non-Jews from Palestine,where Palestinian Jews were a minority to Palestinian Arabs,ie Palestinian Christian and Muslim communities.
Jews own this,and need to look no further then themselves for the Anti-Zionism we see today.Because Zionists equate one with the other,they also share some accountability for for antisemitism,related to this. Just sayin’.
It’s very hard to see an ally among the countries critical of Israel. Just as in the past Israel can count only on itself. The decades long false hope for a two state solution has run its course and it is time to send the Pals back to Jordan for good.
There will never be a two state solution. And the US and the UN and the EU all know it. The problem is that like lunatics, they all try the same approach over and over again and expect different results. There are two reasons for this idiocy: one is that they love the Arabs. The other is that they hate us. We had the chutzpah to win a war that redefined the Middle East. Time to come to terms with that. We have.
True. There will never be a two state solution because number One, God does not want his Land divided either.. By stripping Jerusalem of its Jewish Identity, the UN also stripped away Christian history and practice. The UN is trying to rob the Jewish people of 4,000 years of their history and erase 2,000 years of Christian history. The UN resolutions also contribute to the worldwide campaign to (delegitimize Israel.) As far as God is concerned The Abrahamic Covenant between God and Israel is still in place that gave them the Title Deed to the Land.
Genesis 12:1-7.
If people knew how many Israeli innovations in science and medicine make our lives better they might appreciate Israel. God also said re Israel – “All peoples on the earth will be blessed through you.” Gen 12:3
Christine, as an American, Israeli, Jew who survived 2 wars in Israel, it’s past the time that Israel put on its big boy pants and said thank you to those who supported, and gave money for the establishment of the state of Israel. As Menachem Begin told then Senator Biden, “Don’t threaten us with cutting off aid to give up our principles, I’m not a Jew with trembling knees, I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.” We are a vibrant democratic country surrounded by dictatorships wallowing in a sea of 3rd world countries who can barely feed, educate, and medically take care of their people. Nice that the UN wants peace, but with whom, the guy in his 19th year of his 4 year term, or the guy worth a few billion who lives in Qatar but keeps his finger on his people in Gaza. So to those demanding Jews not to build on purchased Jewish land I say bugger off.
Well said. Totally agree with you.
The United Nations has tried to damage Israel in every way. Benjamin Netanyahu Rightly called the attempts by the UN to delegitimize Israel of her identity. and Historical Connection to Jerusalem.” “The Theater of the Absurd,” and He is absolutely correct.
I like the 10 Comandments. Not 10 opinions. Nor the 10 suggestions. But TEN COMMANDMENTS. Let’s start with the one that Gd says, ‘you will have no other gods or idols BEFORE me.’
Now just let that sink in and explain to me what you have and are practicing !
Expansions, how so? Israel must take and inhabit all of the land promised to
Abraham. Now confronted by people that want you dead and gone and have,
no right to your land or lives requires faith in The Almighty who is your
mentor. Those Nations on the side of evil will draw to themselves dark
shadows of corruption and decay. Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem and
the Spirit of David in the IDF.
I also submit that there is a much simpler, non-theological justification for Israel building on the land in question — that land was acquired by Israel via its DEFENSIVE response to wars of aggression/genocidal aspiration that were initiated by Arab Muslims..
In no conflict in human history has the aggressor and initiator of war (and, the losing party) possessed the gall to ask the victorious party for its territory back, as a reward for its belligerence.
For the Millennia since their own Occupation and Ethnic Cleansing at the hands of the victorious Roman colonizers,Jews have been an increasing minority in Palestine.That changed,of course,when the Jewish diaspora,for all intents and purposes European,along with Regional Jewish communities,carried on that tried and true policy of Colonization,ie ,Occupation,Displacement,Ethnic Cleansing,Victimization,and Privilege.
Like most Victimizers,including those guilty of Crimes Against Humanity,including Genocide,Jews engage in the Narrative and Agenda of Denial and Victim-Blaming,little different from the Neo-Nazi crowd and the Turks. Quote me. Just sayin’.
Jews need to think twice about criticizing their Christian “allies” when it comes to liberal,Christian,democratic values.As Jews know all too well,the worm,Christian or otherwise,can turn on a dime.The world has seen what happened to racial Rhodesia and Apartheid Israel when it’s once valued western “allies” deserted them. Jewish Apartheid Israel will squirm like a pinned worm if and when their liberal democratic “allies” abandon the evils of Zionism and embraces Palestinian Human Rights. Quote me. Just sayin’.
“The world has seen what happened to racial Rhodesia and Apartheid Israel ” should read
“The world has seen what happened to racial Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa.”
Not too late to change direction,and all stakeholders need to take to heart and wisdom the Golden Rule.
Just sayin’.