James May: ” I am particularly interested in how depicting the settlements as ‘illegal’ is false.”
Sure.
There is no law making them illegal.
Geneva Conventions prohibit forced population transfers in occupied territory. However the Palestinians have not been forced out and the ‘settlers’ were not forced in. There is no law prohibiting building or living in occupied land.
Article 49 “Art. 49. 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.
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.”
Hostilities have clearly not ceased.
In the case of East Jerusalem it was annexed by Israel. Annexation is not illegal and it becomes your territory, if you can keep it.
One plan floated if Palestinians declare a state is for Israel to annex the major settlement blocks. Of course this will not be accepted and it would leave the Palestinians in a worse situation than if they had negotiated. Once the territory is no longer occupied Israel would have no responsibilities to the Palestinians for cooperation on trade, transportation, water and power. West bank economy would collapse. A negotiated settlement could address all of that.
