Wednesday, January 08, 2020
From Ian:
Netanyahu: I won’t let settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan
Pompeo 'disavows' Carter-era anti-settlement policy
Bennett: Area C of West Bank belongs to us, we’re waging a battle for it
Netanyahu: I won’t let settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan
Settlements will not be evacuated in any peace plan while Benjamin Netanyahu is prime minister, he vowed on Wednesday amid talk that the Trump administration may present its peace plan within weeks.PM Netanyahu: "Israel is Completely Beside the United States"
“I will not let any settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan. This idea of ethnic cleansing...It won’t happen,” Netanyahu said at the Kohelet Forum’s conference on the US decision that settlements are not illegal.
His remarks came as diplomatic sources say the Trump administration is strongly considering releasing its plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming weeks, before the March 2 Knesset election.
“There is a window of opportunity. It opened, but it could close,” Netanyahu added, warning of “weak leadership” that will “hit rewind,” in an apparent reference to his election rival Blue and White leader Benny Gantz.
Netanyahu expounded on Jewish rights to live in Judea and Samaria, pointing to its anchoring in legal documents from the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations.
“There was no West Bank separate from the rest of the land. It was seen as the heart of the land. We never lost our right to live in Judea and Samaria. The only thing we lost temporarily was the ability to exercise the right,” Netanyahu explained.
Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised US President Donald Trump for authorizing the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran's Quds force. In his speech at a summit in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Soleimani was behind deaths of "countless" innocents and sowed "fear, and misery, and anguish" -- and was planning to do even worse.
Pompeo 'disavows' Carter-era anti-settlement policy
The US rejects a 1978 memo determining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday in a video statement to the Kohelet Forum’s conference on his settlement policy.
Pompeo said the US is “disavowing the deeply flawed" the Carter-era memorandum, written by then-State Department Legal Adviser Herbert Hansell, which called all Israeli settlements beyond the 1949 armistice lines to be illegal.
This goes a step further than Pompeo’s statement in November that the US “no longer recognize Israeli settlements as per se inconsistent with international law.”
“It’s important to speak the truth that the facts lead us to, and that is what we have done,” Pompeo said in his video message. “We are recognizing that settlements do not inherently violate international law.”
As such, he added, the US is returning to a more “balanced” policy, “advancing the cause of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Kohelet Forum said: “For decades, the obscure Carter-era memo was used as justification for anti-Israel policies...Secretary Pompeo’s statement makes clear the US’s wholesale rejection of the legal theory that holds that international law restricts Israeli Jews from moving into areas from which Jordan had ethnically cleansed them in 1949.”
Celebrating “Pompeo Doctrine” on legality of Israeli settlements with Psagot @SecPompeo wine at @KoheletForum conference, with @IsraeliPM @USAmbIsrael @AmbDermer. pic.twitter.com/RhdxPNRcic
— Eugene Kontorovich (@EVKontorovich) January 8, 2020
Bennett: Area C of West Bank belongs to us, we’re waging a battle for it
Israel is waging a “real battle” against the Palestinians for control of Area C of the West Bank, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said on Wednesday, as he declared “officially" that the territory belongs to Israel.
“Our objective is that within a short amount of time, and we will work for it, we will apply [Israeli] sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another,” Bennett told the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem.
Bennett, who heads the New Right party, added that he intended to make that demand part of his coalition agreement to enter the new government after the elections.
The second goal, Bennett said, was to ensure through the promotion of settlement construction to ensure that within a decade a million Jews will live in Judea and Samaria.
In the interim, Bennett said, “We are embarking on a real and immediate battle for the future of the Land of Israel and the future of Area C. It started a month ago and I am announcing it here today.”
