US decision on West Bank, political gift to Israel

The Donald Trump administration has declared recently that the United States does not consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank a violation of international law, reversing four decades of American policy and removing what has been an important barrier to the annexation of Palestinian territory.

This is the latest political gift from the Trump administration to Israel which has been planning for the annexation of the West Bank. These settlements have long been a source of dispute between Israel and the international community and the Palestinians.

The US claimed, while supporting the settlements, that 'the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law'.

Settlements issue is one of the main disputes between Israel-Palestinian conflict along with the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and borders.

These settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights do not belong to Israel. These land pieces belong to Palestine and are part of a future Palestinian State. The number of people staying in these regions is growing every year.

Such settlements are really an impediment in making the Palestinian State in future. The conflict could never be resolved.

Dismissing the international legal prohibitions on Jewish settlements undermines the established framework for the peace process, including the notion of Palestinian national rights and the principle of self-determination.

Palestinians are not surprised anyway. For them, staying on the land itself is a form of non-violent protest. What the US has done now is in support of the evangelical view of Christians who call the West Bank as "Judea and Samaria" which is the Biblical name.

These settlements as the European Union rightly says give concrete expression to a policy of population transfer conducted by the State outside its territory, in violation of the rules of general international humanitarian law.

When the EU sought branding of the products made in the settlements Israel contested the same in courts. Human Rights Watch then supported the EU decision and called it an important step toward the EU member States upholding their duty not to participate in the fiction that illegal settlements are part of Israel European consumers are entitled to be confident that the products they purchase are not linked to serious violations of international humanitarian law.

Of course, for the religious-national settlers, there is nothing wrong in their staying in these disputed areas as it is their promised Biblical land. "I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River.

I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you", an Old Testament verse states.

But, religious beliefs apart, these settlements are illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention, which concerns civilian populations during a time of war, states in Article 49 that 'The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies'.

United Nations Security Council resolution 2334 also states that settlements have 'no legal validity' and constitute a flagrant violation under international law. Whoever says either Trump or the US are fair enough?