Those Israeli Settlements ‘Inconsistent with International Law’

The Biden administration has been steadily increasing its pressure on Israel. We learn that Biden has repeatedly denounced his “old friend Bibi” in private as an “SOB” and also other, even less flattering terms. The Bidenites vetoed in the Security Council a UAE-sponsored bill to require an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, but now the U.S. has proposed its own rival draft version, which differs from the bill it just vetoed in that it calls for a “temporary ceasefire” — an adjectival emphasis missing from the bill the US vetoed — but also opposes a major ground offensive in Rafah. The US bill also called for the freeing of all the hostages.

Meanwhile, the US has continued to oppose, both publicly and privately, an Israeli incursion into Rafah. But Rafah is where Hamas still has an organized force of about 10,000 combatants. It’s where huge numbers of weapons still need to be located and seized. It’s where the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is known to be hiding in one of the tunnels under Rafah. If the IDF were to do as the Americans are urging, and enter into a long or permanent ceasefire, it would mean that Hamas would be left standing, Israel would not have achieved its goal — the destruction of Hamas — and the Arab world would regard the outcome as a victory for the terror group. By not entering Rafah, Israel’s campaign over the past four months to dismantle Hamas would be fatally vitiated. The Bidenites don’t care. They are now in talks with representatives of Arab states — Israel is not privy to those talks — to discuss the “day after” the war in Gaza ends. And the Bidenites have made clear that they intend to push for an independent state of “Palestine.” Just how the Americans propose to force Israel to accept such a state is entirely unclear, but the Bidenites do have the power to abandon Israel diplomatically, by ceasing to veto the host of anti-Israel resolutions that are proposed in the UN Security Council, and even more worrisome, the Bidenites could start cutting back on military aid for Israel, thereby threatening the Jewish state’s ability to defend itself.

Who would run this state of “Palestine” — Hamas, or a Hamas-PA coalition, or a revitalized Palestinian Authority that supposedly would be a “moderate” force — even though the PA has not offered a single syllable of disapproval of the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas, and 82% of the people living in the PA-ruled parts of the West Bank approve of those unbelievably sadistic atrocities.

And what territories would be included in this state of “Palestine”? Do the Americans plan to force Israel out of Gaza, when the Israelis insist they will remain in the Strip to ensure that Hamas does not again pose a threat? And in Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank), how do the Americans propose to remove 517,000 Israeli “settlers” living there if Israel simply turns down flat the results of the Bidenite discussions with Arab states that are now taking place behind Israel’s back?

Now Antony Blinken, on a trip to Argentina, has declared that the Israeli settlements are “contrary to international law.” No, they are not. Where would we be if we couldn’t denounce those Israeli settlements ad nauseam? Here’s where: Israel has a perfect right to build settlements in Judea and Samaria, on state and waste lands, and on land purchased from, or long abandoned by, Arab owners. Its right and title comes from the Mandate for Palestine, Article 6, which called for “facilitating Jewish immigration” and “encouraging close settlement by Jews on the land.” Which land? All the land that the League of Nations decided should be included in Mandatory Palestine – all the land, that is, “from the river to the sea.” Israel has the same right to build settlements in Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank) as it does inside the 1949 armistice lines.

Nor are these settlements an “obstacle to peace.” They serve to solidify Israel’s hold over the West Bank, where those settlements are an “obstacle” not to peace, but to any invader from the East. They increase Israel’s deterrent power. And deterrence is the only sure way to prevent another major Arab onslaught on Israel. Were Israel to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, with a nine-mile-wide from Qalqilya to the sea, the temptation among Arabs to try again to defeat Israel would be very great. It was deterrence that kept the peace for more than four decades between the Soviet Union and the West during the Cold War. No one thought then that NATO bases all over Europe were an “obstacle to peace,” and no one should think that Israeli towns and cities in the West Bank are an “obstacle to peace” now.

Blinken appears to believe that a peace treaty between Israel, which would have agreed to be squeezed within the 1949 armistice lines, and the Palestinians, now handed a state, would guarantee peace between Arabs and Jews. Such a treaty would for the Muslim Arabs not be a true “peace” treaty, but rather, a “truce” treaty, one that the Muslims could break whenever they felt strong enough to threaten Israel. Muslim treaties with Infidels are modeled on the treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya, made by Muhammad with the Meccans in 628 A.D. It was supposed to last for 10 years, but as soon as Muhammad felt his forces were sufficiently strong, he broke the treaty after 18 months, and attacked the Meccans. Does Blinken know about the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya? And does he know just how well the policy of “deterrence” worked to keep the peace, from the late 1940s to 1989, between the Soviet Union and the Western world, until the former finally crumbled? How dare the Bidenites presume to lecture Israel on what it can or cannot do to ensure its survival?