Friday, December 4, 2015

Israel Draws up Document Justifying Legal Claims to Judea and Samaria

Read here

1. "Israel's adversaries, and even some friends, assert that settlements are an obstacle to peace. The evidence points to the opposite conclusion. From 1949-67, when Jews were forbidden to live on the West Bank, the Arabs refused to make peace with Israel. From 1967-77, the Labor Party established only a few strategic settlements in the territories, yet the Arabs showed no interest in making peace with Israel. In 1977, months after a Likud government committed to greater settlement activity took power, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat went to Jerusalem. One year later, Israel froze settlements, hoping the gesture would entice other Arabs to join the Camp David peace process. But none would. In another Camp David summit in 2000, Ehud Barak offered to dismantle most settlements and create a Palestinian state in exchange for peace, and Yasser Arafat rejected the plan."

2. "According to Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration, Resolution 242 gives Israel a legal right to be in the West Bank. The resolution “allows Israel to administer the territories” it won in 1967 “until 'a just and lasting peace in the Middle East' is achieved,” Rostow wrote in The New Republic (10/21/91)."

3. "The area in dispute is also very small. According to one organization critical of settlements, the built-up areas constitute only 1.7% of the West Bank. That is less than 40 square miles. Even if you add the unbuilt areas falling with the municipal boundaries of the settlements, the total area is only 152 square miles."

All info taken from Jewish Virtual Library. Click here to read more. 

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