Israeli Defiance:

Prosecutor Says Illegal Israeli settlements should be retroactively legalized

Israeli prosecutor's office says West Bank settlements should be retroactively legalized

Thursday September 03, 2009 08:22 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

In two separate court cases heard in an Israeli occupation government court on Wednesday, a representative for the State Prosecutor's office issued statements that certain settlements previously considered illegal under Israeli law (for being built on Palestinian lands) will now be retroactively legalized.  The statements could indicate a major policy shift for the Israeli occupation government, and a major rebuke to the US President's recent push for an Israeli settlement freeze.

The move came just days after a group of mayors of illegal Israeli settlements (built on Palestinian lands) met with members of the Israeli Prime Minister's office to demand that all West Bank settlements be recognized, legal or not.
 
Shaul Goldstein, one of the settler leaders who took part in that meeting, threatened the Prime Minister's Director General, "Everything is in the hands of the prime minister, and there will be no hesitation to do battle with him."  Goldstein and the other settler leaders complained that they felt humiliated by the potential for a settlement freeze, arguing that they should be allowed to build and expand the settlements in the West Bank.
 
The issue of the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank (all of them are illegal as they are built on Palestinian lands) has been a source of friction between the US administration of Barack Obama and the Israeli administration of Binyamin Netanyahu, both inaugurated earlier this year.  Over 500,000 Israelis live in settlements constructed in contravention of international law on land seized by military force in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, most of whom moved there after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 forbidding any further Israeli encroachment onto Palestinian land.
 
But Israeli forces have willfully ignored the directives of the Oslo Accords, the Fourth Geneva Convention and UN Resolutions, continuing to protect Israeli settlers' expanding developments on Palestinian land.  The Israeli government has differentiated between what it terms 'legal' and 'illegal' settlements, implying that some are acceptable under Israeli law, while others are not.  All of the settlements are considered illegal under international law.