The Verity Courier
The New Netanyahu Government
By Ron Estes
3 March 2023
The new Netanyahu Government in Israel has arrived with a thud. Benjamin Netanyahu, elected for the 6th time as Prime Minister of Israel, has formed a coalition to govern which Israeli media has classified as the most right-wing in the history of Israel. And already the new government has precipitated a crisis for the Biden administration in the UN Security Council.
The Netanyahu Government has avowed to strengthen and increase the size of Israeli settlements built on Israeli occupied Palestinian territory, and challenging that is a draft resolution introduced to the Security Council by the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the Security Council, which demands an immediate halt to Israeli settlement activity. That resolution is being actively supported by the Palestinian leadership. This confrontation is thwarting the U.S. intention to guide this UNSC session into a five day condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
For domestic political reasons, in the face of the upcoming 2024 election, the U.S. is opposed to the UAE, Palestinian supported resolution, and will most certainly veto it, despite the fact that the resolution will be strongly endorsed by the Security Council as a necessary requirement to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli, Palestinian crisis.
Not to jeopardize the support of the Israel lobby and Evangelicals in the U.S., both Democratic and Republican parties have historically ignored the fact that the Israeli settlements are a violation of international law, even though the UN and the international community consider the settlements illegal.
In fact, the Israeli settlements violate Article 49, of the Fourth Geneva Convention which explicitly stipulates that “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Violations of the Geneva Convention are prosecutable as war crimes before the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The UN International Court of Justice ruled that Israeli provision of infrastructure, land, funding, schools, synagogues, water, electricity, roads, etc., constitutes transfer of civilian population to occupied territory. Consequently, Amnesty International, the Human Rights Watch, the European Union, and the Conference of the Convention of the High Contracting Parties of the Geneva Convention have also declared the Israeli settlements to be illegal.
Once again, the question of the benefit to the U.S. of its unfettered relationship with Israel comes to the fore. Israel has constructed 144 settlements in the occupied West Bank, including 12 in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed. Approximately 700,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The U.S. has historically opposed the introduction of Israeli settlements on occupied territory, also making the point that they are obstacles to introducing a two-state peace solution.
Another U.S. veto of a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements will once again
damage U.S. credibility as a peace broker in the Israeli, Palestinian confrontation, and increase U.S difficulty in attracting Arab allies in operations against radical Muslim terrorist groups, which have always been forthcoming in the past.
One must question the benefits to the U.S. in not joining the international community in condemning Israeli illegal settlements.
Ron Estes served 25 years as an Operations Officer in the CIA Clandestine Service.