Talk:International law and Israeli settlements

Lack of balance
The article devotes a ton of space to US and Israeli views while barely mentioning other countries' views. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  02:48, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree the US position is given undue attention, and other countries views, including France and the UK. Israel's position obviously needs to be included in depth, but we go in to tangents that arent relevant and repeatedly emphasize its position while lacking, entirely, Palestinian views at all. But I agree the US and Israeli positions are given extremely undue weight here.  nableezy  - 16:07, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Also many of the individual positions are given undue weight. Morris B. Abram and William M. Brinton merit approximately 0 words here, Julius Stone just barely more than that.  nableezy  - 16:12, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Legal arguments
This section The International community has rejected Israel's unwillingness to accept the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to the territories it occupies. [92]

Should be updated with a recent scholarly reference:

"Fifty years after his secret legal memo the Israeli government, Meron cites decades of legal scholarship on the subject and reiterates his legal opinion regarding the illegality of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. " DavidHeap (talk) 14:13, 30 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Done, I added it following the original Meron material Selfstudier (talk) 14:29, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Rostow and Grief's claims of Validity of Mandate for Palestine post- May 14th, 1948, discredited
I don't see any opposing perceptive to Rostow's opinion, which if given would refute the assumption that the 25 Articles of Mandatory Palestine are legally valid, via the 80th Article of the United Nations charter, in which the UN inherits some of the League of Nations responsibilities. A closer inspection would show that to be fat lie stretched to whimsical imagination.

Article 80

https://legal.un.org/repertory/art80.shtml

" 1.Except as may be agreed upon in individual trusteeship agreements, made under Articles 77, 79, and 81, placing each territory under the trusteeship system, and until such agreements have been concluded, nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties". " 2. Paragraph 1 of this Article shall not be interpreted as giving grounds for delay or postponement of the negotiation and conclusion of agreements for placing mandated and other territories under the trusteeship system as provided for in Article 77"

I don't know if Rostow was intentionally concealing such clauses or made an innocent mistake of showing the clauses: but the Bold parts of the Article give an entirely different picture than the UN just picking the tasks of every Legal entity created by the LON, and Israel has an excuse to take control of territories it just invaded in such a care-free matter.

Checking Article 77

https://legal.un.org/repertory/art77.shtml :

"1. The trusteeship system shall apply to such territories in the following categories as may be placed thereunder by means of trusteeship agreements: a. territories now held under mandate.

Very well: Palestine was still under British Mandate, so Article 80 is applicable to it. However, the 2nd clause of Article 77 gives a clear catch: 2. It will be a matter for subsequent agreement as to which territories in the foregoing categories will be brought under the trusteeship system and upon what terms".

In other words, the UN does not immediately inherit responsibilities of the League of Nations. For the UN to inherit certain functions from the League of Nations: an application must be submitted to the Trusteeship Council of the UN to take over a certain entity, then came to an agreement on how such entities would be administrated by the council.

The Mandate of Palestine was never at any point been turned to the UN, nor were there proposals (as far as I Know from the online Israeli-state archives) from Palestine's Arabs, or Jewry to turn the Palestine Mandate into a UN trust territory. The only proposal of placing Palestine as a trust territory under the UN's Trusteeship council in order that the 25 Articles of Mandatory Palestine remain valid post the termination of the Mandate came from the United States during the Civil war phase of the Palestine War, and it was never Implemented; The British Empire held the Mandate until May 14th, 1948, without interruption. American trusteeship proposal for Palestine

That effectively means the Mandate for Palestine did indeed die on Mid-night of May 14th, 1948, which renders its 25 articles legally invalid thereafter.

This interpretation is also supported by Lorenzo Kamal, head of the Istituto Affari Internazionali,   in his work: Imperial Perceptions of Palestine: British Influence and Power in Late Ottoman Times, and directed against the same man who made this myth:

"According to the Levy Report, Article 80 of the UN Charter implicitly recognizes the mandate for Palestine. The late Eugene Rostow (1913– 2002), former dean of Yale Law School, also known for being a key draftee of the UN Resolution 242, further clarified these aspects explaining that ‘a trust’ – as in Article 80 of the UN Charter – ‘does not end because the trustee dies .... These claims are marred by several inaccuracies.... As David Ben-Gurion clarified in July 1947: The Mandate, in fact, does not exist because it was violated by the Mandatory. We are not in favour of renewing it" -Pages 129-130

Also:

"On 19 March 1948, during the 271st meeting of the Security Council, US Ambassador Warren Austin (1877– 1962) cited UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 24(I) and pointed out: The United Nations does not automatically fall heir to the responsibilities either of the League of Nations or of the Mandatory Power in respect of the Palestine Mandate. The record seems to us entirely clear that the United Nations did not take over the League of Nations Mandate system."-Page 130.

I strongly urge Wikipedians to add the Kamal's relevant pages to the article in the "Arguments based on UNSC Resolution 242 and the British Mandate" section. For this argument -or myth given the direct evidence and discussion above -   is pretty much seemingly the only legally valid and sensible argument for the Israeli-settlements, especially when the more popular argument of Yehuda Blum's 'Missing Reversioner " has long been discredited for misunderstanding the 4th Geneva convention's purposes and conditions (Humanitarian Law meant to protect civilians in all cases) with sovereignty status of acquired territories.

Hope the editors spick up this note quickly. 188.54.112.228 (talk) 20:56, 6 January 2023 (UTC)


 * ....sorry, it's " pick ". I hope I didn't offend anyone . 188.54.112.228 (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Youd need reliable secondary sources arguing against a view to include that argument here. Not your own analysis of the primary source material.  nableezy  - 22:19, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Can amuse oneself reading the comments to the article here, search on "uti possidetis juris" as well, wouldn't worry about it too much, very much a minority point in all the legal debates. The latest I have seen about it was the 2020 ICC prosecutor view, https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2020_01746.PDF (p.56). Selfstudier (talk) 22:54, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Supreme Court
The introduction states that the Supreme Court has no opinion. But the page for Israeli settlements has the following line which seems to contradict that:

"According to Talia Sasson, the High Court of Justice in Israel, with a variety of different justices sitting, has repeatedly stated for more than 4 decades that Israel's presence in the West Bank is in violation of international law." Hovsepig (talk) 08:32, 30 October 2023 (UTC)


 * The Sasson attribution has been edited here because reliably sourced and copied to the lead here. Selfstudier (talk) 11:41, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Selfstudier: Thanks for tidying up after me. Forgot to relay back here. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:57, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Haaretz Citation
The Supreme Court of Israel, with a variety of different justices sitting, has repeatedly stated that Israel's presence in the West Bank is in violation of international law.

The Haaretz article that is cited does not actually include the quote given. 2001:67C:10EC:2885:8000:0:0:141 (talk) 13:21, 17 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I assume you mean the quote is not attributed rather than it is not there, so I have attributed it. Selfstudier (talk) 13:49, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The quote is in reference 13 - 'For 45 years, different compositions of the High Court of Justice stated again and again that Israel's presence in the West Bank violates international law, which is clearly opposed to Levy's findings.'. The text in the Wikipedia article is not a quote. Sean.hoyland (talk) 14:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Exactly - I was talking about the quote in reference 13. It does not exist in that form in the article. Also note that the article now says This article was amended on April 11, 2016, to correct a translation error. 188.61.167.217 (talk) 21:50, 21 March 2024 (UTC)