The Israeli settlement issue is against international law?  Or so it is claimed. But is it? The first thing to understand is what is happening on the ground. In Israel, they are building housing for their growing population. Those units are being built on land that is of disputed ownership. As such, under UN resolution 446, 465, and the Fourth Geneva Convention, those settlements are illegal. Here is the law as it applies to the matter at hand and as such, black and white, those settlements are illegal. Plain and simple. Except you may have guessed Israel disagrees. So what? Who cares? They are biased and cannot be expected to have any other opinion. As such, they do not count. Except in international law, their opinion in fact does count. To bring the matter before the International courts, both sovereign states must agree to submit their dispute to the resolution of the International Court. Without the trial, all you have is presumed guilt. Without consent you have no trial. So to settle the matter, Israel is not violation anything international law has proclaimed for in fact no judgement has be issued.

However, by the same logic; Israel having a right to exist under the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine has also been soundly ignored, not just by the Palestinians but the Arab world in general. In 2013 Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh reiterated that the Palestinian Arabs will never recognize Israel’s right to exist, nor any right to exist as the Jewish state. “Palestinians did not and will not recognize Israel.” One can only then wonder why this point is not made by those claiming that Israel is violation of international law. Before one state can take another state to the international court, by overt action or explicit comment, they must acknowledge that the other has a right to exist, least there is no other party in which to bring suit against in any court. You cannot sue a phantom, you cannot try a ghost. It must include real people, living in a real state that must have the real right to exist.

So no, there is no violation of any international, both by the lack of any such court case, any willingness to bring such a case to a court and lastly, any acknowledgment of the right of the other party to exist. Having said all this, we can thus go forward and say that this issue is a non-issue. The Israelis do not need to make settlements on those lands and should place them elsewhere. This is a lightning rod of for attention that need not necessarily be the case. It offers Israeli’s enemies a soft target to attack that almost sounds legitimate. The real reason they make such settlements on contested land is to stick a thumb in the eyes of those same enemies, showing them, enraging them in some cases, that there is nothing that can be done to stop making those settlements. Until they listen to their better angels, the problem will continue the cycle of violence. The people of Israel and the state itself deserve better representation from their government. Simple as that, something choices are better than others.