Illegality of colonies beyond doubt

The debate over Israeli colonies in the Occupied Territories is often framed in terms of whether they should be 'frozen' or allowed to grow 'naturally'. But that is akin to asking whether a thief should be allowed merely to keep his ill-gotten gains or steal some more.

It misses the most fundamental point: Under international law, all colonies on occupied territory are unlawful. And there is only one remedy: Israel should dismantle them, relocate the colonists within its recognised 1967 borders and compensate Palestinians for the losses the colonies have caused.

Removing the colonies is mandated by the laws of the Geneva Conventions, which state that military occupations are to be a temporary state of affairs and prohibit occupying powers from moving their populations into conquered territory. The intent is to foreclose an occupying power from later citing its population as 'facts on the ground; to claim the territory, something Israel has done in the eastern part of Occupied Jerusalem and appears to want to do with much of the West Bank.

The legal principles were reaffirmed in 2004 by the International Court of Justice, which cited a UN Security Council statement that the colonies were "a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention". The International Committee of the Red Cross and an overwhelming number of institutions concerned with the enforcement of international humanitarian law have concurred in that view.

The economic and social cost of Israeli colonies to the Palestinian population, stemming in part from Israel's need to protect them, are enormous. The 634 (at last count) roadblocks, barriers and checkpoints erected to control the movement of lawful residents of the territory make travel an ordeal.

Sometimes even getting to work, school or the home of a relative is impossible for Palestinians. Every day, they must wait in line for hours to show their identity cards, and some days they are randomly rerouted, told to go home or, worse, detained for questioning.

Similarly, the fact that Israel is building 87 per cent of its projected 450-mile 'security barrier' on Palestinian territory has less to do with protecting Israel from suicide bombers - which could have been accomplished by erecting a wall on the Green Line - than it does with putting 10 per cent of West Bank territory, including most settlers, on the Israeli side.

And while Israeli troops protect the colonists from armed Palestinian groups, there is little protection for Palestinians from the colonists' marauding militias and gangs, which have terrorised the local population, destroying their crops, uprooting their trees and throwing stones at their houses and schools.

Too little attention is given to the pervasive system of government-sponsored discrimination against Palestinians in the West Bank, where Israel has constructed roads exclusively for colonists and established vastly unequal access to water, fuel, education, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure and virtually every other social service.

Israeli authorities readily grant colonists building permits that they deny to Palestinians. The glaring discrepancy in Israel's treatment of two populations living on the same land has taken a significant moral toll on Israel, as well as a political one, with wide coverage of humiliation and abuse at the hands of its forces.

The common refrain of Israeli and even American politicians who recognise that the colonies must go is that it would be politically difficult to dismantle them, in part because it would stir the ire of the colonists and their supporters, an important voting bloc in Israel. Instead, politicians argue that colonists must be a part of future negotiations.

But this only serves as further incentive to expand colonists and makes a political resolution even more difficult. It also condones Israel's continuing human-rights abuses in the name of colonist security, leaving respect for Palestinians' rights a second-tier consideration that must await the conclusion of peace talks that have already gone on for decades.

Israel has a duty to protect its citizens, but not in a way that violates the rights of Palestinians. The lawful rights-respecting way to protect the security of colonists is to move them back to Israel. That should be the starting point of any discussion.

- Sarah Leah Whitson is Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.