The announcement that Israel will construct 3,000 new homes in settlements in Jerusalem and in the West Bank has been followed by the usual international outcry against it. Despite protests by leading industrialized nations Israel will probably build them as planned. Those that claim that Palestine recognition at the United Nations is a threat to peace will, again, miss the obvious point. The real threat to peace is the construction of illegal settlements in Palestinian land.
Settlement construction is controversial issue on which most nations, except Israel, agree: they are illegal under international law. On May 14, European Foreign Affairs Ministers stated, The European Union expresses deep concern about the marked acceleration of settlement construction following the end of the 2012 moratorium, the recent decision of the government of Israel regarding the status of some settlement outposts as well as the proposal to relocate settlers from Migron within the occupied Palestinian territory
Several United Nations resolutions have stated that both the building and existence of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are a violation of international law, particularly UN Security Council resolutions in 1979 and 1980. UN Security Council Resolution 446 refers to the Fourth Geneva Convention as the appropriate legal instrument. It calls upon Israel to desist from transferring its own population into the territories or changing their demographic makeup.
In 2004, an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice determined that Israel had breached its obligations under international law by establishing settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It also concluded that Israel cannot rely on a right of self-defense or on a state of necessity in order to preclude the wrongfulness of imposing a régime which is contrary to international law. The Court also determined that the Israeli régime violates the basic human rights of Palestinians by impeding the liberty of movement of the inhabitants of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (with the exception of Israeli citizens) and their exercise of their right to work, to health, to education and to an adequate standard of living.
Furthermore, Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the International Criminal Court Rome Statute defines the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies as a war crime. Although Israel initially signed the statute, it later declared its intention not to ratify it.
