From: AICE To: Subject: AICE Update: Does the Geneva Convention prohibit the construction of Israeli settlements? Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2017 16:05:18 +0000 The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise au. 23u1 beat E-Newsletter Jewish Virtual IN THIS ISSUE Myths & Facts: Exclusive Mitchell Bard in The Times of Israel Mitchell Bard in The Jerusalem Post Podcast January is Israel Diversity Month THIS WEEK IN JEWISH HISTORY President Hoover Gives Support for Jewish Homeland (1931) First Savannah Synagogue Admitted to Reform Movement (1904) Mahmoud Abbas Elected President of Palestinian Authority (2005) January 10, 2017 Myths & Facts: Online Exclusive Does the Geneva Convention prohibit the construction of Israeli settlements? The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the forcible transfer of people of one state to the territory of another state that it has occupied as a result of a war. The intention was to ensure that local populations who came under occupation would not be forced to move. This is in no way relevant to the settlement issue. Jews are not being forced to go to the West Bank- on the contrary, they are voluntarily moving back to places where they, or their ancestors, once lived before being expelled by others. & 2012 Facts: In addition, those territories never legally belonged to either Jordan or Egypt, and certainly not to the Palestinians, who were never the sovereign authority in any part of Palestine. "The Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there," according to Professor Eugene Rostow, former undersecretary of state for political affairs.' The settlements do not displace Arabs living in the territories. The media sometimes gives the impression that for every Jew who moves to the West Bank, several hundred Palestinians are forced to leave. The truth is that the majority of settlements have been built in uninhabited a