Mr Alhadeff (letters, 21 January) needs to brush up on international law to prevent his nose getting longer and longer…
Gilo is in East Jerusalem, according to Haaretz, Israel’s moderate newspaper, but is included in the Municipality of Jerusalem. It is well documented that the USA , EU, and UN always slam Israel’s plans to expand Gilo.
Gilo is built on West Bank land, ILLEGALLY annexed in 1967. The annexation of land by military conquest is illegal in violation of both the Hague Regulations (1907) and UN Charter (1945). Apropos this also applies to Palestinian land gained by the zionists in 1948.
Furthermore all settlements are held illegal under international law, Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war states: ‘The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies’.
Archeology is used as a propaganda tool to justify the theft of Palestine. According to Israeli Prof. Shlomo Sand– ‘The Land of Israel is not the homeland of the Jews. It becomes a homeland at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th − only upon the emergence of the Zionist movement’.
Finally land swaps are an infringement of the rights of an occupied people and illegal as enshrined in the Regulations Annexed to the Hague Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of Wars on Land of 1907 (Hague Regulations), reflective of customary international law, and in the Fourth Geneva Convention Concerning the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 1949 (Fourth Geneva Convention), for the most part reflective of customary international law.
Dr Vacy Vlazna, co-ordinator, Justice for Palestine Matters (www.palestinematters.com), Sydney
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