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The answer to this question is a reflexive, uncritical, prejudicial, resounding "YES!" for those who have a negative bias against Israel, Zionists, Jews, and the very existence of Israel as a self-ruled, independent state. For the rest of us who may be thoughtful, truly liberal, open minded persons, the question is not so cut and dry. The following are two excerpts from Wikipedia arguing the case that Israel's settlements are illegal under international law and the case that Israel's settlements are legal under international law.
The case for the illegality of Israel's settlements:
Illegality arguments
The International Court of Justice has accused Israel of breaching international law by establishing settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. The Court maintains that Israel cannot rely on its right of self-defense or necessity to impose a regime that violates international law. The Court claims that Israel violates basic human rights by impeding liberty of movement and the inhabitants' right to work, health, education and an adequate standard of living.[50]
International intergovernmental organizations such as the Conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention,[51] major organs of the United Nations,[52] the European Union, and Canada,[53] regard the settlements as a violation of international law. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination wrote that "The status of the settlements was clearly inconsistent with Article 3 of the Convention, which, as noted in the Committee's General Recommendation XIX, prohibited all forms of racial segregation in all countries. There is a consensus among publicists that the prohibition of racial discrimination, irrespective of territories, is an imperative norm of international law."[54] Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have also characterized the settlements as a violation of international law. In 1978, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State reached the same conclusion.[55][56]
Under Israeli law, West Bank settlements must meet specific criteria to be legal. In 2009, there were approximately 100[8] small communities that did not meet these criteria and are referred to as illegal outposts.[56][57][58]
The case for the legality of Israel's settlements:
Legality arguments
Among the legal leading scholars who dispute this view is Stephen M. Schwebel. [59]Schwebel, a judge of International Court of Justice and Professor of International Law at Johns Hopkins University makes three distinctions specific to the Israeli situation that show the territories were seized in self-defense and thus Israel has more title to them than the previous holders. Professor Julius Stone also writes that "Israel's presence in all these [disputed] areas pending negotiation of new borders is entirely lawful, since Israel entered them lawfully in self-defense." [60]
Julius Stone referred to the absurdity of the claim that establishing settlements violate Article 49(6): "We would have to say that the effect of Article 49(6) is to impose an obligation on the State of Israel to ensure (by force if necessary) that these areas, despite their millennial association with Jewish life, shall be forever judenrein. Irony would thus be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49(6), designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that . . . the West Bank . . . must be made judenrein and must be so maintained, if necessary by the use of force by the government of Israel against its own inhabitants. Common sense as well as correct historical and functional context exclude so tyrannical a reading of Article 49(6)."[61]
Israel maintains that a temporary use of land and buildings for various purposes is permissible under a plea of military necessity and that the settlements fulfilled security needs.[62] In 1967, Theodor Meron, legal counsel to the Israeli Foreign Ministry stated in a legal opinion to Adi Yafeh, the Political Secretary of the Prime Minister, "My conclusion is that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention."[63] The legal opinion, forwarded to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, was not made public at the time, and the Labor cabinet progressively sanctioned settlements anyway; this action paved the way for future settlement growth. In 2007, Meron stated that "I believe that I would have given the same opinion today."[64]
Israel argues that its settlement policy is consistent with international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, while recognizing that some settlements have been constructed illegally on private land.[65] The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that the power of the Civil Administration and the Military Commander in the occupied territories is limited by the entrenched customary rules of public international law as codified in the Hague Regulations and Geneva Convention IV.[66][67][68]
In 1998 the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs produced "The International Criminal Court Background Paper".[69] It concludes
International law has long recognised that there are crimes of such severity they should be considered "international crimes." Such crimes have been established in treaties such as the Genocide Convention and the Geneva Conventions. .... The following are Israel's primary issues of concern [ie with the rules of the ICC]: - The inclusion of settlement activity as a "war crime" is a cynical attempt to abuse the Court for political ends. The implication that the transfer of civilian population to occupied territories can be classified as a crime equal in gravity to attacks on civilian population centres or mass murder is preposterous and has no basis in international law.
