America says Israeli settlements in the West Bank are legal

THE ANNOUNCEMENT on November 18th by Mike Pompeo, the American secretary of state, was unscheduled but not unexpected. After a legal review by his department, Mr Pompeo said, Israeli settlements in the West Bank were found to be in line with international law. That declaration was just the latest in a series of gestures by the Trump administration benefiting Israel over the past two years.The move is wholly in tune with Donald Trump’s tendency to disregard diplomatic norms, as he did when he recognised Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Despite some dissenting views, the international consensus for decades has been that the settlements Israel has built in the territories it captured in its war with Arab states in 1967 are indeed illegal. They are deemed to contravene the Fourth Geneva Convention, which says “the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.