Photograph — BusinessInsider

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 was adopted on 23 December 2016. It concerns the Israeli settlements in “Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem”. The resolution passed in a 14-0 vote by members of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC); the United States, which has veto power, abstained. The resolution states that Israel’s settlement activity constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international law and has “no legal validity”. It demands that Israel stop such activity and fulfill its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

This was the first UNSC resolution to pass regarding Israel and the Palestine territories since 2009, and the first to address the issue of Israeli settlements with such specificity since Resolution 465 in 1980. While the resolution did not include any sanction or coercive measure and was adopted under non-binding Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter, Israeli newspaper Haaretz stated it “may have serious ramifications for Israel in general and specifically for the settlement enterprise” in the medium-to-long term.

Israeli settlements are Jewish-only Israeli civilian communities built on Palestinian lands occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. Resolution 2334 concerns such settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Fourth Geneva Convention makes it illegal for nations to move populations and establish settlements in territories acquired in a war, and an overwhelming number of countries consider the Israeli settlements to be illegal on that basis. Israel states that these are not “occupied” but “disputed” territories because “there were no established sovereigns in the West Bank or Gaza Strip prior to the Six Day War”. This argument was rejected by the International Court of Justice in 2004.

In February 2011, during the first administration of Barack Obama, the US used its veto power to stop a similar UN Security Council resolution and settlement activity has grown substantially. At least 100,000 settlers have been added since Obama took office, and The Quartet reporting in July 2016 said that 570,000 Israelis lived in the settlements. Prior to voting on the resolution, diplomats predicted that US frustration with the growth of settlements, as well as the poor relationship between President Obama and the Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, might cause the US to abstain, rather than veto the resolution.

The content of the resolution states that all measures aimed at changing the demographic composition and status of Palestinian territories occupied by Israel, including construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians are in violation of international humanitarian law, Israel’s obligation as the occupying Power according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, and previous resolutions.

Netanyahu has said that Israel will not abide by the terms of the resolution. For the Palestinians, Resolution 2334 is “a moral victory and a symbolic victory, but at the end of the day nothing is really going to change on the ground and Israel will continue with its settlement construction,” Abusada said. Nearly 600,000 Jews now live in the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem beyond the 1967 boundary. The Israeli Prime Minister also declared that nations acting against Israel’s interests will pay a diplomatic and economic price, and instructed the Foreign Ministry to cancel all aid programs to Senegal, some involving programmes to alleviate poverty, in response to the resolution’s passage. Israel also cancelled the planned visits of the Senegalese Foreign Minister to Israel, and other visits of non-resident ambassadors of Senegal and New Zealand.

One of Israel’s aid projects in Senegal is the Drip-irrigated vegetable farms, which are part of an initiative to alleviate poverty through agricultural innovation. The program is based on low-pressure drip irrigation that saves water and produces improved quality of vegetables and fruits. As part of the project, Israeli experts train locals in advanced irrigation methods and help construct infrastructures like greenhouses, nurseries and study centers. Several dozens of Senegalese arrive in Israel every year for further training. Israel has invested hundreds of thousands of shekels a year in this project over the past decade, and it is one of the biggest projects in Africa.

As a result of the resolution, Israeli citizens that are involved in the settlement enterprise in the West Bank are vulnerable to lawsuits in courts all over the world. It also opens the door for lawsuits against Israeli officials at the ICC: government ministers and senior IDF officers who make decisions about construction in the settlements, the demolition of Palestinian homes, or the expropriation of lands could be accused of war crimes under the Geneva Convention. The content of the resolution can also be seen as a victory for the BDS Movement, as it opens the door for boycotts of goods produced in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

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