Israel headed for clash with ICC over West Bank settlements.
Catch up on the developing stories making headlines.JERUSALEM -- Emboldened by a supportive White House, Israel appears to be barreling toward a showdown with the international community over its half-century-old settlement enterprise in the West Bank.
“History is knocking at the door,” Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett, a patron of the settler movement, said as he urged Netanyahu to immediately annex all of Israel’s settlements and snuff out any hopes for Palestinian independence. Since capturing the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has slowly and steadily expanded its settlements while stopping short of annexing the territory. The international community condemned the construction as illegal but has refrained from imposing sanctions or serious punishment.
Ironically, this warm U.S. embrace could prove to be Netanyahu’s undoing. Moving ahead with annexations is likely to trigger harsh international condemnations and possible legal action. Yuval Shany, an expert on international law at the Israel Democracy Institute, said annexation would “significantly” raise the risk of triggering prosecution at the ICC. Settlements are widely viewed as illegal based on the Geneva Convention principle that an occupying power is barred from transferring its population into war-won territories.
The Palestinians joined the ICC in 2015 after they were accepted as a nonmember state at the United Nations. They then asked the court to look into alleged Israeli crimes in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, retroactive to 2014.
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