Israeli Towns and Villages in the West Bank Are a Political Issue, Not a Legal One

Critics of the State Department’s determination that Israeli settlements in land acquired during the Six-Day War are not illegal have objected on three distinct grounds: that it constitutes a radical break with 40 years of U.S. foreign-policy consensus, that it misinterprets the law, and that it makes peace less likely. All these objections are wrong, explains Douglas Feith. To the first objection, he notes that in 1981 Ronald Reagan reversed the Carter administration’s position that the settlements were illegal; it was the Obama administration that broke with 35 years of precedent when it tacitly reverted to Carter’s position in 2016. As for the others, Feith writes: