As “the representative of the Palestinian people”, not a nation. Further, Israel opposed the upgrade of Palestine to a non-member observer state to the UN.
Israelis and Jews aren’t the same thing, though.
Hamas isn’t in power in the West Bank, which is where the settlements are.
See above. Fatah recognizes Israel.
Well, under international law, it is an issue.
And yet the settlements are in the West Bank, and not Gaza.
And that there is tacit understanding among both sides as to which portions of land those are (whether that idea is true or not is a separate question). Whereas Amona, as a counter-example, was built outside the land that is assumed to be part of a future swap and so could not be permitted to persist.
Counting, Gaza, East Jerusalem and West Bank; Palestinians are already a majority in the region.
Its basically S Africa in the 1950’s. Western powers could give two fucks and the US approved.
I believe that it is because it is the best way to achieve peace.
History has shown that when Israel has done the opposite of building new settlements they have received war and rockets in return. I am of course referring to when Israel forcibly removed settlers from Gaza.
Therefore expanding and building new settlements is a good strategy because it’s the complete opposite of dismantling settlements.
Israel should keep on expanding, and the more that the other side waits and procrastinates, the worse of a deal they will eventually end up with, if there is ever to be any sort of deal at all.
If they expand them far and wide enough, the Palestinians will all fall into the sea.
Technically speaking, that would achieve peace, if your scenario played out.
Palestinians should have probably accepted various deals that were offered to them decades ago, because it doesn’t seem as if common sense is very prevalent among their wise leadership.
Nuking every human on earth outside of Israel would also achieve peace. So would a global plague that kills everyone but me and my wife.
How would you get take out?
I don’t want to get into an argument over all your points, but it’s hard to agree that the territory isn’t theirs. Obviously if they’re building settlements in an area, they must have control of it. The most you can say is that the territory shouldn’t be theirs.
Pretty much, for all of Human civilization “My army is there” has been the #1 definition of whose land it is legally.
Illegal based upon what? UN resolutions by racist nations?
Might makes right?
That’s the end of it?
what does make right then? Racist antisemitic nations cramming the UN?
So do you think might makes right or not? If might makes right, and therefore since Israel has the power to build the settlements that renders all questions of right and wrong moot, then why doesn’t having a bunch of racist anti-semitic votes in the UN make all questions of right and wrong moot?
I’ll guess the answer is the UN has no might.
The “right” of it is if you can’t push me off my spot then I am the one in the right. If you can then you get to say what is right.
Bad analogy; the West Bank is not part of Israel, whereas the “homelands” in South Africa were part of South Africa. The Palestinians are under military occupation (with substantial self-government.) A better comparison might be Japan in 1946.
The former point, alas, is true. However, as was pointed out in a former thread, it’s illegal according to the Geneva Accords, which Israel signed. (However, Israel claims this doesn’t apply, on the basis of some rather shaky legal reasoning.)
If the territory is theirs, the most you can say is that they annexed it, while denying civil rights or citizenship to the people living there, because they are the wrong ethnicity. Not sure that’s better.
But what’s the end game here for Israel is what I keep asking myself. Once they’ve sufficiently accomplished swiss-cheesing the West bank with settlements, what next?
Is the expectation that Palestinians will finally be worn down by waiting for their own state, give up and move somewhere else?
Stalin decided that any country the Russian army fought in belonged to Russia.
The USA deciding that having liberated the Philippines, they belonged to the USA.
Spain wants Gibraltar back after 300 years.
Israel believing they own land they fought over when (seven? eight?) countries declared war on them as soon as they became a state.
It’s how most countries were formed. Why single out Israel?
What’s the end-game for any of the participants? Both sides are absolutely wedded to positions the other side rejects as absolutely intolerable. (It’s like asking the Patriots and Falcons to negotiate a settlement, rather than fight it out on the field! 
)
Just about the best hope in a long time was the “Road Map to Peace” – and even that left the really hard questions to be discussed at some indefinite time for the final status talks. Since they couldn’t get together to discuss the easier terms, the notion of coming to an agreement on the tough stuff seemed – and seems – impossible.
It would be nice if Israel would stop making things worse, day by day…but as for anyone ever making things better, there would seem to be no hope at all.
(Keep building settlements; keep launching rockets. And then peace happens!)