Israeli legal opinion allows population swap

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman received a few weeks ago a classified legal opinion which allows a population exchange under international law, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said today.

The opinion argued that transferring populations is legal under international law provided that the Palestinians consent to it, would not leave any citizen without citizenship and provides an appropriate compensation mechanism similar to the one received by the settlers who evacuated settlements in the Gaza Strip.

The paper quoted Lieberman during a meeting with Foreign Ministry ambassadors in January as saying “a comprehensive settlement with the Palestinians should include settling Israeli Arabs” and claimed that his land and population swap plan was not a “transfer” but aimed at moving the border line to include Israeli Arab areas. This would allow the transfer of “The Triangle” and Wadi Ara regions in the north of Israel to the future Palestinian state under a permanent peace agreement.

The newspaper pointed out that several days after Lieberman’s speech when US Secretary of State John Kerry started working on a framework agreement for the negotiations, Lieberman asked the ministry’s legal division to prepare a legal opinion on his plan.

The ministry’s legal advisor; Ehud Keinan presented his 18 page document entitled “Land swap – the transfer of sovereignty of populated areas in the framework of a permanent solution with the Palestinians – legal aspects” on February 17.

Keinan claimed that “transferring populated areas from a sovereign state to another as part of a permanent solution even without the population’s explicit consent or a referendum is acceptable under international law as long as it offers residents clear citizenship after the transition.”

The legal opinion was based on the International Court in Hague’s ruling on the border conflict between Honduras and El Salvador in 1992, when international law allowed transferring populated areas from one country to another, but stressed on the need to apply the transfer in a humane and orderly manner and on all parties to find appropriate solutions for the people.

Haaretz said a poll conducted in January by the Dialogue Institute claimed that the ratio of Israeli Arabs willing to move under Palestinian sovereignty was on the rise. Meanwhile Lieberman claims a majority of Israeli Jews support transferring larger Arab population.

According to the paper; Lieberman has raised the issue in every meeting he has conducted with foreign ministers in the last two months.