Legitimate? Legal?

“We do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity.”

Marie Harf

Deputy Spokesperson
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

August 12, 2013

And

Harf stopped short of labeling the settlement activity “illegal” or of saying it undermines the peace process, as the European Union has. She also declined to say if the State Department had urged the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to put the construction on hold.

"Legitimate" has been the Obama Administration keyword from Day One:

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.  (Applause.)  This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace.  It is time for these settlements to stop.  (Applause.)  -  REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT: ON A NEW BEGINNING, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009

But Menachem Begin pre-replied that.


And then AP's Matthew Lee swung in, as is his wont, and has proven his mettle, and on more than one occasion:

QUESTION: -- on the long-stated position we do not accept the legitimacy of settlements, does that – is that a synonym for saying that you believe that settlement activity is illegal?
MS. HARF: I’m going to state our position exactly as I said it. We do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity.
QUESTION: Okay. The word --
MS. HARF: I’m not going to further parse it for you.
QUESTION: Does – you don’t --
MS. HARF: Period.
QUESTION: You don’t know?
MS. HARF: I’m not going to further parse it for you.
QUESTION: You don’t know the definition of the word “legitimacy”?
MS. HARF: I’m not going to further parse it for you, Matt.

So, it's not a question of legality.

_____________

UPDATE


From David Gerstman:

What did Kerry say today?

As you know, or as the world I hope knows, the United States of America views all of the settlements as illegitimate.

That's unqualified. He didn't make exceptions for "settlements" in areas that Israel is expected to hold in any final peace deal. He didn't say "unhelpful" but "illegitimate."

But he did add:

The announcements with respect to settlements were to some degree expected because we have known that there was going to be a continuation of some building in certain places, and I think the Palestinians understand that. I think one of the announcements or maybe one of them was outside of that level of expectation, and that’s being discussed right now.

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