Ramot - Legal Status

Legal Status

Ramot is administered by Israel as being within Jerusalem. However, since part of the neighborhood has been built across the Green Line in East Jerusalem, the international community considers Ramot to be an Israeli settlement. Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem and maintains that developments in East Jerusalem are not settlements, but the move was condemned by the UN Security Council as "null and void" and was not recognized by the international community. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, violating the Fourth Geneva Convention's prohibition on the transfer of a civilian population into territory held under military occupation, but Israel considers East Jerusalem its sovereign territory. The U.S. government has traditionally refrained from calling Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem "settlements."

The Clinton Parameters and Geneva accords proposed keeping Ramot (and other Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem beyond the green line) under Israeli sovereignty, possibly in exchange for other land, though no deal has been made in the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.

Since the portion of Ramot across the Green Line was constructed in the demilitarized zone between the Jordanian and Israeli front lines, Israelis have argued that it should not be considered occupied territory.