Like Modi’s India, boththe US and Israel have adopted a policy to achieve their ulterior ends via political instrumentalisation of international law. Washington has announced to legally accept the illegal Israeli settlements on the Palestinian Occupied Territory. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last Monday announced a major reversal of the US’ longstanding policy on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, rejecting a 1978 State Department legal opinion that deemed the settlements “inconsistent with international law.” But the present US stance on the settlements is unanimously rejected by the international community. In the view of Richard Falk, the former UN rapporteur on the Palestinians’ rights ” International law is clear on one point: Israeli’s settlements are illegal”. Notably, Israeli Consul General to the New York City , Dani Dayan was left shocked as at least a hundred students staged a walkout during a talk he was about to give at the US’ Harvard Law School on Wednesday as Dayan was due to start his talk on “The Legal Strategy of Israeli Settlements” in occupied Palestine, students who had filled the lecture theatre stood up, lifted placards reading “Settlements are a war crime” and walked out of the room in silence. Meanwhile, in a surprise move, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo supported the Israeli argument on the settlements: “Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace.” Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. that there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace.” But Pompeo’s assertion is based on the reverse or unilateral legalism. Israel has over 500 illegal settlements across the ‘occupied West Bank,’ which are inhabited by approximately one million settlers. These settlements are illegal under international law, which fundamentally forbids the transfer of civilian populations into occupied territory. Yet the former White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said, ”he prefers to call Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements “neighborhoods and cities”. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu applauded the announcement as a “policy that rights a historical wrong”. Saeb Erekat, the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said it was an attempt by the Trump administration “to replace international law with the law of the jungle.” Truly and morally, international law principles bring an element of objectivity and universality to seek a resolution of the decades-old conflict that has been fueled by ultranationalist-cum- religious considerations While Israel has long disputed the widely held opinion of the international community– determining that settlements are illegal under international law, for decades Washington used to adopt a position of compromise. The US State Department (under former President Jimmy Carter, in 1978) virtually deemed that Israeli settlements are “inconsistent with international law.” Whereas President Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan disagreed in 1981 whist arguing the settlements were inherently illegal. Ever since then, both the Republican and Democratic Presidents have principally referred to settlements as “illegitimate” but declined to call them illegal-a designation that would make them subject to international sanctions. But in one of his Administration’s last foreign policy acts, former US President Barack Obama reversed that legacy– declining to veto a U.N. resolution –urging an end to the Israeli settlements. It is the most ironic fact that in its biased quest of supporting the Israeli move of annexing the Palestinian Occupied Territories (POT), the Trump administration has lost all moral and legal moorings of international law. The controversial Greenblatt’s doctrine on the Israeli settlements that the US has endorsed, holds no international approval. Understandably, this biased US approach on the issue of Israel settlements is nothing but political instrumentalisation of international law. It is also an established fact that International law and political dominance are correctly regarded as irreconcilable to each other. Dominant states — like the US unilateral power –appear to be reluctant to honour the norms and abide by the rules of international law; they seem to selectively consider it as overly constraining, and turn to politics instead. On the contrary, the international legal system fairly seems to distance itself from predominant power: based on sovereign equality, as a result, international law often appears as the pivot of equality, in which reason and justice prevail; whereas power asymmetries are relegated to the sphere of politics where the law of the jungle seems to reign. Truly and morally, international law principles bring an element of objectivity and universality to seek a resolution of the decades-old conflict that has been fueled by ultranationalist-cum- religious considerations. Greenblatt’s words and the US Government’s recent initiatives seem to have supported the claims of one party as absolute rights; while dismissing the considerations of the other party as mere aspirations. And most significantly, the international community views the transfer of any country’s civilians to occupied land as illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and UN Security Council resolutions. The newly held US position on the Israeli settlements is synonymous with Donald Trump’s desire of wooing ‘evangelical voters’ in the next election. On the settlements issue, Israel is mostly relying upon its domestic Levy Commission report published in 2012, a reflection on Israel’s unilateral legalism-unjustly negating the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of Judea and Samaria [i.e., the West Bank]. As for the Palestinians’ plight, three notorious developments have taken place under the Trump administration: first, the US decision of shifting the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; second, the Trump administration’s recognition of the Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; and finally, the US pronouncement of the legal status of the Israeli settlements. “The EU calls on Israel to end all settlement activity, in line with its obligations as an occupying power,” EU foreign policy Chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement. Meanwhile, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice ruled that EU countries must identify products made in Israeli settlements on their labels. Meanwhile, Brad Simpson, an associate professor of U.S. foreign relations and international history at the University of Connecticut said, “Pompeo’s announcement that the US no longer considers Israel’s colonial settlements in the West Bank illegal is a radical repudiation of international law, including the landmark 1949 Geneva Conventions”. Russia’s foreign ministry said it viewed Washington’s move as “another measure contradicting” the legal footing for a peace deal and said it would likely further heighten tensions on the ground. The French foreign ministry said it “regrets any decision likely to encourage… settlement building”. Admittedly, the present global crisis– what is becoming the hallmark of the present World Order is the deepening politicisation of international law –causing fatal consequences to the law of international politics and law of nations. The writer is an independent ‘IR’ researcher and international law analyst based in Pakistan