" issues that will be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations: Jerusalem, settlements, ... (Interim Agreement, Article XVII)."

Therefore Israel is not breaking any qgreements.

The truth of the matter is that, according to international law, the Jews have the complete and unquestionable right to settle the territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Not a single enforceable international document exists that forbids them from settling these lands.

On the contrary, the only existing enforceable document actually
encourages Jewish settlement. This document was created on April 24,
1920 at the San Remo Conference when the Principal Allied Powers agreed
to assign the Mandate for the territory of Palestine to Great Britain.
By doing so the League of Nations "recognized the historical connection
of the Jewish people with Palestine" and established "grounds for
reconstituting their national home in that country." Article 6 of the
Mandate "encouraged \ufffd close settlement by Jews on the land," including
the lands of the West Bank and Gaza. There is nothing whatsoever in the Mandate that separates the West Bank and Gaza from the rest of the mandated territory. That means that the right of the Jews to settle the land spreads to the whole of Palestine. As a side note it is worth mentioning that the 76% of the territory of Mandated Palestine known today as Jordan, were not permanently exempt from
settlement by the Jews either. Article 25 only allowed to "postpone or
withhold application of [this] provision."

With the disbanding of the League of Nations, the rights of the Jews to
settle the territories of Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza, were not diminished. When in 1946 the United Nations was created in place of the League of Nations, its Charter included Article 80 specifically to allow the
continuation of existing Mandates (including the British Mandate). Article 80 stated that "nothing ... shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever \ufffd of any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties."

Then in November 1947 came time for Resolution 181, which recommended
the Partition of Palestine. Like all UN Resolutions pertaining to the
Jewish-Arab conflict it was not enforceable. It was simply a recommendation, and the Arab countries rejected it. If the resolution had been implemented maybe it would be possible to
argue that it replaced the San Remo Conference resolution, which had
legitimized the rights of the Jews to settle in any place in Palestine.
However, it was not only rejected by the Arabs, but in violation of the
UN Charter they launched a military aggression against the newly reborn
Jewish state thus invalidating the resolution. By the time of the cease-fire at the end of the War of Independence, there was still no other enforceable document pertaining to the rights of the Jews to settle the Land of Israel - they remained intact. Since no mandatory UN Resolution exists pertaining to the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are left with the San Remo Conference decision that governs land ownership in Palestine. That means that not a single enforceable
internationally valid document exists that prevents or prohibits the
Jews from settling anywhere in the West Bank and Gaza. Or, to put it differently, from the standpoint of international law FOR THE JEWS IT IS NOT AN OCCUPIED LAND.

This conclusion was confirmed not long ago by an unexpected (for
Israel) source. It is hard to argue with the fact that James Baker,
former US Secretary of State, was not the best friend of the Jewish
state. However, he categorically rejected the mislabeling of the lands
of Yesha. This happened at the Middle East Insight Symposium in
Washington on May 4, 1998. Hoda Tawfik, from the newspaper Al Ahram
asked him, "What do you think is right? That these are occupied Arab
territories and not disputed territories?" Baker replied, "They\ufffdre
clearly disputed territories. That\ufffds what Resolutions 242 and 338 are
all about. They are clearly disputed territories."

All of this means that when the Jews build settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, they are not building them on "occupied" territories. If one wants, one may call them "disputed" territories, as Baker did. However, this will still not change the fact that from the standpoint of international law it is the very land where the Jews were encouraged to settle.

And as a final note, it should not be surprising that the San Remo
Conference plays such an important role in this particular case. The
majority of the other players in the conflict: Egypt, Syria, Iraq,
Lebanon, Jordan, etc. gained sovereignty over their territories based on
the decisions of exactly the same conference.

Actually your characterization of "Palestine" as a "wasteland" is quite accurate. Read any travel account to Palestine from the 1800's such as Mark Twain's. The one common thread is that Palestine was a wasteland with hardly any inhabitants. After the Jews started returning in the 1880's and the economy picked up Arabs started migrating in. For example National Geographic reported in one of the 1914 issues that the population of Jerusalem is given as 40,000 Jews, 13,000 Christians (half of whom were Europeans), and only 7,000 Muslims. Where are alll those Palestinians? A travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker brings out the same point that the Muslim population in the city of Jerusalem was minimal. Many of the facts that we get today have been greatly distorted and works such as these, especially the 1906 book outline quite clearly the statistics of that era and how we can interpret these facts and figures to be relevant in todays Mideast conflict. Did you know that Yasir Arafat was born in Cairo? How about the fact that 76% of the Palestine Mandate was give to the Arabs by the British in 1922 (what is now Jordan)?

Read the book from Time Immemorial by Joan Peters

is very clear. If Arafat was born in Cairo why does he have more right to the West Bank then I do? It shows that the Palsetinians are not people who were living in Palestine for hundreds of years and the Jews came and kicked them out. Rather, they migrated to Palestine after the Jews started rebuilding the land.

There is no language known as Palestinian, or any Palestinian culture distinct from that of all the Arabs in the area. There has never been a land know as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs indistinguishable from Arabs throughout the region. Overall, there are 22 Arab countries that cover more that 99 per cent of the land mass in the Middle East. Israel, the size of New Jersey, covers less that one per cent.

The only sovereign nation that has ever ruled over the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is Israel. King David ruled over the Land of Israel 3,000 years ago, nearly 1,600 years before Muhammad was born. Since the Romans leveled the Temple 2,000 years ago, committed genocide against the Jews and declared that Jewish sovereignty would be no more, the Land of Israel was ruled by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and the by the British.

You yourself admitted that 100 years ago "Palestine" was desolate

for all I care. The name is irrevelant. The bottom line is that they have no historic connection with the land of Israel. The Jews onb the other hand do. We have been praying for 2000 years to return, this fact has been almost universally recognized. Read the Balfour declaration (from the British not exactly the most pro-Jewish group around) and all the other documents from that time. They all speak of the historic Jewish connection with the land. The Arabs have 99.6% of all the land in the Middle East why do they need any more?

The fact is in 1967, Israel offered everything back in return for peace. The Arabs responded with the famous 3 no's of Khartoum. The fact is that if you start a war and lose it you pay the price. Let us look at some historical examples:
The French took Alsace-Lorraine, in 1945 from Germany. Its consequent occupation must not be rewarded. "A full withdrawal for full peace" should operate here.
The US took much of the Southwest by force from Mexico, give it back.