Why do governments only listen to the lawyers when they say what they want them to?

Could it be that Israel has known all along, based on the advice of its legal advisers that the construction of Jewish settlements on Arab land occupied after the Six Day War would be illegal? It is hard to imagine that this could be so? I mean would so many successive American administrations give the developments some measure of approval if this were the case?

Well Theodor Meron, undoubtedly another self-loathing Jew, who was the Israeli Foreign Ministry's legal adviser during and after the war wrote a memo to the foreign minister Abba Eban saying just that. Furthermore Mr. Meron, who moved on to become a respected international jurist, says that the settlements are still in violation of the Hague and Geneva Conventions.