The UN Security Council expressed its “dismay” with plans by Israel to retroactively legalize settlements in the West Bank, warning in a Monday statement that such measures “impede peace.”
“The Security Council reiterates that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperiling the viability of the two-state solution,” the Council said in a statement supported by all 15 members but which does not have the binding force of a resolution considered last week.
That earlier draft resolution – proposed by the United Arab Emirates – called on Israel to “immediately and completely cease” settlement activities in Palestinian areas.
Diplomatic sources told AFP that the draft, condemning “all attempts at annexation, including decisions and measures by Israel regarding settlements, including settlement outposts,” was dropped and would be replaced by the new statement issued by the president of the Council.
The draft resolution also reiterated the demand “that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the [West Bank], including east Jerusalem.”
Such an initiative provoked opposition from the United States. But Washington also denounced the announcement a few days earlier by the Israeli security cabinet of the legalization of nine settlements in the West Bank.
The new statement said the Council “strongly opposes all unilateral measures that impede peace, including, inter alia, Israeli construction and expansion of settlements, confiscation of Palestinians’ land, and the ‘legalization’ of settlement outposts, demolition of Palestinians’ homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians.
Later on Monday, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office responded to the statement in condemnation.
“The UN Security Council has issued a one-sided statement which denies the rights of Jews to live in our historic homeland, fails to mention the Palestinian terror attacks in Jerusalem in which 10 Israeli civilians were murdered, ignores the Palestinian Authority’s grotesque pay-for-slay policy – which subsidizes the murder of Jews – and belittles the evil of antisemitism, which has resulted in the slaughter of millions,” it said in a statement.
“The statement should never have been made and the United States should never have joined it.”
Israel’s UN envoy Gilad Erdan also on Monday during a Council session called the West Bank’s governing entity the Palestinian Authority a terrorist entity and accused its chief Mansour Abbas of “lying as always.” –i24 News
Yeah! Coming from the biggest impediment to peace worldwide! This stupid waste of money can’t get anything straight.
They hadn’t a word to say when the terror was happening. Stupid UNnecessary non UNit of peace.
It is the most anti-Semitic notion that Jews living on Land the Palestinians want for a future state is somehow an impediment to peace. Why would a future “Palestine” have to be free of Jews. Why can Muslims live in Israel but Jews can’t live in a “Palestine”.
Palestinian TERROR attacks on innocent women and CHILDREN impedes peace. the UN needs to have them stop the attacks and stop paying their families to kill
No! Palestinians impede peace.
The UN impedes peace.