Israeli Settlements Undermine Peace Efforts

Secretary-General of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Saeb Erekat underlined that Israel's illegal settlement and expansion policy undermine any prospects for peace and the two-state solution, and represent a war crime and a clear violation of the relevant international laws. 
Speaking to Qatar News Agency (QNA), Erekat urged the Israeli government to halt all "colonial" settlement activities, and called for protecting Occupied Jerusalem from such arbitrary actions. 
Erekat said that Israel is going on with its expansion policies in full view of the international community, especially under the approval of the new US administration which defended Israel's right to expansion and settlement, stressing the need to implement the UN resolution (2334) of 2016, which considers settlement in all its forms a scandalous violation to the international law. 
Meanwhile, Erekat said the high-level meeting planned between Israel and the European Union later this month, to hold an ""association council" with Israeli diplomats, comes as a reward for Israel's systematic violations of the international humanitarian law and serves its quest to bury the idea of the two-state solution which is based on the establishment of a Palestinian state. 
Erekat underlined that Israel is planning to establishment of a state based on apartheid, in a flagrant violation of the most basic human rights of Palestinians to live in peace, security and stability in their country. There are more than 600 thousand Jews living in about 140 settlements since Israel's occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in in 1967, and there are more than 95 outposts built in the West Bank without even getting official permission from the Israeli government. 
"Lack of accountability, impunity, is what provides the Israeli government with enough confidence to move ahead with its plan to bury the prospects of the two-state solution," he said. 
He noted that the Israeli Knesset's passage of the 'Regularization' bill yesterday allows Israel to retroactively appropriate privately owned Palestinian land for settlements will confiscate 8183 dunums (about 800 hectares) of private Palestinian lands. 
"It’s about theft of land and natural resources, it’s about dividing our families and preventing our economic development. Overall, it’s about the violation of our basic human and national rights, it’s preventing our freedom," he said. 
Israel continues to escalate their illegal settlement practices amid Arab and international condemnation, and in flagrant violation of the resolutions of the United Nations and the international law. 
More than half a million settlers have already come to live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank since Israel occupied them after a war in 1967. 
Recently, the Israel government stepped up expansion activities, announcing the establishment of 3,000 new housing units occupied West Bank, and the approval of the construction of 566 new housing units in settlements located east of the occupied city of Jerusalem. 
Remarkably, these accelerated Israeli steps, which undermine the chances of achieving peace and stability in the Middle East, come after the inauguration of the new US president, Donald Trump, who took office on January 20. 
According to politicians, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was encouraged to intensify the settlement activity after Trump expressed no opposition to Israel's settlement program which is destroying the peace process. 
Trump's administration said recently that the Israeli settlement "may not be good" for the establishment of peace in the region, however, the administration later underlined that "it have not take any formal position" towards the settlement activities so far. 
Observers say that the US administration's statements on the Israeli settlements provides a cover for the Israeli activities before the planned visit of Netanyahu to the United States. 
The Palestinian Authority considered the statement a change in the position of the new US Administration, while Israel considered it a green light to move on with its settlement plans in the West Bank and Occupied Jerusalem.

Source: QNA