UNITED NATIONS (Dispatches) – The UN Security Council expressed its “dismay” with plans by the Zionist regime’s hard-right cabinet to retroactively ‘legalize’ settlements in occupied Palestinian lands, warning in a statement Monday that such measures “impede peace.”
“The Security Council reiterates that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperiling the viability” of a 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, had called on the Zionist regime to “immediately and completely cease” settlement activities in occupied Palestinian areas.
Diplomatic sources told AFP Monday that the draft, condemning “all attempts at annexation, including decisions and measures by Israel regarding settlements, including settlement outposts” had been dropped and would be replaced by the new statement issued by the president of the Security Council.
The draft resolution had also reiterated the demand “that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem (Al-Quds).”
The initiative provoked opposition from the United States, which has the right of veto in the Council.
The White House said it was “deeply dismayed” by the plans.
The new statement on Monday 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.”
Much of the international community regards the Israeli settler units in the occupied lands as illegal.
More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Al-Quds.
All settlements are illegal under international law. The UN Security Council has condemned the Zionist regime’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.
Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent state with East Al-Quds as its capital.