UN observer calls for Palestine action
Thursday 26 April 2012
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EmailPalestine's UN observer has urged the security council to "act immediately" to prevent Tel Aviv entrenching its "massive network of illegal settlements" in the Occupied Territories.
In a letter sent to UN general secretary Ban Ki Moon on Wednesday, senior Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) official Dr Riyad Mansour denounced the Israeli government's decision this week to grant retroactive support to three illegal West Bank settler outposts.
Dr Mansour charged that the outposts were "glaring proof of the unlawful, expansionist aims of the occupying power."
He added that that the Netanyahu administration's "legalisation" of the Rechalim, Bruchin and Sansana settlements on Monday "belie all claims regarding acceptance of the two-state solution on the basis of the pre-1967 borders."
Mr Ban said on Tuesday that he was "deeply troubled" by Tel Aviv's colonisation drive and reaffirmed that "all settlement activity is illegal under international law."
In response Dr Mansour called on the UN's security council "to act immediately to address these continuing illegal, grave actions by Israel."
He said it is "incumbent upon the international community to uphold the law and salvage prospects for achieving a just and sustainable peace on the basis of the relevant UN resolutions, the Madrid Principles, the Arab Peace Initiative and the Quartet Roadmap."
The PLO official warned that, by "destroying the contiguity, integrity and viability of the Palestinian Territory," Tel Aviv was "physically destroying the attainability of the two-State solution on the basis of 1967 borders."
Nabil Abu Rudaineh, a spokesman for Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, accused Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of "pushing matters once again toward a deadlock."
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