Al-Zaarir: The Israeli decision to hold a referendum will not change the legal status of our land

Fatah’s official spokesman and member of the Revolutionary Council, Fahmi Al-Zaarir, considered the law, which passed in the Israeli Knesset, entailing that the Israeli government hold a referendum before withdrawing from any of the territories occupied in 1967, as a blow to the international community and all its efforts to revive the peace process in political terms.

In a press statement released on Thursday, December 10, Al-Zaarir said that the Knesset’s decision is an official confirmation of the colonial nature of the Israeli occupation in effect since 1967, stressing that this does not change the legal status of the Palestinian and Arab territories, and that it is rather ironic that the occupier calls a referendum to give up the ownership of what it did not own, but occupied by force.

Al-Zaarir added “For a long time, Israel has adopted a strategy to eliminate the international efforts for the success of the peace process. It tilted toward administering the occupied territories instead of withdrawing from them.”

He pointed out that this law must be responded to internationally and by the Security Council, the principles and previous resolutions of which outlaw the occupation of land by force. He also reminded that the law comes in response to the European Union’s reiteration on identifying the occupied territories based on the 1967 borders.

Al-Zaarir asserted that the legitimacy of the occupation is invalid under international law, and all that results from the occupation is legally void, pointing out that Israel, as an occupying state, seized vast territories, but is now trying to expropriate all the land occupied in 1967, as if its occupying presence was legal.

He stressed that the occupation must remember that the Palestinian people, on the anniversary of their Great Intifada of 1987, will not give up their right to their own land – not even an inch of it – and he will continue their struggle till the establishment of a Palestinian independent state, with Jerusalem as its capital.