Expert warns that Arab countries have adopted Israeli settlement claims

A Palestinian researcher on settlement affairs has warned that the Israeli government has succeeded in convincing some Arab and regional forces to adopt its claims regarding settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

Suhail Khaliliya told Quds Press that the greatest danger today is represented in the positions taken by some European and Arab countries which have adopted the Israeli view that settlements are not an obstacle to peace. All of Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law.

According to the researcher, international political changes and the positions taken on settlements encourage the Israelis to continue to build and expand them. This comes at a time when the Israeli government pays no heed to international laws and conventions which stress the illegality of any country moving its own population onto territory acquired by war in order to change the demography. Israeli settlements are built all over the West Bank and East Jerusalem occupied since June 1967.

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Israel, insists Khaliliya, tries to circumvent the will of the international community by claiming that it does not establish new settlements, but merely expands existing blocs as the population grows. The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics revealed in a report on Monday that the number of settlement units constructed in the occupied West Bank has increased by 70 per cent over the past year.

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On 23 December last year, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for the immediate and complete cessation of settlement activities in the Palestinian territories. The Israeli has ignored this resolution, as it has ignored dozens of others, and continues to build its colony-settlements.