Arab League warns: Israel's ‘criminal’ policies endanger entire region

Personnel take security measures as Israeli people, holding flags, gather in front of the parliament building (Knesset) to stage a demonstration against judicial reform plans [Saeed Qaq – Anadolu Agency]

The Arab League has condemned the Israeli Knesset’s [Parliament] approval of a law allowing the Israeli government to revoke “citizenship or residency” from Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jerusalemites and deport them to the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, if they obtained financial assistance from the Palestinian National Authority.

In a statement issued Thursday, the League described the law as “unfair and racist, and constitutes a dangerous escalation and ethnic cleansing”.

Assistant Arab League Secretary-General for Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories Affairs, Said Abu Ali, said the law is part of the forced displacement project implemented by Israel in the absence of international deterrence, which encouraged the Israeli government to persist in its flagrant violation of international law.

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He added that the law represents a consolidation of the policy of collective punishment practised by Israel against the Palestinian people. This comes in the form of escalation of field executions, raids and house demolitions committed by the extremist Israeli government in the West Bank, including Jerusalem. He also noted the increasing pace of illegal settlement construction and legalisation of outposts, the latest of which is the legalisation of nine outposts in the West Bank.

The Arab League General Secretariat called on the international community, with its states, organisations and institutions, to put pressure on Israel, the occupying power, to immediately intervene and stop this “racist law” and the “open war” against the Palestinian people.

It stressed that Israel’s continuation of these policies and crimes within the framework of implementing annexation and Judaisation projects and plans will cause the region to explode, threatening security and peace in the region, and that dealing with Israel as a state above the law encourages it to commit more crimes.

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