Israel to Build Settlements in Response to UN’s Upgrading of Palestine
Following an overwhelming majority vote by the UN General Assembly on 29 November 2012 to upgrade Palestine's status in the United Nations to that of a non-member observer state, the Government of Israel has responded by announcing that it will build 3 000 new housing units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Palestinian tax revenues will again be withheld too – the Israeli Government mentioned a figure of about 100 million euros. The Government of Israel unanimously rejected the UN resolution.
Annette Groth, Spokeswoman on Human Rights for the Left Party parliamentary group in the Bundestag, commented:
“The annexation of occupied territory is prohibited under international law. Notwithstanding this all Israeli governments have, for decades, operated a policy of building settlements on Palestinian territory, thereby making the two-state solution less and less likely. The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke out very clearly before the United Nations in favour of the two-state solution and called for the resolution to be adopted, to “breathe new life” into the peace negotiations with Israel. It is totally unacceptable that the Government of Israel should now be punishing the Palestinians for insisting on their legitimate rights.”
Annette Groth went on: “The Government of Israel is refusing to accept a UN decision. Instead the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says: ‘Israel will continue to build in Jerusalem and anywhere considered to be in its strategic interest.’ At the same time the Government of Israel has repeatedly accused the Palestinian National Authority of jeopardising the peace process by taking its grievances to the United Nations. The opposite is true: Israel, by its policy of settlement, of sealing off the Gaza Strip, building a wall on Palestinian land, calculated killings and permanently denying the Palestinians their right to statehood, looks likely to bury all hopes of peace in the Middle East forever.”