The Palestinians said on Tuesday that all UN Security Council members except the US would condemn Israel’s recent announcements of new settlement construction which are making a two-state solution more difficult to achieve.
Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour said the 14 other council members would tell reporters after the council’s monthly Mideast meeting yesterday that continuing settlement activity is illegal and must be stopped.
The US delivered a rare blunt rebuke to Israel, its top Middle East ally, on Tuesday for its new settlement construction, but Mansour said the US administration would not approve a Security Council resolution or statement.
Photo: Reuters
He said there was near global unanimity against Israel’s actions, pointing to the 169-6 vote in the General Assembly on Tuesday on a non-binding resolution condemning settlement activities by Israel and demanding their immediate cessation.
“Unfortunately, one powerful country with veto power does not want the Security Council to act accordingly,” Mansour said. “Therefore, the 14 other countries in the Security Council, in their own creative way, will make their position clear, collectively or separately, to the media outside the chamber on Wednesday.”
He said the four West European council members — Germany, France, Britain and Portugal — would issue a statement of condemnation, followed by India speaking on behalf of the Nonaligned Movement of mainly developing countries, and other council members, likely including South Africa, Russia and China.
“Therefore one can say 14 versus 1 is the reality of the Security Council in condemning Israel settlement activity — although the one is also condemning,” Mansour said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to build thousands of homes in settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in response to the UN General Assembly’s decision last month to upgrade the Palestinians’ status to a nonmember observer state. On Monday, he said Israel would push forward with plans to build 1,500 apartments in east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ hoped-for capital.
US Department of State spokeswoman Victoria Nuland accused Israel of engaging in a “pattern of provocative action” that runs counter to the government’s commitment to peace. She said settlement activity only puts the goal of peace “further at risk” and urged both Israel and the Palestinians to halt all provocations and take steps to revive long-stalled peace talks.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Tuesday called all Israeli settlements “illegal under international law.”
He urged Israel to reverse its latest expansion plan in east Jerusalem, warning that if implemented “it would make a negotiated two-state solution, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, very difficult to achieve.”
The EU, Israel’s biggest trading partner, has been increasingly vocal in its criticism of new settlements just as Israel is gearing up for general elections next month. In an unprecedented move, a string of European governments summoned their local Israeli ambassadors to lodge protests following the Israeli settlement announcements.
Yesterday’s expected statement by key European countries on the Security Council would be a symbolic, but nonetheless high-profile show of displeasure with the Israelis.
Netanyahu has been unshaken by the criticism and on Tuesday vowed to continue building in east Jerusalem.
“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the state of Israel, and we will continue to build there. A united Jerusalem expresses a wide national agreement,” he said in the northern Israeli town of Acre.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia