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.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese