The 15 members of the UN
Security Council had voted. 14 countries voted for Resolution 2334 condemning
the settlements and their expansion while the US abstained, allowing the
resolution to be passed.
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| PM Netayahu in "vengeance mode" |
Netanyahu and his team
had lobbied the members of the Security Council, many of whom are close friends
of Israel, not to support the resolution but failed. He is unable to come to
terms with the fact that the world does not support the building of settlements
in the occupied territories nor their expansion. THIS RESOLUTION IS NOT AGAINST
ISRAEL as Netanyahu is trying to convey to the Israeli public in order to woo
the extreme right into his camp from Naftali Bennett’s extreme right wing Bayit
Hayehudi Party. Apart from that, building settlements contravenes International Law and
the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Israel has built 145official settlements and about 100 unofficial settlement “outposts” and
permitted 560,000 Jewish citizens to move to East Jerusalem and the West Bank
(as of early 2013). [1]1
Even the Israeli Supreme Court accepts that
settlement building and expansion in occupied territory is illegal. This is the
reason why the Amona settlement is destined to be disbanded by an Israeli Court
decision.
Netanyahu is calling in
ambassadors of the various countries for a reprimand. Jerusalem. (CNN) Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned the US ambassador and launched a
scathing attack Sunday on the Obama administration after its refusal to veto a
UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel's settlements in the West Bank. [1] He is also threatening Senegal with sanctions. Poor Senegal! I
guess paranoiac Bibi feels that Senegal is a threat to Israel’s existence. He
behaves as if the world wants to destroy Israel and he is firing from every
corner like a spoilt child who does not get what he wants.
East Jerusalem and with
it all the holy sites including the holiest Jewish site - the Western Wall - is
also considered occupied territory according to International Law. Ouch! This
is a problem and a real hot potato. Perhaps East Jerusalem should have been
given special status allowing free access to all faiths to pray at their
respective holy sites unhindered under international control rather than
Israeli control until such time as East Jerusalem’s final status is resolved by
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Both the EU and the UN, even
though they still refer to the Corpus Separatum Plan, speak about an Occupied East
Jerusalem and envision a two-state-solution with East Jerusalem as the capital
of a future Palestinian State and West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. [2]
Meanwhile Netanyahu’s
paranoid, hysterical ranting and raving against the UN Security Council members
will strengthen BDS as well as the Palestinian standpoint and this could also
ignite more terrorist acts against Israel.
There is really nothing
new in Resolution 2334. It has been the US standpoint for many years. In fact,
this resolution has also condemned Palestinian violence and rhetoric against
Israel as well as Palestinian terrorist activity. (See link to Resolution 2334
at the beginning of this post)
Under the present
circumstances, there does not seem to be any light at the end of the long
tunnel of intransigence as far as negotiations between the two parties are
concerned. While there is a total stalemate between the two parties to
negotiate a settlement in order to arrive at the Two State solution, the status
quo will continue. While Israel faces constant terror attacks from the
Palestinians, including lone wolf stabbing, car ramming and general suicide
terror, there is no way that Israel will ever withdraw from the territories and
leave a vacuum as the US did in Iraq in 2003 after the demise of Saddam
Hussein. This resulted in ISIS terror all over the Middle East. If an highly
unlikely unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank and the uprooting of illegal
settlements occurs there would be chaos and bloodshed that Hamas and its Jihadist
allies would initiate against Jews and non-Muslims. The scenario will be a
nightmare!
There is nothing that
could be an alternative to direct negotiations between Israelis and
Palestinians to end the conflict as well as the occupation.
The vengeful mode of PM
Netanyahu will not solve anything. His only hope to maintain this mode is to
wait until President-Elect Donald Trump takes over from President Back Obama on
20th January 2017 in the hope that he and his team will propose a resolution
cancelling Resolution 2334. The chance of this happening is very remote.
1.
1.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/25/politics/israel-un-settlements-netanyahu-ambassadors/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2016.
3.
2 http://www.kas.de/palaestinensische-gebiete/en/pages/11509/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2016
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