Arab Parliament calls on world body to end silence on Israeli atrocities

The legislative body of the Arab League further slammed the Israeli regime’s continued expansion of settlements as “unlawful and tantamount to flagrant violations of international law and resolutions of the international community.”

The Arab Parliament also called on Washington to take “immediate measures to stop Israeli plans seeking to expropriate large swathes of the Palestinian land, undermining the [so-called] two-state solution.”

It went on to call for “serious” consideration of the so-called “peace process” and engagement in “real” negotiations that would lead to ending the Israeli occupation within a certain time frame based on the UN resolutions and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative — which conditions normalizing ties with the Israeli regime on the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders — but has never been realized.

Emboldened by the persisting US support, the Tel Aviv regime has brazenly expanded its unlawful settlement construction efforts, in sheer defiance of the UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2334, which unequivocally condemned the establishment of settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds as a gross violation of international law.

The vast majority of the international community considers such settlements in the occupied territories as illegal.

More than 600,000 occupying settlers live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

The UN Security Council has issued multiple resolutions condemning the Israeli regime’s settlement activities in these occupied territories.

Palestinians insist on having the West Bank as part of a future independent state with East al-Quds as its capital.

The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was the Tel Aviv regime’s continued illegal settlement expansion.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has lambasted the Israeli regime’s brutal military actions in the West Bank, insisting that the moves amount to re-occupation of the occupied region.

He made the remarks in a meeting with Japan’s Senior Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Shigeo Yamada and Japan’s Ambassador for Palestinian Affairs Yoichi Nakashima in the central West Bank city of Ramallah on Wednesday.

Shtayyeh further emphasized that the atrocities perpetrated by the Israeli regime across Palestinian territories, including daily incursions, extrajudicial killings, detention raids, encroachments upon the al-Aqsa Mosque compound and land grab to make room for colonial settlement expansion and settler colonialism, all amount to re-occupation of the West Bank.

He also noted that Tel Aviv is reneging on the commitments and agreements it has signed, blocking Palestinians from holding elections in al-Quds.

The Palestinian prime minister also called for exerting further pressure on the Israeli regime to compel its compliance with all of its signed agreements, particularly allowing the holding of elections across the occupied Palestinian territories, including al-Quds, as well as halting all deductions from the Palestinian tax revenues and releasing all frozen funds.

He finally hailed Japan for its unwavering support for Palestine and maintaining distinguished bilateral ties with the Arab nation.