New Israeli Bill to Legalize Settlements Denounced

Iran’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned a recent Israeli bill to legalize about 4,000 settler units in the occupied West Bank, saying the Israeli settlements are a “mass and blatant violation” of international law.

“The illegitimate nature of the Israeli regime is based on the occupation of Palestinian lands,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said on Friday, Press TV reported.

“The [Israeli] regime’s settlement plan is against regulations and principles recognized by the international community, particularly international human rights and international humanitarian law.”

Qasemi emphasized that those who are behind such moves are flagrantly violating international law and “must be prosecuted”.

“The settlements are a serious obstacle to the materialization of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination,” he said.

The Iranian spokesperson urged all “governments and international institutions” to make use of all possible means at their disposal “to oblige the Zionist [Israeli] regime to abide by international rules and principles.”

He also called on governments, the United Nations and other relevant bodies not to merely condemn the Israeli moves in words without taking any practical measure.

  Need for Practical Move 

Qasemi stressed that the world bodies need to make an “immediate and practical” move to “stop the continuation of inhuman and illegal activities of this regime and prevent [the construction of] new settlements in Palestine”.

Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday approved a hugely controversial bill legalizing about 4,000 settler units built on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

In the first of three readings needed to turn the bill into law, 57 members of the Knesset voted to approve the draft legislation while 51 opposed.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Beit-ul-Moqaddas, another Palestinian territory.

The Palestinian Authority wants West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinians state, with East Beit-ul-Moqaddas as its capital.

Built on occupied land, the settlements are internationally condemned as illegal and constitute land grab.

Even the US, Israel’s oldest and strongest ally, Germany, the country least critical among its fellow European nations of Tel Aviv, United Nations officials and the European Union have voiced strong criticism of the bill.

In a statement on Thursday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein condemned as “unequivocally illegal” the bill and called on Israeli officials to revise their support for the bill.

The international community regards all settlements as illegal. The Israeli regime has, however, continued to expand its illegal construction activities, defying warnings that the move could hamper the so-called Middle East peace talks.