US ambassador says Israelis are not breaking international law
US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee seemed to support Israeli plans to build settlements that would ultimately divide the occupied West Bank and end the potential of a future Palestinian state, after saying that Israeli settlers in the territory are not breaching international law, according to The New Arab on August 22nd.
His comments come after Israel okayed plans for settlement construction in the E1 area.
“It is not a violation of international law for Israelis to live in Judea and Samaria” he told Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya.
“It is a war crime for an occupying power to transfer its own civilian population into the territory it occupies,” a spokesperson stated.
“One of the reasons we’re seeing the more aggressive decision to move into some of these areas, is because it’s in reaction to what the Europeans have done, in concert with the Palestinian Authority, pushing for the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state and pushing for this UN conference, which is supposed to happen next month in New York,” Huckabee said. Huckabee, who has consistently pushed a Zionist agenda during his stint as ambassador, has long been an advocate of Israeli expansionism, including a proposed secession of territory from neighbouring Muslim states to create a Palestinian state.
“I don’t know what the Europeans thought they were going to accomplish, but through their actions, they are accomplishing something they didn’t want to: essentially give a green light to the Israelis to take more pieces of Judea and Samaria, either by sovereignty or annexation,” he said.
Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem in 1980 extended its sovereignty across the West Bank, which the majority of major powers consider occupied territory.
The New Arab, Al-Arabiya, Maghrebi.org
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