Despite US objection, the Palestinian Authority is seeking a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the "occupied territories," chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday.
Erekat told the Bethlehem-based Ma'an agency that "The Americans don't want anythingto be submitted to the Security Council, but we insist that we consider the Security Council our path toward international legitimacy."
"We don't want the draft resolution to be vetoed by the US," Erekat said. However, he added, "In case the US vetoes the resolution, we know that at least we have tried and used all available means. We will not abstain from doing what we can do just because we think this side or another will oppose it."
The draft resolution has already been worded, the senior PA official said, but a decision on when to submit it has not been made. The draft resolution condemns settlement construction as an illegal action and applies the 1947 Geneva Convention on Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Erekat told Ma'an Israel was to blame for the situation: "The Israelis are responsible for the collapse of the peace process, not only at Israeli-Palestinian level, but they are also responsible for the repercussions of that collapse in the whole region because the policy they chose leads to chaos, extremism and bloodshed."
Prominent Israeli jurists including Nitzana Darshan-Leitner of Shurat HaDin and Prof. Talia Einhorn have explained that Israel is completely within its legal rights when it settles Judea and Samaria with Jews.
"According to international law," Einhorn wrote, "Israel has full right to try to populate the entire Land of Israel with dense Jewish settlement, and thus actualize the principles set by the League of Nations in the original Mandate Charter of San Remo in 1920. At that time, the mandate for the Land of Israel was granted to the British, and the introduction to the mandate charter states clearly that it is based on the international recognition of the historic ties between the Jewish People and the Land of Israel."
"Up until 1948," Einhorn explained, "Judea, Samaria and Gaza were a part of the British Mandate. In the 1948 War of Independence, Egypt illegally grabbed the Gaza Strip, and Jordan took Judea and Samaria, the 'West Bank.' Egypt did not claim sovereignty in Gaza, but Jordan deigned, in 1950, to annex Judea and Samaria. This annexation was not recognized by international law. The Arab nations objected to it, and only Britain and Pakistan recognized it - and Britain did not recognize the annexation of eastern Jerusalem. In 1967, after the Six Day War, these territories - which were originally meant for the Jewish Nation's National Home according to the Mandate Charter - returned to Israeli control."
condemning Israeli settlements in the "occupied territories," chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sunday.
