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UN Middle East envoy encourages Israeli legislators to reconsider controversial bill on settlements

Xinhua, December 7, 2016 Adjust font size:

The UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, on Tuesday encouraged Israeli legislators to reconsider the controversial bill on settlements, saying that the so-called "legalization bill" in Israel has the objective of protecting illegal settlements and outposts built on private Palestinian property in the West Bank, a UN spokesman told reporters here.

The UN envoy said that "if adopted, the bill will have far reaching legal consequences for Israel, across the occupied West Bank and will greatly diminish the prospect of Arab-Israeli peace," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

"Mr. Mladenov encouraged Israeli legislators to reconsider this move," the spokesman said. "He reiterated that all settlement activities are illegal under international law and run counter to the Middle East Quartet position that settlements are one of the main obstacles to peace."

The Middle East Quartet is a diplomatic group comprising the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States in search of the realization of the two-state solution, which, widely backed by the international community, means a secure Israel to live in peace with an independent Palestine State.

The Israeli parliament on Monday night gave preliminary approval to a bill to allow the State to expropriate private Palestinian lands in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The controversial legislation passed its first hurdle with a 60-49 vote but still needs to be voted in three more readings in the 120-member parliament.

A previous version of the bill passed a preliminary reading last month.

It triggered international criticism while its main supporter, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennet, hailing it as a first step towards an annexation of the West Bank.

Under the new bill, the ownership of private Palestinian lands would remain Palestinian, but the State of Israel could expropriate the right to use the land.

The United Nations repeatedly made it clear that the Israeli settlement activities in the occupied West Bank is illegal under international law. Enditem