Roundup: Abbas instructs diplomatic campaign against Israeli settlement: official

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made instructions to senior Palestinian diplomats, including his foreign affairs minister and the ambassador to the United Nations, to start lobbying against the Israeli settlement in the Palestinian territories, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Nabil Abu Rdineh, an aide to Abbas, said in a press statement that Palestinian diplomats will move soon and hold immediate consultations with the international community as a response to the Israeli escalation of building up settlements in the Palestinian territories. He also said the diplomats will condemn the U.S. silence.

"President Abbas gave clear instructions to Foreign Minister Reyad al-Malki and the Palestinian ambassador to the UN to find the proper ways to halt this Israeli aggression and put an end to this unprecedented settlement construction," said Abu Rdineh, adding that "consultations are made with European and Arab states."

The aid to President Abbas also said that several letters are to be sent to both Europe and the U.S. and will be clearly explaining the significant growth of the Israeli settlement that undermined all the hopes for security and stability in the region. "Israel is playing with fire and it will be responsible," he said.

He also noted that the current Trump administration's silence and avoiding to condemn the Israeli settlement "is in fact encouraging the current Israeli government to carry out more settlement activities." He said all former U.S. administrations considered the settlements "an obstacle for peace."

Israel Public Radio has earlier reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman approved on Tuesday a plan to build 3,000 new housing units in the settlements in the West Bank. Last week, 3,100 more units were approved for the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel's decision to increase settlement building came a few days after U.S. President Donald Trump took office in the White House. No official statements had yet been made by Trump on whether he supports settlements or not.

Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said in a press statement that the Israeli government "is burying the two-state solution," adding "apparently, the Israeli government has received undeclared support from the Trump administration, which is silent until now."

"The only remaining option for us is to head to the International Criminal Court in The Hague and then there will be no justification for the judges of this court not to investigate the Israeli settlement measures and sue them for committing war crimes against the Palestinians."

Meanwhile, Hanana Ashrawi, a member in the PLO executive committee, said in an emailed press statement that the silence of the American government, and those who were recently appointed in the White House, is politically and financially supporting the Israeli settlement.

"This silence and support had urged Netanyahu to interpret it as the U.S. acceptance to this escalation and also an encouragement to carry on with it," she said, adding that "Israel had completely undermined any possibility for establishing a vital Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967."

The Israeli settlement is one of the thorny questions that keep the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians flaring. The settlement issue was the major reason which blew up the U.S.-sponsored bilateral peace talks held for nine months between Israel and the Palestinians that stopped in April 2014.

In January, the United Nations Security Council issued its 2334 resolution that condemned the Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories and called on Israel to stop it and resolve all the conflict questions through out direct peace negotiations.

Ahmad Awwad, the political analyst from the West Bank, told Xinhua that the Israeli settlement building and expansion "is practically burying the idea of establishing a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the territories Israel occupied in 1967.

"The current Israeli policies are clearly showing that Israel is departing Oslo peace accords which was signed with the Palestinians in 1993 and is burying the principle of the two-state solution and is going towards one bi-nationality state," said Awwad. Endit