Israel's legalization of settlement in West Bank outrages Palestinians

The Israeli parliament's vote to legalize settlement posts in the West Bank outraged the Palestinians on Tuesday, who warned that the vote would bring a global wrath against Israel.

On Monday night, the Israeli parliament voted in favor of legalizing 4,000 Jewish settlements that will be built on Palestinian-owned lands in the West Bank. 60 Israeli parliament members voted in favor and 52 voted against the bill, which drove the Palestinians furious.

Nabil Abu Rdineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in an official press statement that "this is an escalation that would only lead to more instability and chaos in the entire region." He called the Israeli Knesset vote "unacceptable."

He said that the Israeli decision violates the recent United Nations Security Council resolution 2,334, which condemned the Israeli settlement and called on Israel to halt it, adding that "Israel continues settlement expansion and building and neglects the international laws and resolutions."

The Israeli settlement expansion and building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem is the thorniest issue which obstructs the resumption of the bilateral peace negotiations.

Saeb Erekat, Secretary General of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said in an emailed statement that legalizing settlement "is dangerous and a legalized theft of the Palestinian land properties, even if the bill contains provisions to compensate the Palestinians or give them other land in exchange."

Meanwhile, the Palestinians slammed the United States position towards the most recent Israeli parliament decision.

However, the Administration of President Donald Trump had stated last week that the construction of new settlements "may not be helpful" in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Israel was furious when the United States, under former President Barack Obama, abstained instead of vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution in December, calling the settlements illegal and demanding Israel stop building them.

The Palestinians want the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which were occupied by Israel in 1967, as the lands for their future independent Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital.

In Gaza, Abdulatif al-Qanou, a spokesman for Hamas movement, said in an emailed press statement that the Israeli government decision to legalize settlement "is an organized terrorism and a continuation to the endless aggression on the Palestinian people and their properties."

"The new law of the Israeli occupation can never be legal," he said, stressing that American support, the silence of the world and the wrong policies of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) encouraged Israel to do so.

Mohamed al-Hindi, a senior official in the less-influential Islamic Jihad (Holy War) group, said that the PNA is unable to defend the properties of the Palestinian people and their lands, adding "it should give a free hand to the Palestinian armed resistance to stop this stupidity."

In Israel, one lawmaker said the measure is an "acute danger to the State of Israel" and says it goes against Israeli law. Israel's attorney general has called it unconstitutional, according to Israeli media reports.

However, nationalist lawmakers said the Jewish people have a connection to the land and a right to it. They believed legalizing the settlements is in Israel's interest and denied it is a path toward annexation. Endit