Archives for 15 April 2016

15 April 2016 – Illegal Israeli Settlements

Palestine Letter 4.15.16Excellency,

As the Security Council is set to hold yet another open debate next week to discuss the “Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestine question”, one characteristic remains the same, Israel, the occupying Power, continues to flagrantly flout international law and violate the inalienable and most basic human rights of the Palestinian people under its occupation throughout the Occupied State of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, with total impunity.  In particular, one feature of the occupation that has gone unchanged over the nearly five decades of occupation is that the occupying Power has continued to illegally confiscate and colonize  Palestinian land in grave breach of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, as well as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Despite the widespread condemnations and calls by the international community to reverse and halt its building of settlements on the territory it illegally occupies, the occupying Power, before the eyes of the world, continues to carry on and openly persist with this war crime.  This has been the case both during the time of the so-called peace process, in which the Palestinian people witnessed Israel’s extremist settler population nearly triple, or in times of conflict and unrest. The recent period has been no different.  In fact, according to the Israeli organization, Peace Now, the building of illegal Israeli settlements was up by 250 percent in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the same period last year.  [Read more…]