The Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs Monday welcomed remarks by US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides that he will not visit any Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, saying the move will help push the peacemaking process forward.
Nides said in his first interview with Israeli media since taking the post that he had never visited an Israeli settlement in the West Bank and had no plans to do so “as part of his efforts as an envoy not to take steps that could inflame the situation on the ground.”
“The daily Israeli violations and assaults on our people in Palestine and Jerusalem, including the ongoing fattening of existing settlements in the occupied Palestinian lands, constitute a threat to the international law and international legitimacy and the quest to achieve peace and security in the entire region”, Secretary-General of the committee Abdullah Kanaan said in a statement.
He pointed to dozens of colonial schemes to establish settlements, outposts and Jewish neighborhoods in Palestine and Jerusalem, and the confiscation of thousands of dunums of land with forged contracts with settlement companies.
Amid calls for peace came the “courageous” position of the US ambassador to Israel, the occupying power, rejecting an invitation to visit settlements as a reaffirmation of the illegality of settlements, Kanaan said.
He cited United Nations resolutions, including Security Council resolution 2334 of 2016 that demands a halt to all Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which underlined the illegitimacy of settlements on lands occupied in 1967. The United States abstained during the vote on resolution 2334 refusing to veto it.
Nides’s remarks represent a practical and balanced position by the administration of President Joe Biden toward peace and finding a solution to the Palestinian cause according to the two-state solution, Kanaan said, noting the resumption of US aid to the Palestinians and support of humanitarian work in Palestine and Jerusalem in addition to efforts to reopen the US Consulate in Jerusalem.
Kanaan said that the Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs particularly appreciates the “important diplomatic position” of the ambassador, which came after the bias to Israel by former president Donald Trump’s administration and its decisions, including the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem and cutting aid to UNRWA, the Palestinian refugee agency. Such moves were meant to ignite regional tensions, he said.
Source: Jordan News Agency