NEW YORK, February 19, 2011 (WAFA) - Palestine’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations Riyad Mansour Friday warned in letters to top UN officials of Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territories, which severely harm peace prospects in the Middle East.
Mansour sent identical letters to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as well as Maria Luize Ribeiro Viotti, the current president of the Security Council, and the president of the UN General Assembly warning of the Israeli measures.
The Israeli actions and policies, he said, “constitute a major obstruction to the goal of a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of the two-state solution.”
Mansour referred in his letter to Israeli settlement activities as well as the killing or injuring of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli army and extremist Israeli civilians, as was the case when the army killed three fishermen in Gaza on Thursday, and the beating and stabbing to death on Friday of a Palestinian in West Jerusalem by Jewish extremists.
“We call on the international community to apply the necessary pressure on the Israeli government to immediately bring an end to the terror campaign being perpetrated by illegal settlers against the Palestinian civilian population and their properties under occupation,” he wrote.
As Israel continues in its settlement activities transferring Israeli population to the occupied territories, he said, “the territorial contiguity and integrity of the (Palestinian) Territory is being severely undermined and the prospects for achieving the two-state solution are becoming physically impossible.”
Mansour said that “the international community has a legal and moral obligation to take an unwavering stand towards such belligerent, destructive and unlawful Israeli policies and act to bring an end to these policies and practices.”
The Palestine Observer sent the letters prior to a UN Security Council voting on a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territory and calling for cessation of such activities.
The United States vetoed the resolution, which was supported by the remaining 14 members of the Security Council, when it came up for a vote on Friday.
Mansour had expressed hope in the letters that the anti-settlements resolution would be adopted by all members of the Security Council because “that would surely contribute … to sending the proper and strong message to the Israeli government that such illegal policies and actions will no longer be tolerated by the international community.”
M.A.