RAMALLAH, February 26, 2011 (WAFA) – A number of Palestinian human rights organizations wrote US President Barack Obama criticizing the US veto of an anti-settlement Security Council resolution and asking him, “If not now, when?”
The groups said they “express our profound dismay at the US decision to veto the draft UN Security Council resolution seeking to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as illegal.”
It went on, “For over four decades Israel has systematically engaged in illegal policies of land confiscation, extensive destruction of property and settlement building in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, resulting in the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population.”
It added, “The extensive appropriation of land, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, amounts to a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israeli settlement activity also violates international humanitarian law prohibitions on the transfer of the Occupying Power’s own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
The letter, handed over to US official in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem last week said that “settlement construction and expansion have resulted in the creation of two parallel and unequal societies in the occupied Palestinian territory in which Palestinians are discriminated against and denied their fundamental human rights.”
“In East Jerusalem,” letter said, “Israel is implementing a matrix of discriminatory policies against Palestinians, including house demolitions, in order to expel them from the city in what amounts to a policy of population transfer. Simultaneously, Israel is expanding settlements to create ‘facts on the ground’ in active pursuit of its declared annexation of occupied East Jerusalem, conduct absolutely prohibited under international law and condemned by the international community.”
The Palestinian human rights groups condemned the US veto of the resolution, supported by the 14 other members of the Security Council.
“In the circumstances, the US Administration’s veto contravenes its international obligations as a High Contracting Party to the Fourth Geneva Convention. It contradicts its stated official position on Israeli settlements and its purported commitment to peace in the region,” it said.
“Further, the veto highlights the US Administration’s isolation on this issue within the UN Security Council. Given that all 14 other members voted in favor of the resolution, it represented a monumental opportunity for the international community to translate its commitment to international law into an enforceable mechanism for justice. In addition, in ensuring Israel’s impunity, the veto undermines the role of the UN in maintaining international peace and security, as enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter.”
The letter said that “the US prides itself as a defender of democracy and yet, even as the Middle East is in the throes of a new and historical wave of democratic revolutionary motion, fails to understand the Palestinian people’s demand for a meaningful peace process based on international law, human dignity and justice.”
It said, “Protracted peace talks have not led to a cessation of settlement building. On the contrary, while Israel ostensibly engaged in peace negotiations, it at the same time rapidly accelerated the construction and expansion of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory. This disingenuous method of negotiating has effectively allowed Israel to pursue its illegal policies in the occupied Palestinian territory, thereby undermining the viability of a two-state solution. The impunity Israel has benefitted from with respect to its settlement policies has inevitably resulted in the sidelining of international law, allowing for the implementation of an apartheid system in the occupied Palestinian territory and further hampering prospects for peace.”
A total of 12 Palestinian human rights organization signed the letter.
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