RAMALLAH, Tuesday, December 22, 2020 (WAFA) - Palestine National Council (PNC) called on parliaments worldwide to condemn the Israeli Knesset as a racist, anti-democracy, and human rights parliament, after it approved a draft bill on the legalization of settlement outposts in occupied Palestinian territories.

In identical letters sent by the Speaker Saleem Al-Za'anoon to the heads of parliamentary unions and assemblies and heads of parliaments around the world, PNC said that the Israeli Knesset and the occupation government are taking advantage of the global public opinion preoccupation with the Coronavirus pandemic and the transition of the US Administration, to carry out the final phase towards annexing Palestinian occupied lands and making it part of the state of Israel.

PNC called for exerting pressure on the Israeli Knesset to immediately stop drafting such legislation, which constitutes a direct and blatant violation of the goals and aims of parliamentary unions and assemblies and their conditions for membership, and violates human justice, international treaties, and basics of legislation in line with international law.

PNC slammed the Knesset's approval of a new draft bill to legalize settlements as a breach of the resolutions of international legitimacy, especially the recent UN Security Council Resolution No. 2334.

"The Israeli new laws will prevent the implementation of the internationally agreed-upon two-state solution, which stipulates establishing of the independent state of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital, on the borders of 4th of June 1967," said PNC in a statement.

The PNC made it clear that the draft law on the regulation of settlement is nothing but an attempt to legitimize settlement to formally annex Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 under Israeli sovereignty.

The draft law obliges relevant Israeli ministries to provide all settlement outposts with infrastructure services including electricity, roads, water, communications, and transportation, PNC clarified, as well as granting the settlement outposts a legal status that leads to its legitimization.

The draft law aims to legitimize the existence of about 130 settlement outposts inhabited by about 10 thousand settlers, the vast majority of whom are from the "Pay the Price" group, which attacks Palestinians and burns their children, as happened with the Dawabsheh family in the countryside of Nablus on 31st of July 2015, the council maintained.

The PNC stressed that the draft law would entail usurping more Palestinian land in favor of establishing and legitimizing settlements and outposts.

T.R.