UN resolution on Netanyahu’s decision to expand settlement

The UAE’s resolution has proactively been supported by the Palestinian Mission to the UN that started the whole lobbying against the decision from the Israeli government.

When the newly re-elected Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu ordered earlier this month to bring up new settlement colonies in the West Bank, it was expected that the Arab and other Islamic world would oppose it tooth and nail. On the expected lines, the Arab world is up in arms against Israel in almost all global platforms including of the United Nations.

The UAE has drafted a UN Security Council resolution that seeks Israel to stop all the settlement activities in the territories that, they consider, belong to Palestine. Earlier, the gathering in Cairo also condemned the decision from the Netanyahu government to populate the land that has been Israel's control for decades.

The UAE's resolution has proactively been supported by the Palestinian Mission to the UN that started the whole lobbying against the decision from the Israeli government. The Palestine Mission has been making huge hue & cry over the issue and asking the members to hold a vote as early as possible so that Israel govt could be stopped from settlement expansion.

The settlement has no legal validity

The draft from the UAE talks about the illegality of settlement and claims that this is a flagrant violation of international laws. According to the draft, since these are the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, they belong to Palestine. It establishes that even the settlements in East Jerusalem are illegal since the place was in Palestine before 1980.

The resolution draft also blames Israel for its activities to change the demographics of the place and the status of the territory. Condemning Israel's activities of the construction and expansion of settlements and transfer of Israeli settlers to the new regions, the draft claims that confiscation of land and demolition of homes is going on at rapid scale.

Condemning the decision of the Israeli government to build new settlement colonies, the resolution calls for upholding unchanged the historic status quo.

History of Israeli settlements

There are several of the Israeli settlement colonies in the territories of the West Bank that include East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. However, it dismantled some of them, including the ones in Gaza in 2005. The settlement in Jerusalem is another case altogether as Israel considers it an extension of East Jerusalem and does not even consider it a 'settlement' in strict terms.

Therefore, there is nothing illegal in the settlements built in Jerusalem. However, the recent decision of the Israel government to build new settlements in the West Bank has been contested by Palestine and Arab countries.