Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, said today that Israel’s ongoing settlement activities, including a decision to build 1,058 housing units in the West Bank, will push the Palestinian leadership to accelerate its implementation of the ultimatum announced by President Mahmoud Abbas during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September.
In his speech before the UN General Assembly’s 76th session in New York on September 24, President Mahmoud Abbas said that Israel, the occupying Power, has one year to withdraw from the Palestinian territory it occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and argued that without this condition being met, the Palestinian recognition of Israel on the 1967 borders might be questionable.
“The extremist Israeli government is trying to race against time to impose facts on the ground and prevent the establishment of a geographically contiguous Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” warned Abu Rudeineh in a statement.
“If the international community, led by the United States, wants to preserve the two-state solution, it must go beyond condemnation and take practical steps to prevent the Israeli government from implementing its dangerous settlement plans, which, if implemented, will push the region into more tension, violence, and instability,” he said.
“All settlements are illegal and will disappear from the Palestinian land, whatever the cost is. Israel must be aware that the policy of settlement and land theft will not bring security and stability to its people, and that the only way before it is to recognize the rights of the Palestinian people to freedom and independence,” Abu Rudeineh concluded.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency