UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has criticised Israel’s prime minister for saying Palestinians want the “ethnic cleansing” of Jews in the West Bank. “And this demand is outrageous”, he said in his video message.
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He also said he was appalled by the continued “glorification of terror” by Palestinian parties.
“We call for an end to the occupation and the illegal extension of settlements on occupied land, with all its grave and deteriorating dimensions for the Palestinian people, but also for Israel and the whole region beyond”, the statement read.
The video was posted to Facebook last Friday.
“I’ve always been perplexed by this notion”, he said.
In a videoed statement, Netanyahu rejected the idea that settlements are “an obstacle to peace”, going on to point out Israel’s diversity as a multicultural state which includes almost two million Arab citizens. That’s because they aren’t.
The minister highlighted the increasing settlement activity over the past few years and how Israel and extremist factions within the settler community have been destroying any chance for peace. There’s a phrase for that: “it’s called ethnic cleansing”.
Over the past few decades Israel has built communities which are now home to more than 300,000 Israeli citizens in the West Bank, which have been declared illegal under United Nations law.
Israeli official data shows that illegal settlement construction in the West Bank has increased by 40 percent in the first half of 2016 compared to the previous six months, Israeli organization Peace Now revealed Wednesday.
Calling Netanyahu’s remarks “unacceptable and outrageous”, he also stressed that the worldwide community “universally views the expansion of settlements as an obstacle to peace”.
“Let me be absolutely clear: settlements are illegal under global law. The occupation, stifling and oppressive, must end”, he told the UN Security Council.
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Over the past two weeks, Israel has advanced plans for another 463 housing units to be built in four settlements of the West Bank. “Currently, we are holding talks with the Israelis and the Palestinians to determine convenient time”, Bogdanov said. “The government of Israel is actually the isolated one on the global stage because it isn’t interested in continuing on the path of peace, continues the settlement industry and damages the holy sites”, he added.
