Israel Not Sure By “Despicable” UN Vote On Palestine: Benjamin Netanyahu

Ramallah, West Financial institution:

Israel condemned and the Palestinians welcomed on Saturday a United Nations Basic Meeting vote asking the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice to offer an opinion on authorized penalties of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The Friday vote presents a problem for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who this week took workplace on the head of a authorities which has set settlement growth as a precedence and which incorporates events who need to annex West Financial institution land on which they’re constructed.

“The Jewish individuals are not occupiers in their very own land nor occupiers in our everlasting capital Jerusalem and no UN decision can distort that historic fact,” Netanyahu mentioned in a video message, including that Israel was not certain by the “despicable choice.”

Together with Gaza and East Jerusalem, the Palestinians search the occupied West Financial institution for a state. Most international locations think about Israel’s settlements there unlawful, a view Israel disputes citing historic and Biblical ties to the land.

The Hague-based Worldwide Courtroom of Justice (ICJ) also called the World Courtroom, is the highest UN court docket coping with disputes between states. Its rulings are binding, although the ICJ has no energy to implement them.

The UN Basic Meeting requested the ICJ to present an advisory opinion on the authorized penalties of Israel’s “occupation, settlement and annexation … together with measures aimed toward altering the demographic composition, character and standing of the Holy Metropolis of Jerusalem.”

Members of Netanyahu’s new authorities have pledged to bolster settlements with improvement plans, budgets and authorisation of dozens of outposts constructed with out permits.

The cupboard contains newly created posts and restructured roles that grant a few of these powers to pro-settler coalition companions, who in the end intention to increase Israeli sovereignty to the West Financial institution.

Netanyahu, nonetheless, has given no indication of any imminent steps to annex the settlements, a transfer that may possible shake up its relations with Western and Arab allies alike.

The Palestinians welcomed the UN vote by which 87 members voted in favour of adopting the request; Israel, the US and 24 different members voted in opposition to; and 53 abstained.

“The time has come for Israel to be a state topic to regulation, and to be held accountable for its ongoing crimes in opposition to our folks,” mentioned Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority has restricted self-rule within the West Financial institution.

Basem Naim, an official with Hamas, the Islamist terror group that controls Gaza, mentioned it was “an vital step towards confining and isolating the state of occupation (Israel).”

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