Another crime against Palestine
Approval of colonist houses in occupied East Jerusalem is illegal and immoral
After a disastrous and dangerous decade of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in power, there can be no doubt that Palestinians have paid the heaviest price possible for his misrule.
Now, even though elections are due in September and this occupation regime lacks even less legitimacy, the Jewish state has approved the construction of 6,000 new colonist homes in the occupied West Bank.
This is an act that runs counter to agreements between the Palestinian National Authority and the occupation regime.
It is an immoral and illegal land grab, one that further diminishes international agreements that have been in place for decades.
Past moves in occupied East Jerusalem have been condemned by the United Nations and every body of standing that recognises the injustices carried out by the occupation regime on the people of Palestine.
More on the issue
This illegitimate measure comes partly as a result of the grievous error by US to grant recognition to occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It was an act that flew in the face of decades of legal and diplomatic convention and was a sop thrown to the Israeli Prime Minister.
That recognition has emboldened occupation authorities who approved the 6,000 new colonist houses, and it will be yet a further step in the Jewification of occupied East Jerusalem.
As it stands now, the city has been effectively dividend on lines not dissimilar to apartheid South Africa, with trams connecting only Jewish areas and those stolen for colonists.
Long-standing international agreements covering the so-called areas A, B and C of occupied East Jerusalem are now worthless pieces of paper as Israel has effectively built at places and times of its choosing, regardless of legality and global condemnation.
Should the international community and the United Nations once more issue condemnation and censure, the reality is that Israel will ignore those as well.
These new colonies will be built on open fields that for centuries and generations have been farmed and harvested by Palestinians.
The precious water resources that supply these areas will be siphoned off for colonists to bathe and wash away any guilt all right-thinking people feel at this criminal misappropriation.
Olive trees that have stood for the best part of a millennium will now be felled to make way for colonist homes. Is it any wonder then that the flames of Palestinian resistance burn stronger than ever?