The UN Security Council (UNSC) is to vote on a resolution that calls for a cessation of Israeli settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“A vote will be held on the resolution, filed by Arab diplomats, regardless of all the pressure Washington would exert on the Palestinians as well as our Arab state allies,” Ma’an news agency quoted Saleh Raafat, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as saying on Tuesday.
“Even though the United States may use its Security Council veto power to stop anti-Israeli initiatives, Palestinian diplomats at the United Nations are ready to use (the) Uniting for Peace Resolution to have their draft resolution passed," he added.
The Uniting for Peace resolution — also known as the "Acheson Plan" — states that in cases disagreement among the five permanent members of the UNSC gets in the way of international peace and security, the matter shall be addressed immediately by the General Assembly.
Israel has been persistently proceeding with the construction of its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
The United Nation has repeatedly condemned Israel for defying international calls to halt its settlement construction activities.
In October 2010, Oscar Fernandez Taranco, assistant UN secretary general for political affairs, criticized Israel for jeopardizing efforts to resolve the impasse in talks with the Palestinian Authority — negotiations derailed by Israel’s refusal to halt its West Bank settlement expansions.
"We have a brief and crucial window to overcome the current impasse. The UN secretary general continues to believe that if the door to peace closes, it will be very hard to reopen," Taranco told the UNSC.
Recently, Human Rights Watch’s representative Carroll Bogert criticized Tel Aviv for its "systematic discrimination" against Palestinians "merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin" and "depriving them of electricity, water, schools, and access to roads."
"While Israeli settlements flourish, Palestinians under Israeli control live in a time warp — not just separate, not just unequal, but sometimes even pushed off their lands and out of their homes," Bogert said.
Palestinians view Israel’s unrelenting settlement construction activities as a major hurdle smothering their efforts to establish an independent state on the territories Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.
(Press TV)
