Wednesday, January 18, 2012

EU should consider legislation to prevent or discourage companies and organisations in member states doing business which supports Israeli settlements

"Successive Israeli governments have pursued a policy of transferring Jewish population into the oPt [occupied Palestinian territory] in violation of the fourth Geneva convention and international humanitarian law," the report says. The EU says East Jerusalem is occupied territory and was illegally annexed.

It says Israel is "actively perpetuating its annexation by systematically undermining the Palestinian presence in the city" by imposing planning regulations in Palestinian neighbourhoods, house demolitions, evictions, archaeological activity in the "historic basin" around the Old City, the revoking of Palestinian residency rights, separate bypass roads for Israelis and Palestinians and the construction of the separation barrier.

The report says Israel uses different methods to gain control of Palestinian land and property, including the recent designation of privately-owned land for a new national park at Mount Scopus. The plan would halt any expansion of Palestinian neighbourhoods.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/18/eu-report-israeli-settlement-growth

EU report calls for action over Israeli settlement growth

Diplomats in Jerusalem say states should consider law to discourage 'financial transactions in support of settlement activity'

A Palestinian shepherd near the Israeli settlement of Har Homa. Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

• Nick Clegg, the UK deputy prime minister, describing settlement construction as "an act of deliberate vandalism" that was doing "immense damage" to the prospects for peace. "The continued existence of illegal settlements risks making facts on the ground such that a two-state solution becomes unviable," he said.

• A French parliamentary report accusing Israel of "apartheid" policies in its allocation of water resources between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank.

• An internal EU report strongly criticising Israeli policies in Area C, the 62% of the West Bank under full Israeli control, saying they were jeopardising prospects for a two-state solution....READ MORE

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