ABC News: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
UNITED NATIONS — Israel\u2019s U.N. ambassador accused the Palestinians on Wednesday of stabbing a knife into any chance for reconciliation by seeking an advisory opinion from the U.N.\u2019s highest court on Israel\u2019s decades-old occupation \u2014 and the Palestinian U.N. envoy accused Israel\u2019s new government of seeking to crush its people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The always contentious monthly U.N. Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was even more vitriolic and threatening this week, and U.N. Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland warned that \u201ca dangerous cycle of violence persists on the ground, amidst increased political tension and a stalled peace process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIsraelis and Palestinians remain on a collision course amid escalating political and inflammatory rhetoric as well as heightened violence in the West Bank — both with potentially grave consequences,\u201d he said. \u201cAbsent a concerted and collective effort by all, with strong support from the international community, spoilers and extremists will continue to pour more fuel on the fire and we will move still further from a peaceful resolution of the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Underlying the ongoing violence is the Palestinians\u2019 decades-long quest for an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, territories seized by Israel in the 1967 war. Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory and has built dozens of settlements that are now home to roughly 500,000 Jewish settlers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the latest confrontation, the Palestinians and their supporters won U.N. General Assembly approval on Dec. 30 of a resolution asking the International Court of Justice or ICJ to intervene in one of the world\u2019s longest-running and thorniest disputes and render an advisory opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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While the court\u2019s rulings are not binding, they do influence international opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel\u2019s new hardline government responded on Jan. 6 by approving steps to penalize the Palestinians in retaliation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they were aimed at what he called \u201can extreme anti-Israel\u201d step at the United Nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The measures include withholding $39 million from the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority and transferring the funds instead to a compensation program for the families of Israeli victims of Palestinian militant attacks, deducting an amount equal to the sum the authority paid last year to families of Palestinian prisoners and those killed in the conflict including militants implicated in attacks against Israelis, and ending VIP travel privileges for leading Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Palestinians responded by getting more than 90 countries to sign a statement expressing \u201cdeep concern\u201d at penalizing the Palestinians for going to the court, and urging Israel to reverse the punitive measures. Israel\u2019s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen rejected the statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Wednesday\u2019s Security Council meeting, Israel\u2019s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan accused the Palestinians of drafting \u201ca poisonous and destructive resolution\u201d referring Israel to the ICJ \u201cwith the sole purpose of destroying Israel as the Jewish state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He claimed this has been a Palestinian goal since before Israel’s founding in 1948, and said one weapon they use \u201cis the manipulation and abuse of international bodies\u201d to force Israel to agree to their demands, which he called \u201cmultilateral terror.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Erdan pointed to anti-Israel activities spurred by the Palestinians at the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court, and said that with the adoption of the General Assembly resolution on the ICJ, \u201cthe Palestinians stabbed a knife in the heart of any chances for dialogue or reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also accused the Palestinians and the U.N. of exaggerating Palestinian casualties and under-reporting and discriminating against Israeli victims. While 2022 \u201cmay have been the deadliest year for Palestinian terrorists,” he said, \u201cit was also the year with the most terror attacks committed against Israelis in a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, told the council the new Netanyahu-led government has said openly its program is to increase settlements, \u201cannexation, systemic discrimination and oppression.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt does not recognize our rights anywhere, and proclaims a right for its settlers everywhere,\u201d Mansour said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The international community overwhelmingly considers settlements to be illegal. Israel\u2019s annexation of east Jerusalem, home to the city\u2019s most sensitive holy sites, also is not internationally recognized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mansour said \u201cpeace is still possible,\u201d but only if the Security Council and the international community \u201cstand up to the supremacists\u201d and take action to end Israel\u2019s occupation, ensure accountability for its annexation of Jerusalem, recognize the state of Palestine, and reject Israeli settlers in occupied territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe face the absurd situation where impunity is enjoyed by those who violate the law and collective punishment is endured by those entitled to its protection,\u201d Mansour told the council. \u201cIsrael considers the world cannot hold it accountable for its illegal unilateral actions and yet it allows itself to punish us for resorting to legitimate multilateral mechanisms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ABC News: UNITED NATIONS — Israel\u2019s U.N. ambassador accused the Palestinians on Wednesday of stabbing a knife into any chance for reconciliation by seeking an advisory opinion from the U.N.\u2019s highest court on Israel\u2019s decades-old occupation \u2014 and the Palestinian U.N. envoy accused Israel\u2019s new government of seeking to crush its people. The always contentious monthly U.N. Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was even more vitriolic and threatening this week, and U.N. Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland warned that \u201ca dangerous cycle of violence persists on the ground, amidst increased political tension and a stalled peace process.\u201d \u201cIsraelis and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29712,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29710\/revisions\/29712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}