Israel won’t authorise new settlements

Israel will not authorise new settlements in the occupied West Bank in the coming months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said yesterday.

Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition on February 12 granted retroactive authorisation to nine settler outposts that had been erected without government approval, angering the Palestinians, who want the West Bank for a future state.

The move also drew condemnation from Western powers and Israel’s Arab partners, who deem all the settlements illegal.

But the United Arab Emirates told the UN Security Council it would not call a vote on a draft resolution against the settlements. Citing “positive talks between the partners”, UAE said the council would instead issue a unanimous statement.

Meanwhile, The UN Security Council issued a formal statement yesterday expressing “deep concern and dismay” with Israel’s February 12 announcement of further construction and expansion of settlements on occupied Palestinian territory.

“The Security Council reiterates that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperiling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines,” the 15-member council said in the presidential statement agreed by consensus.

Israel has sponsored some 140 settlements in the West Bank, which it sees as a historical birthright and a security bulwark, while dismantling or turning a blind eye to dozens of outposts.

“Israel informed the United States that, in the coming months, it will not authorise new settlements beyond the nine already approved,” said the statement from Netanyahu’s office.

On Saturday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Netanyahu and separately with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, reaffirming US support for a “two-state solution” in the region and asking the two to “restore calm.”

Blinken spoke by telephone with both men to reaffirm US commitment to “a negotiated two-state solution and opposition to policies that endanger its viability,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.