The Arab League warned the United States on Monday that its recent decision to recognize Israeli settlements in West Bank is a threat to peace and security in the Middle East
CAIRO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th November, 2019) The Arab League warned the United States on Monday that its recent decision to recognize Israeli settlements in West Bank is a threat to peace and security in the Middle East.
Earlier in the day, the organization has held a ministerial-level meeting in Cairo, The meeting came after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced earlier in November that Washington no longer considered the construction of civilian settlements by Israel in the West Bank "inconsistent with international law," a reversal of the position held by the previous administration under President Barack Obama.
"We warn that the policy of the US administration in making unilateral decisions that breach that international law and UN decisions regarding Palestine is a real threat to security, peace and stability in the Middle East and the world," the Arab League said in a statement, issued after the meeting.
Israel has been in control of the Palestinian-majority West Bank since the Six-Day War in 1967. Since then, more than 120 Israeli civilian settlements were built in the disputed area.
Among the international documents that codify the unacceptability of such practice is Article 49 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilian persons during times of war, which reads that "the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which was adopted unanimously in 2016, is another such document. It states that Israel's building of settlements on Palestinian territories constitutes a violation of international law.
