PLO official: Israeli settlement law ‘last nail in coffin’

World Today

Palestinian laborers work at a construction site in a new housing project in the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, near Jerusalem, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017. A Palestinian Cabinet minister on Tuesday called on the international community to punish Israel for a contentious new law, just hours after the Israeli parliament adopted the bill to retroactively legalize thousands of West Bank settlement homes built unlawfully on private Palestinian land.(AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that Israeli legislation to retroactively legalize thousands of West Bank settlement homes is an aggression against the Palestinian people.

“That bill is contrary to international law,” Abbas said following a meeting with French President Francois Hollande in Paris. “This is an aggression against our people that we will be opposing in international organizations”.

“What we want is peace… but what Israel does is to work toward one state based on apartheid,” Abbas said.

President Francois Hollande, right, greets Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas prior to their meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Tuesday Feb. 7, 2017. Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, has told The Associated Press that Israeli legislation to retroactively legalize thousands of West Bank settlement homes is “putting the last nail in the coffin of the two-state solution.” (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

Hollande called on the Israeli government to go back on the bill approved by lawmakers late Monday, saying it would “pave the way for an annexation, de facto, of the occupied territories, which would be contrary to the two-state solution.”

Hours before Abbas’ meeting with Hollande, Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, told The Associated Press that the bill is “putting the last nail in the coffin of the two-state solution.”

The measure is the latest in a series of pro-settler steps taken by Israel’s hard-line government since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.

Calling the move “theft,” Erekat said it was “the Israeli government trying to legalize looting Palestinian land”.

In his joint statement with Hollande, Abbas also warned against moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, one of Trump’s campaign promises.

“Any move in that direction is an error and shouldn’t be done prior to an agreement on a political solution”, he said.

Story by the Associated Press