Pakistan Flays Israel for Jewish settlement in Jerusalem

United Nations: Pakistan has demanded of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to hold Israel accountable for its continued defiance of international efforts to bring about a just settlement of the Middle East dispute, news agencies reported on Tuesday.

“Flying in the face of the international community’s will, Israel continues to implement policies in defiance of international law, and work towards undermining the basis of the two-state solution,” Ambassador Raza Bashir Tarar, acting Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the Security Council.

“Its (Israel’s) efforts to redraw the map of Palestine through continuation of illegal settlement activity, continued persecution of Palestinians and reluctance to accept the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations, is taking the region to a state akin to a powder keg,” he said in a debate on the Middle East situation.

“We reiterate that continued inaction by the international community is not an option.”

According to the Reuters news agency the Pakistani envoy supported Palestinians’ right to self-determination, as well as the creation of an independent fact-finding mission in the ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’, including East Jerusalem.

Tarar strongly condemned the April 4 announcement of new tenders for over 1,100 Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem.

These actions represent major roadblocks to peace, he said.

Tarar pointed out that more than 4,700 Palestinians languished in Israeli prisons and the international community should force the occupying Power to amend its ways.