Hadash on Monday condemned Israeli plans to build homes in occupied East Jerusalem, and the Palestinian Authority threatened to appeal to the United Nations Security Council over the move. The Israeli Interior Ministry approved on Monday the construction of 1,500 new apartment units in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo and the Hadash Spokesperson criticized the move.
MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) panned the government’s decision, arguing that it needed to focus on the existing lack of housing in Israel proper and not in the Palestinian occupied territories, over the 1967 Green Line. “The Netanyahu-Liberman administration doesn’t miss a single opportunity to provoke the Palestinians and the world,” he said.
Hadash demonstration in Tel-Aviv for an independent Palestinian state, June 2011(Photo: Hadash)
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesperson told AFP that the Palestinian government intends to turn to the Security Council for redress over the Israeli expansion plans. The Palestinian leadership was prepared to take “important and necessary measures against Israel’s settlement building, including recourse to the UN Security Council, to prevent implementation of these decisions,” Nabil Abu Rudeineh commented to AFP.
An official Palestinian Authority statement added that the move constituted a “stark challenge to the entire international community,” and one that belittled the Palestinians and the Arab nation. Abu Rudeineh further stated that Israel’s settlement construction would further isolate it in the wake of the November 29 General Assembly voted in favor of recognizing a Palestinian nonmember observer state.
Survey: Two states for two peoples
A clear majority of Israeli Jews hope that Israel “will remain a Jewish and democratic state in twenty years time through the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel”, a Smith Research/Jerusalem Post poll showed on Monday. The survey, commissioned by Blue and White Future, was conducted among 500 respondents from a representative sample of the adult Jewish population in Israel.
Responding to the question “Which scenario would you prefer in order for the state of Israel to maintain its democratic and Jewish character in twenty years time?” 58% predict two states living side by side with fixed borders, 22% said they believe the status quo, the occupation, will continue (without annexing the territories) whilst 13% believe Israel will annex the territories without giving Palestinians full civil rights, and a minority of 7% predict annexing what they see as “Judea and Samaria with full civil rights for citizens.”
According to the poll, a majority of 62% of the Israeli public support the principle of “two states for two peoples,” whilst a large majority (78%) are concerned about the possibility that Israel will become a bi-national state. The survey shows that younger people have more right-wing positions of adults, with 69% of respondents aged fifty and above supporting the principle of “two states for two peoples” compared to 63% among those aged 30-49 and 42% of those aged 18-29.
