An overwhelming majority by the world’s nations approved a UN General Assembly resolution on Nov. 9 which identifies Israel’s policy of expanding settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territory and the Syrian Golan Heights as “illegal and an obstacle to peace and economic and social development,” specifying in its clauses the multiple violations of humanitarian and other international laws being carried out through the settlement policy.
The resolution dated Nov. 1, “Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and the Occupied Syrian Golan”, does not reference the immediate horror in Gaza, but it calls out a key wrongful policy which must be overturned for any serious peace talks to advance. It passed with 145 nations voting in favor; 7 against, those being the U.S., Canada, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Nauru; and 18 countries abstaining.
The resolution is blunt: “Israeli settlement activities involve, inter alia, the transfer of nationals of the occupying Power into the occupied territories, the confiscation of land, the forced transfer of Palestinian civilians … the exploitation of natural resources, the fragmentation of territory and other actions against the Palestinian civilian population and the civilian population in the occupied Syrian Golan that are contrary to international law.”
