Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit condemned the Israel government's approval to establish a new settlement in the West Bank, saying that the decision reflects Israel's true intentions towards the Palestinians and the peace process.
The Arab League chief accused the Israeli Prime Minister of seeking to hinder efforts aiming at launching a political process on the basis of the Two-States solution, stressing that this step clearly indicates that the Israeli government is not a real partner in achieving peace.
Since the signing of the Oslo Agreement, settlement construction has been growing cancerously in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. However, the government's recent decision to name a new settlement in its first for 20 years ago reveals the extent of its contempt for the international consensus that rejects settlement and calls for its cessation, he said.
He underlined that the Arab countries declared during Amman Summit and in its final declaration their full solidarity with the Palestinians and their legitimate right to establish their state on the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital, based on the Arab peace initiative, adding that the policy of the current Israeli government reveals every day the absence of any desire to be a partner in the establishment of a lasting and just peace in the region.
The Israeli government has approved the building of the first new settlement in 20 years in the occupied West Bank late on Thursday in a move that is considered illegal under international law and was adopted less than a week after the United Nations criticized Israel for not taking any steps to halt settlement building on occupied Palestinian territory, as demanded by the Security Council in a resolution it passed in December.

Source: QNA