– If the incoming government in Israel is in favor of further expansion of the settlements, it means new steps in the direction of a situation on the ground where there is in practice one state, and a lack of self-determination, democracy and rights for the Palestinians, says Huitfeldt (Ap) in an email to NTB.
Huitfeldt believes that Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to expand the settlements undermines the possibility of a two-state solution and is an obstacle to peace. She also criticizes him for taking another step towards undermining a Palestinian state.
Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt at a ministerial meeting she chaired in the Donor Countries Group for Palestine (AHLC) in 2021. Here Huitfeldt is in talks with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh. Photo: Torstein Bøe / NTB
The statement is a reaction to Netanyahu’s new right-wing government making it clear that expanding settlements in occupied Palestinian territories is its top priority. The new government will be installed on Thursday and is described by commentators as the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history.
– Illegal
– The Israeli settlement activity on occupied land is contrary to international law, states Huitfeldt.
– We do not accept the illegal settlements, and the occupation must end. We will present this message to the new government in Israel, she adds.
Netanyahu’s Likud party declared on Wednesday that the new government “will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel – in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan Heights and in Judea and Samaria.”
Judea and Samaria is the biblical name for the West Bank, which, together with the Golan Heights, was occupied by Israel in 1967. The UN has for years since demanded Israeli withdrawal from the area.
Defying the Security Council
Israel has since established around 270 settlements and so-called outposts on the West Bank and just over 30 settlements on the Golan Heights.
The UN Security Council decided in December 2016 that the Israeli settlements established there are illegal and in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The settlements and outposts currently house around 700,000 Israelis and were created in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention which in Article 49 states that “The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population to the territories that are occupied”.
Obstacles to peace
The Palestinians see the settlements as the biggest obstacle to peace, and Norwegian foreign ministers have pointed out the same over the years. Huitfeldt has also previously come out strongly against the Israeli settlement policy.
– Continued growth in the settlements weakens the possibility of establishing a coherent, independent and sovereign Palestinian state, she said in May this year.
