Qatar

Cairo - Information Office - November 25

The Council of the Arab League at the level of Foreign Ministers on Monday voiced condemnation and rejection of the decision of the United considering that the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are not illegal.

In a resolution issued at the conclusion of an emergency meeting held today to discuss the implications of the recent US decision on Israeli settlement in the Palestinian territories, the Council considered that the US decision has no legal effect and is a clear violation of the relevant Charter and resolutions of the United Nations, including Security Council resolution 2334 of 2016, the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 2004, and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and other relevant principles of international law.

The State of Qatar took part in the meeting with a delegation headed by HE Qatar's Permanent Representative to the Arab League Ambassador Ibrahim bin Abdulaziz Al Sahlawi.

The Council warned that the unilateral decisions taken by the US administration are in flagrant violation of the international law and the UN resolutions related to the issue, and are considered a real threat to security, peace and stability in the Middle East and the world, and an unprecedented disregard for the international system based on international law and adherence to it.

The Foreign Ministers reiterated the condemnation of the illegal expansionist Israeli settlement policy in all its manifestations on the entire territory of the State of Palestine occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, considering that the Israeli colonial settlements constitute a serious violation of international law and UN resolutions, and aim to divide the Palestinian land and undermine its territorial contiguity, and eliminate the two-state solution.

The Council called for mobilizing Arab efforts at the level of governments, parliaments and civil society organizations to work with international partners to take measures to hold Israel accountable for its illegal settlement policy and practices. This includes urging the ICC Prosecutor to open an investigation in accordance with the Rome Statute, calling on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to quickly release the database of companies operating in the Israeli settlements.

The Council also called for a boycott of any establishment or company operating in the Israeli settlements, and a boycott of settlement goods and a ban on settlers' entry into countries, commending the recent decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union that products of the Israeli settlements must be labeled.

Meanwhile, the Council strongly condemned the recent barbaric Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, which began on November 12 and claimed the lives of dozens of martyrs in addition to many others wounded, as well as the policy of Israeli assassinations, extrajudicial executions, indiscriminate detention, shelling and demolition of houses and infrastructure of the Palestinian people.

The Council affirmed a continued Arab states' determination to take political, economic and diplomatic positions, bilaterally and multilaterally, to defend the central cause of the Arab nation and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.