Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has criticised the decision and timing of an announcement from the Israeli government that they are to build more settlements in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe building of these colonial settlements in the occupied Palestine is illegal and contrary to international law. Peace talks between Palestine and Israel have been stalled over the past few years, due to the Israel\u2019s continuation settlement building and expansion, which is destroying the prospect of a two-state solution to the conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe timing of this announcement from Israel to increase settlement building comes hours after 26 Palestinian prisoners were freed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prisoner release was supposed to be an action which would advance peace negotiations between the two countries, but Israel\u2019s settlement announcement will be very destructive and undermine the negotiation process,\u00a0and it sends a bad message internationally about Israel’s real intentions in these talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe announcement also comes days after the Israeli NGO Peace Now release a report which found that the construction of 1,708 new homes started in occupied West Bank in first half of 2013, which is up by 70 percent from last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncreased settlement and colony building is destroying any prospects of a peace process. Israel needs to immediately stop its illegal settlement building and show the Palestinians, and the international community, that it is willing and able to respect international law and that it is serious about a peace talks process.<\/p>\n
“Its blatant disregard for international law and illegal actions would suggest the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has criticised the decision and timing of an announcement from the Israeli government that they are to build more settlements in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem. Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said: \u201cThe building of these colonial settlements in the occupied Palestine is illegal and contrary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1209"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1211,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}