INTERNATIONAL: Dozens of Jewish settlers take over buildings in West Bank

This should include, he said, completion of a barrier around Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank in order to improve the residents’ security “and to send a message to the Palestinians that (the settlements) will remain part of Israel in any future negotiations”. “Our position is doing business in the settlements is inconsistent with those responsibilities”. “These commercial attacks against Israel increase the prospect of isolating the Jewish state, while strengthening its most vitriolic critics and slowing the pursuit of peace”.

Asked about official Palestinian Authority incitement to violence, which Netanyahu and cabinet ministers have claimed has been stoking the recent wave of terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank, Abbas denied the PA was engaged in incitement and invited an American interlocutor to settle the issue. Speaking to the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies, a top Israeli think tank, he said Israel’s continued expansion of settlements raises questions about Israel’s intentions and its stated commitment to establishing an independent Palestinian state.

The report coincides with recognition from an unlikely place of just how bad Israeli discriminations and rights abuses have gotten.

Israel recently reinstated its controversial practice of demolishing homes of Palestinian attackers in east Jerusalem, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “one of the most efficient tools” in discouraging Palestinian attacks. The term is used by rightwing Israelis against other Jews – particularly against those in the diaspora – whom they regard as not being Jewish or pro-Israel enough.

JERUSALEM-The leader of Israel’s Labor Party, for which a two-state solution has been the primary plank of its political platform for decades, said Tuesday that its realization was not a possibility at the present time. It recommends that businesses “avoid financing, administering or otherwise supporting settlements or settlement-related activities and infrastructure, such as through contracting to purchase settlement-manufactured goods or agricultural produce, to ensure the businesses are not indirectly contributing to and benefiting from such activities”. In accordance with that, HRW calls on countries to impose strict protocols for labeling the origins of settlement products as such.

“From some 200 territorial disputes around the world the European Union chooses to discriminate only against Israel”. The report also pointed out a number of global businesses profiting from settlement areas. Yet that is happening every day in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, where 1,000 factories operate, and 93,000 dunams (9,300 hectares) of farmland are cultivated in 237 settlements.

“The Hezbollah organization is trying to latch onto the wave of terrorism flooding Israel recently and is working vigorously to fan the flames, contributing to the growing incitement by exploiting the Palestinian population and tempting young people to carry out terrorist attacks under its instruction for payment”, the statement read. In the same period, at least 148 Palestinians have been killed, 94 of whom Israel has described as assailants. Most of the others died during violent demonstrations.