Kuwait has strongly denounced the Israeli regime’s plan to annex large parts of the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank, calling on the international community to take a united stance against the move.
Kuwait’s National Assembly Speaker Marzouq al-Ghanim in a press release on Sunday stressed his country’s rejection of Israel’s ploy to annex the West Bank and the Jordan Valley, and called for decisive Arab and international reactions against “Israel’s aggressive unilateral steps”.
Ghanim expressed his readiness to work with international parliamentary forums to expose Israel’s vicious practices and rally an international position against them.
During a telephone conversation with Jordanian counterpart and chairman of the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union Atef Tarawneh, Ghanim also discussed a variety of possible actions against Israel.
Last month, an Arab group headed by Kuwait opposed Israel’s nomination bid for a legal committee at the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September. In a letter to the UN chief, Kuwaiti Ambassador Mansour al-Otaibi said the group had concerns and considered Israel ineligible for membership in the bureau because of its ongoing and systematic violations of international law and many UN resolutions for more than seven decades.
Meanwhile, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned that a third intifada (uprising) could be just around the corner if Israel goes ahead with its highly-contentious annexation plan.
Israel's ruling coalition, led by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had announced July 1 as the date to begin moving forward with the scheme to impose “sovereignty” over about a third of the West Bank, including settlements and the fertile Jordan Valley.
The regime, however, failed to launch the land grab bid on the set date amid widening differences between Netanyahu and his coalition partner, minister of military affairs Benny Gantz.
Israeli labor, social affairs and services minister Ofir Akunis stressed that officials were still working out the details of the plan with their American counterparts.
US President Donald Trump had already given Tel Aviv the green light for the land grab in his self-proclaimed “deal of the century,” which was unveiled in January with the aim of re-drawing the Middle East map.
But, there have been indications of Trump's waning support for the annexation deal, with some analysts arguing that the US president has already too much on his plate to deal with in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis gripping the United States ahead of the November presidential election, and therefore is not in a situation to continue his controversial support for Netanyahu's land grab project.
Israel’s planned push to illegally consolidate its occupation of Palestine has drawn fierce international condemnations even from some of the regime's closest allies.
The UN, the EU and key Arab countries have all said the West Bank annexation would violate international law and undermine the prospects of establishing a sovereign Palestinian state on 1967 boundaries.
At a joint press conference this week, Palestinian groups of Hamas and Fatah pledged unity against Israel’s annexation of Palestinian areas and vowed to “topple” Trump's so-called Middle East plan.
The plan has faced growing international criticism because Israel intends to annex the lands that were occupied after the 1967 war. More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built on the land since the occupation.
All previous foreign-mediated agreements between Palestinians and Israelis as well as repeated UN resolutions have mandated Tel Aviv to withdraw behind the 1967 borders.
The international community views the entire West Bank and the eastern part of the occupied city of Jerusalem al-Quds as home to an independent Palestinian state in the future.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
