PLO says Israel ‘annexation’ plan means end of two-state solution

JERUSALEM: Senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi says Israeli plans to incorporate West Bank settlement blocs around Jerusalem into the city could kill hopes for an independent Palestinian state.

A member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party has said that draft legislation to form a ‘Greater Jerusalem’ municipality would go to a ministerial committee on Sunday for adoption as a government bill.

Approval by the committee would fast- track its progress through parliament.

Those opposed to the plans argue that it is a step towards full unilateral annexation of the West Bank settlements affected — a move that would be sure to spark international outrage.

“The government will approve the Greater Jerusalem law that will strengthen the eternal capital Jerusalem — demographically and geographically,” Likud MP Yoav Kisch wrote Wednesday on Twitter.

Ash r aw i , a memb e r o f the Pa le s t ine Liberat ion Organisation’s ( PLO) executive committee, said late Wednesday in a statement that “such efforts represent the end of the two-state solution.”

“Israel is in the business of prolonging the military occupation and not ending it, legalising the presence of extremist Jewish settlers on Palestinian soil, and completing the total isolation and annexation of Palestinian Jerusalem,” she wrote.

Israel occupied the West Bank, including, east Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967. It later annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognised by the international community. — AFP