- The UN has condemned Israeli settlement building in Palestinian
territories and called for the policy to be reversed.
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- The resolution at the annual Human Rights Commission
meeting in Geneva was passed easily with only the United States and Australia
voting against.
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- Two other resolutions were also passed, calling for Israel
to withdraw from the Golan and condemning its use of force.
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- Correspondents say the censure brings no penalties but
it highlights the Israeli government's record.
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- Delegations lobby hard to avoid resolutions against them.
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- The resolution passed on Thursday called for:
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- * complete cessation of all settlement activities as
a first step towards dismantling Israeli settlements
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- * denying access to products originating in Israeli settlements
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- * confiscating Jewish settlers' weapons to prevent acts
of violence by them.
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- It was passed by a margin of 39-2 with 12 nations, including
Britain, Canada and Germany, abstaining.
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- Negotiated settlement
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- Israeli ambassador Itzhak Levanon, who has no vote on
the forum, rejected the resolutions as "one-sided" for singling
out Israel and not condemning violence by Palestinian militants.
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- Condemning settlements created a "disincentive for
Palestinians to move on in implementing a first phase of the road map on
stopping terrorism," he said.
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- Mr Levanon said the issue should be left to bilateral
negotiations on a final resolution as agreed in past peace accords.
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- Muhammad Abu-Koash for the Palestinians said listening
to Mr Levanon, one could imagine that "Palestinians are the occupiers
and the Israelis are the occupied".
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- "I urge all members ... to judge Israel by what
it does and not by what it talks," Mr Abu-Koash told delegates.
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- Illegal
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- About 400,000 Jewish settlers live in Gaza and the West
Bank, including East Jerusalem - alongside more than four million Palestinians.
Israel captured the land in 1967 and has occupied it since then.
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- The international community considers all settlements
in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as illegal under international
law, though Israel disputes this.
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- Last April, President George W Bush broke with previous
US policy by saying that a permanent peace deal would have to reflect "demographic
realities" regarding Israel's settlements in the West Bank.
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- Israel is planning to unilaterally pull all 8,000 Jewish
settlers, and the Israeli troops who protect them, from Gaza this summer.
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- But it will keep control of the borders, coast and airspace
of the occupied territory, which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians.
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- Four isolated settlements in the Israeli-occupied West
Bank will also be evacuated.
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- © BBC MMV
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4445839.stm
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