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Follow Us on TwitterAshrawi threatens to take Israel to UN or ICC 23Aug13 August 23, 2013
Palestine News Network - 22 August 2013
Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and participant in the US brokered peace negotiations, announced on Wednesday, that if Israel continues settlement expansion, the PLO will have to turn to international bodies such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) or the International Court of Justice.
“At the last meeting of the executive committee we decided that if the US and the international community does not stop Israel from pursuing such a policy, we will have to resort, and have recourse to international judicial venues in order to put an end to such Israeli measures, which are designed, as I said, to destroy the chances of peace.”
Several news agencies are wrongly claiming that Ashrawi’s statement conflicts with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abba’s earlier promise to postpone reaching out the United Nations (UN). Ashrawi directly addressed this issue, saying, “When president Mahmoud Abbas said we will postpone going to the UN, this was as part of the agreement on the release of all Palestinian prisoners. It has nothing to do with the (peace) talks themselves.”
71 homes were demolished in Jerusalem since the beginning of the year. 25 of those were destroyed following the recent resumption of peace negotiations. Dr. Ashrawi said, “This is a deliberate affront to Kerry’s initiatives to start talks,” and later continued, “we believe if there are to be talks based on international law, with meaning, with validity, with integrity, and with the chance of leading us to peace, then Israel has to stop all encroachments into Palestinian land, including the illegal apartheid wall of annexation and separation, and including its stepped up settlement expansion everywhere, particularly in and around Jerusalem, but also throughout the West Bank.”
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