UNSC vote shows world resolve to end Israel land grab: Iran

Iran has welcomed a United Nations Security Council resolution that censures Israel for its settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, saying it shows the global resolve to put an end to the regime’s land grab.

“The approval of the recent resolution by the United Nations Security Council despite certain powers’ long history of support for the Zionist regime’s [Israel] crimes on the international scene, particularly by using their veto right at the Security Council, is welcomed as a sign of the international community’s determination to end the Zionist regime’s occupation and restore the Palestinian people’s rights,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Saturday.

Iran welcomes any move which would guarantee the realization of the Palestinians’ rightful demands, promote Palestine’s international standing and oppose the Israeli regime’s expansionist policies, he added.

He said the Islamic Republic has repeatedly emphasized that the Israeli regime’s settlement measures in the Palestinians’ lands are in “complete contradiction with international laws and regulations.”  

The Iranian spokesperson said history, however, shows that the Israeli regime has never been committed to international pacts and legal obligations.

He hailed the increasing awareness of the international community about the crimes and occupying nature of the Israeli regime.

“We believe that the settlement of the Palestinian issue needs serious and firm efforts by the international community to restore the inalienable rights of the oppressed Palestinian people and confront the expansionist and occupying policies of the Zionist regime,” Qassemi said.

“It is expected that the international community, particularly the United Nations, will take effective and fundamental steps in this regard after more than seven decades,” he added.

Resolution 2334 was passed with 14 votes in favor and one abstention - by the US - on Friday. It was the first resolution on Israel and the Palestinians that the 15-member body has passed in about eight years.

The text of the resolution had originally been drafted by Egypt, which decided to withdraw it under “intense pressure.”

Israel had asked US President-elect Donald Trump to pressure Cairo to delay voting on the draft resolution. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is believed to maintain good ties with Trump.

After Egypt’s withdrawal, however, Senegal and New Zealand, two other members of the UN Security Council, forwarded a motion of their own for a vote on the text.

The US administration, by abstaining, decided to break with a long-time policy of vetoing condemnatory resolutions against Israel.

Resolution 2334 condemned Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem al-Quds and the occupied West Bank as a “flagrant violation under international law,” which it said was “dangerously imperiling the viability” of peace and the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Earlier this month, Israeli lawmakers approved a hugely-controversial bill legalizing some 4,000 settler units built on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, in the first of three readings needed to turn it into law.

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