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Israeli politician calls for building wall around all Israeli settlements

Thursday, 21 January 2016 7:11 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 25 January 2016 1:37 PM ]

Isaac Herzog, leader of the Israeli opposition Zionist Union party

A senior Israeli politician has called for the completion of a wall around all Israeli settlements to separate Israelis form the Palestinians.

“I wish to separate from as many Palestinians as possible, as quickly as possible,” Isaac Herzog, leader of the opposition Zionist Union party, told Israel's Army Radio on Wednesday.

Herzog also said a so-called two-state solution in the occupied Palestinian territories is not a realistic option in the near future.

"I look at the reality, and the reality, as I read, is a complex one. I cannot see in the current reality how the two-state solution could be implemented," he noted.

"In the absence of the ability to do that right now, there is a need to implement security measures that match the reality on the ground, and these measures require separation from the Palestinians," he said.

File photo of the Israeli settlement of Har Homa in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 settlement colonies built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The UN and most countries regard Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by the regime in a 1967 war and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.

The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle to efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

The Palestinian Authority wants the West Bank as part of its future independent state, with East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital.

Many political analysts believe the Israeli regime is not in favor of the two-state solution.

Former US President Jimmy Carter told Prospect Magazine in August last year that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had killed the two-state solution.

“These are the worst prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians for years. At this moment, there is zero chance of the two-state solution,” Carter said.

In November 2015, the White House admitted that the two-state solution was not plausible within US President Barack Obama’s tenure.

“We have an administration that faces a reality where the prospect of a negotiated two-state solution is not in the cards for the remainder -- in the time that’s remaining,” White House Middle East Coordinator Rob Malley said.

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