Palestinian president urges UN to dismiss Quartet report

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has criticized a recent report by the Quartet on the Middle East for not promoting peace in the occupied territories, calling on the United Nations Security Council to reject the document.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Abbas said the report by the four parties involved in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "does not further the cause for peace," adding, "We hope that the Security Council does not support this report."

On July 1, the Quartet, comprising the United Nations, the US, Russia and the European Union, published its eight-page report following months of delays.

The text was said to be biased in favor of Tel Aviv as it equally blamed the violence in the occupied lands on the oppressed Palestinians and the Israeli regime.

Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary General Saeb Erekat condemned the Quartet document as an "attempt to equalize the responsibilities between people under occupation and the foreign military occupier."

The report's findings and recommendations are supposed to serve as the basis for reviving the so-called peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. The last round of the negotiations collapsed in 2014 over Tel Aviv’s illegal settlement activities and its refusal to release senior Palestinian prisoners.

The Quartet text is expected to be presented for discussion at the Security Council in the coming weeks.

The report has called on the Israeli regime to halt its illegal settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian lands, saying the settlement expansion, the demolition of Palestinian homes and the expropriation of land were “steadily eroding the viability of the [so-called] two-state solution.”

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the document, claiming that it  “perpetuates the myth that Israeli construction in the West Bank is an obstacle to peace.”

Meanwhile, reacting to the Quartet text, Mohammad Shtayyeh a senior adviser to Abbas, said the US is dominating the Quartet and the recent report has American fingerprints all over it.

Shtayyeh also noted that the Palestinian president had decided to stop cooperating with the Quartet.

'Useless Quartet'

Another Palestinian official, whose name was not mentioned in reports, said the Palestinians would no longer deal with the Quartet as a body but would continue to work with its four members individually.

"It's not only about the report, it's more than that -- but the report confirms how useless (the Quartet) is," the official added.

Israel presses ahead with settlement expansion

In another development on Wednesday, Israel issued a tender for the construction of 42 homes in the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement, located on the outskirts of al-Khalil (Hebron).

The move came one day after an Israeli official said the regime has authorized construction of hundreds of new homes in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

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

Over half a million Israelis live in more than 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank including East al-Quds.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. Tel Aviv has defied calls to stop the settlement expansions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

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