US frowns on UN Security Council's anti-Israel draft resolution

The United States rages against a proposed UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution that calls on the Israeli regime to stop all its illegal settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory. 

"Our view is that the introduction of this resolution was unhelpful," Vedant Patel, deputy US State Department's spokesperson, told reporters on Thursday.

The draft resolution would demand that the Israeli regime "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory."

The measure "reaffirms" that the regime's settlement construction activities across the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 "has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law."

The draft was referring to the West Bank, including East al-Quds, that the regime occupied during a heavily-Western-backed war that year.

Ever since the occupation, the regime has set up more than 250 illegal settlements across the West Bank that have come to house more than half a million settlers.

Tel Aviv has stepped up its efforts at expanding the illegal settlements since late December when Benjamin Netanyahu staged a comeback as the regime's prime minister at the head of a cabinet of hard-right and ultra-Orthodox parties.

On January 25, Israeli media sources informed that the Israeli cabinet was planning to increase the number of the settler units by a whopping 18,000 in the coming months.

Israel plans to build 18,000 more settlement units in occupied West Bank: Report

Israeli far-right government seeks increasing illegal settlement units soon.

The regime's unabated construction campaign comes while the Palestinians have historically demanded that the West Bank serve as part of their future state with East al-Quds as its capital.

The draft text also lambasted the Israeli regime over its regular practice of "legalizing" or "retroactively authorizing" the settler outposts that have been built across the occupied territory without the regime's so-called approval.

Earlier in February, the Israeli cabinet granted such permits to as many as nine settler outposts, raising international condemnation.

Israel's far-right cabinet 'legalizes' nine settler outposts amid Palestinians' outrage

The Israeli regime

Referring to such structures, the draft resolution condemned "all attempts at annexation, including decisions and measures by Israel regarding settlements, including settlement outposts," and called for their immediate reversal.

The Security Council is scheduled to meet on Monday to discuss the situation in Palestine. It is not clear yet whether the body would put the draft to a vote during the upcoming session.

Completing his remarks, the State Department official alleged that the UNSC measure was counterproductive to "the conditions [that are] necessary to advance the negotiations of a two-state solution."

Negotiations between the Israeli regime and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority was suspended indefinitely in 2014 after Tel Aviv resumed a temporary halt it had introduced in its incessant settlement activities.

Patel did not threaten that the US would veto the draft. Washington, however, has -- save for a rare occasion in 2016 -- invariably cast its veto against such anti-Tel Aviv resolutions, emboldening the regime in its efforts to carry on with its illegal occupation and annexation of the Palestinian territories.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk