Barghouthi says Olmert's statements show negotiations are pointless

Date: 28 / 07 / 2008 Time: 16:02
Ramallah - Ma'an -

Mustafa Barghouthi, a member of the Palestinian National Council and Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, said on Monday that Ehud Olmert’s statement, made on Sunday, in which he ruled out the possibility of reaching an agreement on Jerusalem by the end of the year, is proof that negotiations with Israel are useless.

Barghouthi said in a statement that the Israeli occupation government uses the negotiation meetings as a cover for their true intentions especially in regard to attempts to separate Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and away from a future Palestinian state.

He argued that it is time to form a united national leadership that follows a common strategy in order to direct the crisis in "the shadow of ominous threats from Israel" and the ethnic cleansing of occupied east Jerusalem.

Barghouthi: The rate of Israeli settlers rose to 5.5 percent last year

[ 28/07/2008 - 04:31 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)--

MP Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, the secretary-general of the Palestinian national initiative, revealed Monday that the rates of Israeli settlers who are brought to live in the occupied Palestinian lands rose to 5.5 percent during the last year, pointing that 7,296 new settlers were added to the settlements of Modi'in, Betar Illit, Hiradhar.

MP Barghouthi stated that the IOA races against time in order to impose a fait accompli and annex the largest possible area of the West Bank lands, adding that Israel's intention to build a new settlement in the Jordan valley area falls under this context which is aimed at seizing the whole area and ruling it out of any future solution.

For its part, the EU's French presidency said in a statement that the EU is deeply concerned about the Israeli decision to invite bids for the building of new settlement units in the Arab eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The statement underlined that it is illegal under international law to build settlements anywhere in the occupied Palestinian lands including eastern Jerusalem, adding that the settlement expansion would undermine the confidence in the current diplomatic process.

The Israeli ministry of illegal settlement had endorsed the building of 763 illegal settlement units in the illegal settlement of Pisgat Ze'ev in addition to 121 others in Har Homa located in Mount Abu Ghunaim. It also approved the construction of 20 new factories in the industrial zone inside the illegal Ari'il settlement.

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