As India walks the tightrope between its growing ties with Israel and its support for the Palestinians, it has once again reiterated that Israel needs to stop all settlement activities in Palestinian territory.
The tightrope walking was evident last month when external affairs minister (EAM) S.M. Krishna visited Israel last month — the last visit by an EAM was in 1999 — where the red carpet was laid out for him; he then went on a day-long trip to Ramallah in Palestine too.
Speaking at the UN Security Council open debate on the “Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question”, India’s Permanent Representative, ambassador Hardeep Puri, said, “For the quartet’s timeframe for reaching and agreement by the end of this year to be realised, it is necessary for Israel to completely stop settlement activities.” The Middle East Quartet, comprising envoys from the US, Russia, the EU and UN, has set a deadline of 2012-end for an agreement to be reached on final status issues. He said, “Continuing settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, other than being illegal, under the international law, are undermining the efforts of the international community to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on the basis of the two-state solution.” Mr Puri noted that several reports “clearly indicate that the increasing trend of settlement activities in the Palestinian lands is not compatible with the two-state solution”.
He noted the settlement activities have “exacerbated the humanitarian problems of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem”.
He added, “More than 43 per cent of the West Bank being outside the control of the Palestinian Authority has deprived the Palestinian people access to their natural resources.”