Israeli settlements – Letter from Jordan

LETTER DATED 14 MARCH 1980 FROM THE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE

OF JORDAN TO THE UNITED NATIONS ADDRESSED TO THE PRESIDENT

OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL

In my capacity as Chairman of the Arab Group, represented in the League of Arab States and, at their behest, I have the honour to bring to your attention, the latest seizure by the Israeli occupation authorities of four thousand dunums (four million square meters) of land, to the north of occupied Arab Jerusalem, in Palestinian Arab residential areas, located between Karm Louisse (the French Hill) and Qalandia Jerusalem airport. This highway robbery, perpetrated by the Israeli occupation authorities is located east of the occupied Jerusalem-Ramallah road. Radio Israel has announced that the seizure was a prelude to the construction of 12,000 new Israeli dwellings and four factories, astride a new road to link two earlier illegally established quarters and, further to tighten the ring of strangulation on what has remained of Arab Jerusalem and its environs, extending from Bethlehem to Ramallah.

The Arab Group has requested me to convey to Your Excellency, its most profound concern and shock. Though hardly surprising to anyone in the know, such continuance of blatant aggression and cannibalization of the Arab territories occupied in 1967, foremost of which is Arab Jerusalem, has come as a calculated affront to the esteemed Security Council, in the wake of its unanimous resolution 465 (1980) adopted on 1 March 1980.

I need hardly recall that the esteemed Council had determined in operative paragraph 5 of Security Council resolution 465 (1980) that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Furthermore, I wish to recall operative paragraph 6 of Security Council resolution 465 (1980), which strongly deplores the continuation and persistence of Israel in pursuing those policies and practices and calls upon the Government and people of Israel to rescind those measures, to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular, to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem.

In response to those categorical and forthright injunctions, the Israeli occupation authorities have been accelerating their illegal and defiant policy and practices of relentless Israeli colonization.

The League of Arab States while reiterating its most profound concern over these ominous developments feel duty-bound to urge the Security Council to explore, without delay, what action-oriented steps it deems appropriate to take, in confronting this latest Israeli challenge to its authority under the Charter, which poses a serious and inevitable threat to world peace and security.

The Arab Group, while awaiting the outcome of the esteemed Security Council deliberations on this latest Israeli defiance of its established authority under the Charter, wish to stress, in no unmistakable terms, that the latest Israeli seizures as well as all previous illegal seizures in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council pertaining to them, shall be invalidated, in due course, as being null and void and hence of no legal weight whatsoever. I request that this note be circulated as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed)  Hazem NUSEIBEH

      Ambassador

     Permanent Representative

    and

    Chairman of the Arab Group

    for the month of March 1980

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