Muslim union: Silence on West Bank annexation 'treason'

ISTANBUL (AA) - Keeping silent on the Israeli plans to annex swaths of lands from occupied West Bank amounts to a "treason," said the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) on Monday.

In a statement, the IUMS said that if Israel succeeds to grab these lands, the entire world will lose confidence in the UN and the world will simmer in chaos.

The union urged the Islamic world to stand in solidarity with Palestine and to annul all agreements with Israel. It also called on the international community to stand against Israeli's grave violation of the international laws and values.

"Normalizing with the [Israeli] occupation or conceding one inch of Palestine lands is prohibited by religion and a crime against the Arab and Muslim generations," the statement concluded.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to start annexing all settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank this month.

The move, however, appears to have come to a halt in light of widespread international rejection of the plan along with differences with the US administration on its application.

International law views both the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity there as illegal.

*Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara