US support allows Israeli occupation: expert

By Esra Kaymak Avci

WASHINGTON (AA) – Israel is deepening its occupation of Palestine thanks to the unconditional support of the U.S. government, the Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights said Thursday.

Shawan Jabarin said Washington was so heavily involved with Israel's issues it was no longer an "external" but an "internal policy" for the U.S.

Jabarin’s comments were delivered during a lecture here at The Jerusalem Fund in which he also blamed the international community for hypocrisy regarding the occupation.

"The international community directly and indirectly support occupation," he said. "They help Palestinians at the same time."

Israeli authorities recently approved construction of 181 new settlement units in occupied East Jerusalem, according to a Palestinian expert on Israeli settlement-building activity.

The Director of the Department of Maps and geographic information systems at the Jerusalem-based Arab Studies Society, Khalil Tufakji, told Anadolu Agency that the Jerusalem planning committee late Wednesday approved construction of the new housing units in the Jewish-only Gilo settlement bloc.

Israel occupied the West Bank -- including East Jerusalem -- during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the Jewish state in a move never recognized by the international community.

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

Israel wages an aggressive campaign to "Judaize" the historic city with the aim of effacing its Arab and Islamic identity and driving out its Palestinian inhabitants.