The chairman of the Israeli Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee MK Avi Dichter (Likud) said Saturday that freezing settlement construction in occupied Jerusalem and West Bank is “a waste of time.”
Speaking during a workshop in Tel Aviv Dichter called for resuming settlement construction especially in occupied Jerusalem.
Dichter a former head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency called on the Israeli government to immediately end construction freeze on settlement expansion.
Israeli settlements are Jewish communities built on Palestinian lands occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.
The international community considers the settlements in the occupied territory to be illegal and the United Nations has repeatedly upheld the view that Israel’s construction of settlements constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
