German Chancellor Angela Merkel has cancelled a joint summit with Netanyahu’s government scheduled for May following Israel’s recent approval of a bid to expand illegal settlement.
Sources within Berlin and Jerusalem said Israel’s recent vote to expand its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank is the real cause for the cancellation.
German national security adviser Kristof Heusgen informed the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the postponed meeting just days after the Knesset passed the “Regularization Law” according to Haaretz even though the German elections won’t be held until four and a half months after the summit in September.
One Israeli spokesman told Deutsche Welle that the summit was canceled due to a “variety of international appointments within the context of the German presidency of the G20.”
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin also denounced the decision saying that Israel could be “seen as an apartheid state” as a result of the vote.
The controversial bill was passed in early February and retroactively legalizes the homes of nearly 4000 Israeli settlers built on Palestinian land.
Soon after the vote national and international parties slammed the decision as a way to legalize theft pointing out that Israeli settlements negate peace and the possibility of the two-state solution.
Anat Ben Nun spokesman for the anti-settlement Peace Now organization told Al Jazeera that “This law will make theft an official Israeli policy by retroactively legalizing illegal construction on private lands.”
A German Foreign Ministry spokesman also condemned the decision saying “Many in Germany . . . find themselves deeply disappointed by this move” and “our trust in the Israeli government’s commitment to the two-state solution has been fundamentally shaken.” according to Haaretz.
