Jordan and Turkey on September 29 condemned Israel’s plan to build hundreds of new housing units in East Jerusalem as a new phase in “Judaising” the holy city. The Zionist state captured the holy city from the Hashemite Kingdom in the 1967 Middle East war. Turkey said the move further underlined the need for the world to back the Palestinian bid for full UN membership. “Israel’s Judaising of East Jerusalem represents a flagrant violation of international law and the international humanitarian law as well as all conventions that govern the duties of an occupation power,” Abdullah Kanaan, secretary-general of the Royal Committee on Jerusalem Affairs, said in a statement.
The decision clearly shows Israel’s contempt of the international community as represented by the United Nations and its relevant resolutions that consider East Jerusalem an occupied land, Kanaan said. He urged Arab countries to launch “a counter political and diplomatic assault throughout the globe, particularly in the United States, with a view to putting pressure on Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian land and ensure full membership for the Palestinian state”.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said: “Israel’s decision raises serious doubts about its sincerity and its true intentions. It constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and is unacceptable.” It added: “Israel’s pursuing of construction in illegal settlements on Palestinian land shows one more time that the Palestinian request to be recognized as a full member of the UN is justified and to the point.”
Egypt also condemned an Israeli decision to construct 1,100 Jewish settlers homes in East Jerusalem and called the move “provocative.”