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U.S.: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Will Not Be Decided by International Consensus or International Law

(U.S. Mission to the UN) Jason D. Greenblatt - Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason D. Greenblatt told the UN Security Council on Tuesday: "This [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict will not end on the basis of an 'international consensus.'...Those who continue to call for international consensus on this conflict are doing nothing to encourage the parties to sit down at the negotiating table and make the hard compromises necessary for peace. In fact, they are doing the opposite - allowing people to hide behind words that mean nothing." "Let us not forget that day when the United Nations could not even find a way to build an international consensus behind the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization that relentlessly attacks Israelis by incendiary balloons, missiles, attack tunnels and other means, sometimes while hiding in residential neighborhoods filled with Palestinian families. Hamas, which ghoulishly holds [the remains of] Israeli soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul as bargaining chips. Hamas, which...continues to vow to destroy Israel." "And how is it that we can't find an international consensus that the Palestinian Authority rewarding terrorism and the murder of Israelis using public funds, some donated by countries in this very room, is abhorrent and must be stopped." "This conflict is also not going to be resolved by reference to 'international law' when such law is inconclusive....There is no judge, jury, or court in the world that the parties involved have agreed to give jurisdiction in order to decide whose interpretations are correct." "The same holds true for the status of Jerusalem....No international consensus or interpretation of international law will persuade the United States or Israel that a city in which Jews have lived and worshipped for nearly 3,000 years and has been the capital of the Jewish State for 70 years, is not - today and forever - the capital of Israel." "Let us not lose sight of the fact that Israel has already conceded at least 88% of the territory captured by Israel in the defensive war it had no choice but to fight in 1967." "The dispute over the territory is a question that can only be resolved in the context of direct negotiations between the parties. And I am focused on how to get those parties back to that table."
2019-07-24 00:00:00
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