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Israel Responds By Expanding Settlements | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Netanyahu attends the cabinet weekly meeting at his office in Jerusalem on Dec. 11, 2016/ Reuters


Tel Aviv – Angry Israeli reactions continued on Sunday against U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 that condemned Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advanced on Sunday the angry Israelis who are against the new Resolution by directly attacking U.S. President Barack Obama and by summoning the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro.

“We have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, coordinated the drafts and demanded to pass it,” Netanyahu said.

The Israeli prime minister added: “This is of course in total contradiction to the traditional American policy of not trying to impose conditions of a final resolution. And, of course, the explicit commitment of President Obama himself in 2011 to avoid such measures.”

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon announced on Sunday the ambassadors of the states that supported the anti-settlement resolution were summoned for a “face to face meeting.”

Israel’s radio said Netanyahu had ordered the summoning of the ambassadors to “reprimand them on the behavior of their states.”

Also, the Israeli Foreign Ministry had summoned on Sunday ambassadors of the UNSC member states.

Netanyahu also canceled the upcoming visit to Israel of the Ukrainian prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, and the upcoming visit to Israel of the Senegalese foreign minister, and he cancelled all aid programs to both countries.

Yediot Ahronot newspaper published on its website that the ambassadors were summoned to the Foreign Ministry despite the fact that Sunday is a non-working day for them and despite the fact that it is Christmas.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett said that his party would “soon propose a bill to annex Maale Adumim”, a settlement city east of Jerusalem.

Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman also announced on Sunday that he ordered the IDF on Sunday morning and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) to halt all state-civil activities with their counterparts in the Palestinian Authority.

A Palestinian official told Asharq Al-Awsat on Sunday that “Lieberman is hallucinating in this regard. The Palestinian authority would not accept that relations be restricted on such coordination.”