US AMBASSADOR SAYS AMERICA TO OPPOSE BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL
Jerusalem, 19 Shaban 1436/6 June 2015 (MINA) – The U.S. ambassador to Israel said America will continue to oppose any anti-Israel decisions or proposals in international forums.
“The United States of America will oppose any decisions or proposals that will boycott or delegitimize the State of Israel,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told an Israeli radio on Thursday.
He added that it will be hard to continue fighting the boycott movement at a time when there are no negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Anadolu Agency reports as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).
“Negotiations have been the most effective tool. However, the world does not believe that there will be negotiations any time soon,” he said.
Shapiro pointed out that the U.S. has yet to decide how to deal the French initiative at the UN Security Council calling for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
“The decision depends on the draft text,” he said. “But we will not recognize a Palestinian state that does not exist.”
Palestinian officials say France is in the process of formulating a draft UN Security Council resolution that sets an 18-month deadline for talks to create a Palestinian state.
The draft will include proposals for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with land swaps, with Jerusalem as the shared capital of the two states, and a just and rational solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.
The roots of the Palestine-Israel conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, through the now-infamous Balfour Declaration, called for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.
In 1948, after the expiry of Great Britain’s UN mandate in Palestine, a new state – Israel – was declared inside historical Palestine.
Israel went on to occupy East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state – a move never recognized by the international community.
Palestinians are still demanding for their own independent state. (T/P001/NMT)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
