Press Releases

Thank you Mr. President.

BADIL calls for practical measures to immediately end the imminent threat by Israel to pass a law approving the annexation of Israeli colony (settlement) Ma’ale Adumim and Palestinian area E-1. BADIL also strongly condemns Israel’s illegal outpost legalization bill and its approval of the construction of 3066 new housing units in occupied Palestinian territory in response to UN Resolution 2334 that reaffirms the illegality of Israeli colonies.

Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967 has legitimized rampant violations of Palestinian rights in international law and further colonization of Palestinian land. Israel began planning the annexation of Ma’ale Adumim and E-1 in 1974. The current plans fall within the proposed path of the Annexation and Separation Wall, which would link them with the colonized territories to the west of the Green Line. The annexation law should therefore be treated as part of a broader plan to perpetuate illegal colonial control over occupied Palestinian people and their land. BADIL expresses particular concern about the annexation of up to 6,000 hectares in Ma’ale Adumim and E-1, which would divide the northern from the southern West Bank, forcibly transfer around 8000 Bedouins from the area E-1, and proliferate violations of Palestinian rights. This is confirmed in the previous case of illegally annexed of East Jerusalem.

Mr. President,

BADIL denounces the proposed illegal annexation of Ma’ale Adumim and area E-1, which would be a major step in Israel’s ongoing forcible transfer of the total Palestinian population in contravention of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and amounts to colonialism, prohibited under the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (1960) adopted by General Assembly resolution 1514 (XV).