Palestinian Authority slams US softening on Israeli settlement

The Palestinian Authority on Monday slammed a softening by the US of its position on Israeli settlements as “completely against international law.”

Washington is “not qualified or authorised to cancel the resolutions of international law, and has no right to grant legality to any Israeli settlement,” Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah said in a statement.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Trump administration was threatening “to replace international law with the ‘law of the jungle.’”

Jordan warns of ‘dangerous consequences’

Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, warned that a US change of position on Monday on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank would have “dangerous consequences” on the prospects of reviving the Middle East peace process.

Safadi said in a tweet that Jewish settlements in the territory were illegal and killed prospects of a two-state solution in which a Palestinian state would exist side-by-side with Israel, which Arab countries say is the only way to resolve the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict.