UN official: Israel’s Regulation Law crosses ‘very thick red line’

Several  European officials conveyed remarks similar to those of a UN official, who referred to Israel’s passing of the Regulation Law as crossing a “very, very thick red line.”

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News

The United Nations’ Coordinator for the Middle East peace process,  Nickolay Mladenov, said on Tuesday that Israel’s passing of legislation known as the “Regulation Law” crossed a “very. very thick red line.”

“It crosses a very, very thick red line,” Mladenov said. “It opens the potential for the full annexation of the West Bank and therefore undermines substantially the two-state solution.”

The law prevents the future demolition of any homes in Judea and Samaria that are found ex-post facto by Israel’s High Court to have been built on private Palestinian land. The small community of Amona, which was located a short drive north of Jerusalem in the Binyamin region, was evacuated last week in accordance with a High Court ruling in 2014 that found it to have belonged to private owners.

Reiterating an implicit threat he had made against Israel before the vote on Monday evening, Mladenov added that the Regulation Law “will have a drastic legal consequence for Israel and for the nature of its democracy.”

Meanwhile, several European officials have also expressed their condemnation, including French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who said that the law “could exacerbate regional tensions” and “further harms the two-state solution.”

“I condemn the adoption yesterday by the Israeli parliament of the law to legalize thousands of homes built on private Palestinian land in the West Bank,” Ayrault stated. “This law perpetuates the existence of dozens of settlements and outposts by giving them a legal basis for their future development.”

The UK’s Minister for the Middle East Tobias Ellwood, like Mladenov, appeared to convey an implicit threat against Israel with regards to its international standing.

“As a longstanding friend of Israel, I condemn the passing of the land regularization bill by the Knesset, which damages Israel’s standing with its international partners,” he stated. “It is of great concern that the bill paves the way for significant growth in settlements deep in the West Bank, threatening the viability of the two-state solution.”