Israel’s tough responses to a successful Palestinian bid to join UNESCO are unlikely to halt a quest for recognition as a state at the United Nations
Israel's tough responses to a successful Palestinian bid to join UNESCO -- financial sanctions and a faster settlement drive in the occupied West Bank -- are unlikely to halt a quest for recognition as a state at the United Nations, accrodig to Ma'an news agency.
A senior Palestinian official said Wednesday that Israel was trying to undermine the Palestinian Authority through a decision on Tuesday to freeze temporarily transfers of PA funds after it won membership of the UN cultural agency.
The UNESCO vote marked a success for the PLO in its broader thrust for recognition as a sovereign state in the UN system -- an initiative opposed by Israel and its main ally the United States.
In what the Palestinians saw as a reprisal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet also decided to accelerate the building of Jewish settlements on land where the PA aims to establish an independent state next to Israel.
"It is very serious. Israel wants to strive to destroy the role of the Palestinian National Authority," Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Voice of Palestine radio.
Saeb Erekat, another senior PLO official, said in a statement that Israel's latest decisions would "not change our course of action", signalling the PLO would push ahead regardless in its UN initiative.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States was expected to say it is "deeply disappointed" by the settlement move.
Netanyahu, in a speech on Wednesday, said construction in Jerusalem is Israel's "right and obligation". Israel deems all of Jerusalem, including areas taken in a 1967 war, as its capital, a status not recognized internationally.
"The (Israeli) decision to deny Palestinians access to their own custom tax revenues is an unlawful punitive measure that Israel has done in the past (2005, 2006, 2007, 2011) and will most likely do again," the PA said in a statement.
