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A connection issued by the countries says the Israeli premier minister’s comments constitutes a nonstop menace to Arab nationalist information and peace.
Published On 16 Aug 2025
A conjugation of Arab and Muslim nations has condemned “in the strongest terms” statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding his imaginativeness for a “Greater Israel”.
When interviewer Sharon Gal with the Israeli i24NEWS transmission asked Netanyahu if helium subscribed to a “vision” for a “Greater Israel”, Netanyahu said “absolutely”. Asked during the interrogation aired connected Tuesday if helium felt connected to the “Greater Israel” vision, Netanyahu said: “Very much.”
The “Greater Israel” conception supported by ultranationalist Israelis is understood to notation to an expansionist imaginativeness that lays assertion to the occupied West Bank, Gaza, parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.
“These statements correspond a sedate disregard for, and a blatant and unsafe usurpation of, the rules of planetary instrumentality and the foundations of unchangeable planetary relations,” said a joint statement by a conjugation of 31 Arab and Islamic countries and the Arab League.
“They besides represent a nonstop menace to Arab nationalist security, to the sovereignty of states, and to determination and planetary bid and security,” the connection released connected Friday said.
The signatories of the connection included the secretaries-general of the League of Arab States, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The Arab and Islamic nations besides condemned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s announcement connected Thursday to propulsion up with settlement expansion successful the occupied West Bank.
The connection said the determination is “a blatant usurpation of planetary instrumentality and a flagrant battle connected the inalienable close of the Palestinian radical to realise their independent, sovereign authorities connected the lines of June 4, 1967, with Occupied Jerusalem arsenic its capital”.
The connection added that Israel has nary sovereignty implicit occupied Palestinian territory.
Smotrich said helium would o.k. thousands of lodging units successful a long-delayed amerciable colony task successful the West Bank, saying the determination “buries the thought of a Palestinian state”.
Last September, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling connected Israel to extremity its amerciable concern of the Palestinian territories wrong 12 months.
The solution backed an advisory sentiment by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – the UN’s apical tribunal – which recovered that Israel’s beingness successful the Palestinian territories is unlawful and indispensable end. In January 2024, the ICJ said Israel was “plausibly committing genocide”. The apical UN tribunal has yet to denote its verdict successful the lawsuit brought by South Africa.
Netanyahu and Smotrich made the remarks during Israel’s devastating 22-month war connected Gaza, which has killed astatine slightest 61,827 radical and wounded 155,275 radical successful the enclave.
Last week, Israel’s Security Cabinet approved Netanyahu’s program to afloat inhabit Gaza City, and successful Tuesday’s interview, Netanyahu besides revived calls to “allow” Palestinians to permission Gaza, telling i24NEWS: “We are not pushing them out, but we are allowing them to leave.”
Campaigners said Netanyahu’s usage of the connection “leave” was a euphemism for the taste cleansing of Gaza – location to 2.1 cardinal people, astir of whom are refugees and their descendants from the 1948 Nakba erstwhile much than 700,000 Palestinians were forced to fly from what became the authorities of Israel.
Past calls to resettle radical from Gaza extracurricular the war-battered territory, including from United States President Donald Trump, person sparked fears of forced displacement among Palestinians and condemnation from the planetary community.
In their connection connected Saturday, the Islamic countries reiterated their “rejection and condemnation of Israel’s crimes of aggression, genocide, and taste cleansing” successful Gaza and highlighted the request for a ceasefire successful the enclave portion “ensuring unconditional entree to humanitarian assistance to halt the systematic starvation argumentation utilized by Israel arsenic a limb of genocide”.
They besides reaffirmed their “complete and implicit rejection of the displacement of the Palestinian radical successful immoderate signifier and nether immoderate pretext” and called connected the planetary assemblage to unit Israel to halt its aggression and afloat retreat from the Gaza Strip.
Source:
Al Jazeera and quality agencies
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