Russia urges Israel to reconsider settlement expansion

Russia urged Israel on Monday to reconsider plans to expand Jewish settlements on occupied land after Palestinians won de facto U.N. recognition of statehood, saying building new homes would undermine any chance for direct peace talks.

In a statement issued a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off condemnation from the United States and European nations, Russia also criticized Israel's announcement it was withholding Palestinian tax revenues.

Russia "views these Israeli intentions with the most serious concern", the Foreign Ministry statement said.

"Implementation of the announced plans for large-scale settlement activity would have a very negative effect on efforts to resume direct negotiations aimed at a two-state solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," it said.

Stung by the U.N. General Assembly's upgrading of the Palestinians' status from "observer entity" to "non-member state", Israel said on Friday it would build 3,000 more settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Palestinians want for a future state, along with Gaza.

Russia voted for the status upgrade but said it must not be treated as an alternative to a negotiated peace process.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday brushed off condemnation of Israel's new settlement plans, saying: "We will carry on building in Jerusalem and in all the places that are on the map of Israel's strategic interests."

Israel also announced it was withholding Palestinian tax revenues this month worth about $100 million.

The Russian statement on Monday said such a move would "complicate the already difficult socio-economic and humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories".

Sorry, Moscow, but the days when Jews obeyed your diktats concerning where they may and many not live, ended in 1917.... ------------------------------------ ".....The Pale of Settlement (Russian: Черта́ осе́длости, chertá osédlosti, Yiddish: דער תּחום-המושבֿ der tkhum-ha-moyshəv, Hebrew: תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב‎, tḥùm ha-mosháv) was the term given to a region of Imperial Russia in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited. It extended from the eastern pale, or demarcation line, to the western Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire) and with Austria-Hungary. The Pale comprised about 20% of the territory of European Russia, and largely corresponded to historical borders of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; it included much of present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine, and parts of western Russia. Jews were also excluded from residency at a number of cities within the Pale. A limited number of categories of Jews were allowed to live outside the pale. The word pale derives ultimately from the Latin word palus, meaning stake (palisade is derived from the same root). From this derivation came the figurative meaning of "boundary", and the concept of a pale as an area within which local laws were valid. The Pale, with its largely Catholic and Jewish populations, was acquired by the Russian Empire (which was majority Russian Orthodox) in a series of military conquests and diplomatic manoeuvres between 1791 and 1835, and lasted until the fall of the aforementioned Empire in 1917." ==================(Wiki excerpt)

Note to Russia. Stop building on Sakhalin Island and the Kuriles, which you took from Japan. Kaliningrad is German Koenigsburg. I seem to remember areas taken from Finland in the Soviet war of agression against the Finns. And that is just Russian occupied and ethnically cleansed territories taken in WW2.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.