Prince Turki al-Faisal is the former director of Saudi Arabia's intelligence services. In an op-ed in today's NYT (here), Faisal argues that Israel needs to not only cease further settlement activity but remove the existing settlements prior to recognition from Saudi Arabia.Faisal states that his position is supported by United Nations policy: "[after the 1967 war,] the Security Council passed a resolution stating that, in order to form 'a just and lasting peace in the Middle East,' Israel must withdraw from these newly occupied lands."
299. My question is this: Are there current UN resolutions which mandate the removal of Israeli settlements? My sense is that the UN is institutionally more pro-Palestinian than the US government, but is the UN actually calling for dismantling of settlements, or are they merely (like Obama) calling for a halt to future settlements?
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I feel like the Israeli/Palestinian dispute has been less in the news in 2009 than in most past years. I assume this is because Iraq and Afghanistan continue to dominate Americans' foreign policy attenion. The photo is the settlement of El'Azar.
