Israel's settlement construction in the occupied territories has become an almost insurmountable obstacle to creating an independent Palestinian state, a UN envoy said Friday. A Palestinian state "seems increasingly problematic as a solution because it would require a substantial reversal of the settlement process," said Richard Falk, a UN representative on human rights in the Palestinian territories.
He told a press conference at the UN headquarters that the settlers would probably put up strong opposition to any such move. Falk added in a report to the UN General Assembly that "the extension of the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem by way of unlawful settlements, house demolitions, revocations of Palestinian residence rights, makes it increasingly difficult to envisage a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem."
"You have to disconnect between an inter-governmental peace process and an illusion that at the end of this process is an independent sovereign Palestinian state," the envoy, a professor of international law at Princeton University in the United States, told reporters.
Falk said he had always been "skeptical" about the chance of an exchange of territory to create a Palestinian state. The envoy said the occupation since 1967 "exacts an enormous human cost in terms of the daily existence of every Palestinian trapped in this reality."
Israel ended a 10 month freeze on settlement building in September and Palestinians have refused to take part in direct talks since then. The United States and other international powers have criticised the Israeli settlement construction.