Israeli PM Lapid urges world leaders to prevent ICJ opinion on Israel’s occupation

JERUSALEM, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister
Yair Lapid on Tuesday urged world leaders to block a Palestinian
bid at the United Nations for an advisory opinion from the
International Court of Justice on Israel’s occupation, the prime
minister’s office said.

In a letter, Lapid asked more than 50 heads of state,
including those of the UK and France, to pressure the
Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited rule in the
occupied West Bank, and prevent it from promoting the resolution
at the General Assembly.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said
Lapid’s efforts were “doomed to fail.”

The resolution, approved by a U.N. committee in early
November, asks that the ICJ “urgently” weigh in on Israel’s
“prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the
Palestinian territory”, which it said were violating
Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem –
areas that Palestinians want for a state – in a 1967 Middle East
war.

“This resolution is the outcome of a concerted effort to
single out Israel, to discredit our legitimate security
concerns, and to delegitimize our very existence,” Lapid wrote
in a copy of the letter shared with the press.

The status of disputed territory should be subject to direct
negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Lapid said,
adding that bringing the matter before the ICJ “will only play
into the hands of extremists”.

Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said: “We are confident
world leaders who always stood by our just cause will not
retreat from their positions.”

U.S.-sponsored negotiations stalled in 2014 and senior
members of Israel’s likely incoming coalition government have
opposed Palestinian statehood.

(Reporting by Henriette Chacar; Editing by Bernadette Baum and
Sandra Maler)