With regard to Israel, the newly appointed German Foreign minister, who replaced the outgoing German top diplomat, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, condemned Israel for its settlement construction policy in the West Bank, asserting that it restricted the internationally aspired solution to the conflict, in which two states live side by side in peace and security.
“We have always said – in Europe as well as in Germany – that the settlement construction restricts the two-state solution. I have been to Israel many times, also in Palestine, and we have to be very careful that there won’t be a generation of young people growing up who see no alternative to opposing the dismantling of the two-state solution other than a new spiral of violence. And that is why I consider that settlement construction on Palestinian territory incompatible with the U.N. resolutions and also not with our understanding for a peace process in the Middle East.”
There was no immediate comment by Israel’s Foreign Ministry to the Germany condemnation, however, a senior diplomatic official told TV7 on condition of anonymity that the Jerusalem was not surprised by the condemnation of the German top diplomat who has already labelled himself as pro-Palestinian, who labeled the Jewish state back in 2012 as an “Apartheid Regime” which systematically discriminated against the Palestinian people.