The law the Israeli Parliament passed yesterday which "regulates" even
retroactively houses and Israeli settlements built illegally on
Palestinian territory illegally occupied by the army of Israel, "makes
the solution two peoples-two states almost impossible. It offends justice, the virtue which comes from God and consists in giving God and neighbor what they are due".
This is how Bishop William Shomali, Patriachal Vicar of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem for the Holy City and Palestine, comments to Agenzia Fides the effects of the "law on the regularization" with which Knesset unilaterally "legalized" 4 thousand illegal Israeli settlements built on private land belonging to Palestinian owners .
"If the intention is genuine, proclaimed in words, to proceed in the direction that provides for the peaceful existence of two States, Palestine and Israel, for two peoples, then one cannot take measures and implement accomplished facts that go in the opposite direction, such as the announced transfer of the Embassy of the United States to Jerusalem, also denounced by the statements of the US Catholic Bishops Conference".
According to Bishop Shomali, "if the lands where they build illegal settlements belong to Palestinian owners, one must not touch them, as we must not take away the property of the Jews who live in countries with a Muslim majority".