Israel condemns Irish parliament advances anti-settlement bill

Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-25 06:17:40|Editor: Mu Xuequan
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JERUSALEM, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Israel condemned on Thursday a vote by the Irish parliament after it backed a bill to ban imports and sales of goods from territories seized by Israel in 1967.

The proposed legislation would ban the trade in goods or services originated from the West Bank settlements and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

Israel's foreign ministry slammed the vote as an "expression of pure hostility."

"It is disturbing and disappointing that the initiators of the law are focusing on a hypocritical attack on Israel, rather than on dictatorships that slaughter their citizens," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"This is a clear expression of obsessive discrimination that should be rejected with disgust," it added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Irish ambassador to Israel will be summoned to a reprimand talk on Friday.

On Thursday, the bill passed the so-called second stage in the Lower House of the Irish Parliament by 78 votes to 45, which still needs to pass several other stages before it could become law.

The Irish government opposed the bill.

Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem along with the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. It also seized the Golan Heights, an originally Syrian territory.

It annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights shortly after the war, an act not recognized by most of the international community.

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