EU headquarters in Brussels (file)
EU headquarters in Brussels (file)Thinkstock

A member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council on Monday called on the international community to help end Israeli "occupation", saying it is a mark of Cain on Israel and the international community.

The Fatah member, Yunes Amro, made the remarks in a speech on behalf of Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas at the European Parliament in Brussels.

Amro said that the UN, the Security Council, the Quartet and the European Union have the legal, political, moral and human responsibility to end “the occupation”, to allow the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and to establish their independent state within the pre-1967 borders with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.

He urged the European Union countries that recognized Israel within the pre-1967 borders to put an end to all direct and indirect connections with the "illegal colonialist" settlements on Palestinian soil and recognize the “state of Palestine”.

Palestinian Arabs, claimed Amro, recognized Israel within the pre-1967 borders, but Israel refuses to recognize these borders and continues to build settlements in flagrant violation of international institutions' resolutions while denying the two-state solution and adopting a path which evades the end of the “occupation”.

Amro further claimed that the end of the "occupation" will help in a practical way in combating the phenomenon of terrorism that is spreading in the region and the entire world.

Stressing that Israel is the "occupying power," Amro said that all the actions it takes on the land of “Palestine” and in Jerusalem are null and void and have no legal significance. He also said that Palestinian Muslims and Christians have no problem with Judaism as a religion, only with "the Israeli colonialist occupation."

Abbas just recently urged Spain to recognize the “state of Palestine”, claiming that doing so would be of great importance in establishing peace in the region and bringing about a situation in which Palestine and Israel coexist in security, stability and good neighborliness.

In 2014, Spanish lawmakers adopted a non-binding motion calling on the government to recognize a Palestinian state in coordination with any similar move by the European Union.

Other European countries have in recent years adopted similar, non-binding resolutions calling for recognition of the “state of Palestine”. Most of these moves are symbolic gestures and have little, if any, actual diplomatic effect.

In addition to Spain, other countries that have recognized “Palestine” include Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Greece and Portugal. In addition, the PA inaugurated an embassy in the Vatican last January.