AL condemns Israeli settlement policy in the Golan

Arab League Assistant Secretary for political affairs Muhammad Zakarya Ismael, said in a Tuesday statement that the announcement of 380 housing units in the occupied Syrian Golan and to sell them to Jewish settlers is a new evidence of lies told by the Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu as regards Israel's allegations it wants peace and resumption of negotiations.

"Netanyahu exceeded former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in wasting time, flooding the occupied territories with settlers and pursuing a policy of blackmail and provocation against the Arabs and the international community, especially the US and the European Union," Ismael said.

There is speculation that the new announcements was a message by Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu to Syria about the occupied Syrian Golan Heights about Israel's position, after the Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa met with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright last week.