Arab League says US donations used to finance settlements

CAIRO (AFP) – The Arab League on Saturday urged US President Barack Obama's administration to prevent American associations from collecting funds to finance Israeli settlement building in annexed east Jerusalem.

Mohammed Sobeih, a deputy secretary general in charge of Palestinian affairs, told reporters such funding was being used for "a hostile and illegal act which stands in the way of reaching a peace deal."

Such associations, exempted from taxation, help to finance the building of Israeli settlements in the Old City and other districts of east Jerusalem, according to a report compiled by the Arab League's office in Washington.

Sobeih said the report showed some of the funds were being used to seize properties from their Palestinian residents and to expel them, singling out the ultra-nationalist "American Friends of Ateret Cohanim."

Financed by Jewish American millionaire Irving Moskowitz, the charitable trust has been linked to Jewish settlement projects in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem.

But it has denied reports that American donations finance the purchase of disputed lands.

The Obama administration has been pressing hard for Israel to halt all construction work on occupied Palestinian land ahead of the resumption of Middle East peace talks. Israel has so far balked at the demand.