Mr. President of the General Assembly of the United Nations,
Mr. Secretary-General of the United Nations,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
At the outset, I wish to extend my congratulations to H.E. Mr. Nassir
Abdulaziz Al-Nasser on his assumption of the Presidency of the Assembly
for this session, and wish him all success.
I reaffirm today my sincere congratulations, on behalf of the
Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian people, to the
government and people of South Sudan for its deserved admission as a
full member of the United Nations, wishing them progress and prosperity.
I also congratulate the Secretary-General, H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, on
his election for a new term at the helm of the United Nations. This
renewal of confidence reflects the world’s appreciation for his efforts,
which have strengthened the role of the United Nations.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Question Palestine is intricately linked with the United Nations
via the resolutions adopted by its various organs and agencies and via
the essential and lauded role of the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East – UNRWA – which embodies
the international responsibility towards the plight of Palestine
refugees, who are the victims of Al-Nakba (Catastrophe) that occurred in
1948. We aspire for and seek a greater and more effective role for the
United Nations in working to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in
our region that ensures the inalienable, legitimate national rights of
the Palestinian people as defined by the resolutions of international
legitimacy of the United Nations.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
A year ago, at this same time, distinguished leaders in this hall
addressed the stalled peace efforts in our region. Everyone had high
hopes for a new round of final status negotiations, which had begun in
early September in Washington under the direct auspices of President
Barack Obama and with participation of the Quartet, and with Egyptian
and Jordanian participation, to reach a peace agreement within one year.
We entered those negotiations with open hearts and attentive ears and
sincere intentions, and we were ready with our documents, papers and
proposals. But the negotiations broke down just weeks after their
launch.
After this, we did not give up and did not cease our efforts for
initiatives and contacts. Over the past year we did not leave a door to
be knocked or channel to be tested or path to be taken and we did not
ignore any formal or informal party of influence and stature to be
addressed. We positively considered the various ideas and proposals and
initiatives presented from many countries and parties. But all of these
sincere efforts and endeavors undertaken by international parties were
repeatedly wrecked by the positions of the Israeli government, which
quickly dashed the hopes raised by the launch of negotiations last
September.
The core issue here is that the Israeli government refuses to commit
to terms of reference for the negotiations that are based on
international law and United Nations resolutions, and that it
frantically continues to intensify building of settlements on the
territory of the State of Palestine.
Settlement activities embody the core of the policy of colonial
military occupation of the land of the Palestinian people and all of the
brutality of aggression and racial discrimination against our people
that this policy entails. This policy, which constitutes a breach of
international humanitarian law and United Nations resolutions, is the
primary cause for the failure of the peace process, the collapse of
dozens of opportunities, and the burial of the great hopes that arose
from the signing of the Declaration of Principles in 1993 between the
Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel to achieve a just peace
that would begin a new era for our region.
The reports of United Nations missions as well as by several Israeli
institutions and civil societies convey a horrific picture about the
size of the settlement campaign, which the Israeli government does not
hesitate to boast about and which it continues to execute through the
systematic confiscation of the Palestinian lands and the construction of
thousands of new settlement units in various areas of the West Bank,
particularly in East Jerusalem, and accelerated construction of the
annexation Wall that is eating up large tracts of our land, dividing it
into separate and isolated islands and cantons, destroying family life
and communities and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families.
The occupying Power also continues to refuse permits for our people to
build in Occupied East Jerusalem, at the same time that it intensifies
its decades-long campaign of demolition and confiscation of homes,
displacing Palestinian owners and residents under a multi-pronged policy
of ethnic cleansing aimed at pushing them away from their ancestral
homeland. In addition, orders have been issued to deport elected
representatives from the city of Jerusalem. The occupying Power also
continues to undertake excavations that threaten our holy places, and
its military checkpoints prevent our citizens from getting access to
their mosques and churches, and it continues to besiege the Holy City
with a ring of settlements imposed to separate the Holy City from the
rest of the Palestinian cities.
The occupation is racing against time to redraw the borders on our
land according to what it wants and to impose a fait accompli on the
ground that changes the realities and that is undermining the realistic
potential for the existence of the State of Palestine.
At the same time, the occupying Power continues to impose its
blockade on the Gaza Strip and to target Palestinian civilians by
assassinations, air strikes and artillery shelling, persisting with its
war of aggression of three years ago on Gaza, which resulted in massive
destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, and mosques, and the thousands
of martyrs and wounded.
The occupying Power also continues its incursions in areas of the
Palestinian National Authority through raids, arrests and killings at
the checkpoints. In recent years, the criminal actions of armed settler
militias, who enjoy the special protection of the occupation army, has
intensified with the perpetration of frequent attacks against our
people, targeting their homes, schools, universities, mosques, fields,
crops and trees. Despite our repeated warnings, the occupying Power has
not acted to curb these attacks and we hold them fully responsible for
the crimes of the settlers.
These are just a few examples of the policy of the Israeli colonial
settlement occupation, and this policy is responsible for the continued
failure of the successive international attempts to salvage the peace
process.
This policy will destroy the chances of achieving a two-State
solution upon which there is an international consensus, and here I
caution aloud: This settlement policy threatens to also undermine the
structure of the Palestinian National Authority and even end its
existence.
In addition, we now face the imposition new conditions not previously
raised, conditions that will transform the raging conflict in our
inflamed region into a religious conflict and a threat to the future of a
million and a half Christian and Muslim Palestinians, citizens of
Israel, a matter which we reject and which is impossible for us to
accept being dragged into.
All of these actions taken by Israel in our country are unilateral
actions and are not based on any earlier agreements. Indeed, what we
witness is a selective application of the agreements aimed at
perpetuating the occupation. Israel reoccupied the cities of the West
Bank by a unilateral action, and reestablished the civil and military
occupation by a unilateral action, and it is the one that determines
whether or not a Palestinian citizen has the right to reside in any part
of the Palestinian Territory. And it is confiscating our land and our
water and obstructing our movement as well as the movement of goods. And
it is the one obstructing our whole destiny. All of this is unilateral.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
In 1974, our deceased leader Yasser Arafat came to this hall and
assured the Members of the General Assembly of our affirmative pursuit
for peace, urging the United Nations to realize the inalienable national
rights of the Palestinian people, stating: “Do not let the olive branch
fall from my hand”.
In 1988, President Arafat again addressed the General Assembly, which
convened in Geneva to hear him, where he submitted the Palestinian
peace program adopted by the Palestine National Council at its session
held that year in Algeria.
When we adopted this program, we were taking a painful and very
difficult step for all of us, especially those, including myself, who
were forced to leave their homes and their towns and villages, carrying
only some of our belongings and our grief and our memories and the keys
of our homes to the camps of exile and the Diaspora in the 1948
Al-Nakba, one of the worst operations of uprooting, destruction and
removal of a vibrant and cohesive society that had been contributing in a
pioneering and leading way in the cultural, educational and economic
renaissance of the Arab Middle East.
Yet, because we believe in peace and because of our conviction in
international legitimacy, and because we had the courage to make
difficult decisions for our people, and in the absence of absolute
justice, we decided to adopt the path of relative justice – justice that
is possible and could correct part of the grave historical injustice
committed against our people. Thus, we agreed to establish the State of
Palestine on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine – on all
the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967.
We, by taking that historic step, which was welcomed by the States of
the world, made a major concession in order to achieve a historic
compromise that would allow peace to be made in the land of peace.
In the years that followed – from the Madrid Conference and the
Washington negotiations leading to the Oslo agreement, which was signed
18 years ago in the garden of the White House and was linked with the
letters of mutual recognition between the PLO and Israel, we persevered
and dealt positively and responsibly with all efforts aimed at the
achievement of a lasting peace agreement. Yet, as we said earlier, every
initiative and every conference and every new round of negotiations and
every movement was shattered on the rock of the Israeli settlement
expansion project.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I confirm, on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the
sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, which will
remain so until the end of the conflict in all its aspects and until the
resolution of all final status issues, the following:
1. The goal of the Palestinian people is the
realization of their inalienable national rights in their independent
State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the land
of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, which
Israel occupied in the June 1967 war, in conformity with the resolutions
of international legitimacy and with the achievement of a just and
agreed upon solution to the Palestine refugee issue in accordance with
resolution 194, as stipulated in the Arab Peace Initiative which
presented the consensus Arab vision to resolve the core the Arab-Israeli
conflict and to achieve a just and comprehensive peace. To this we
adhere and this is what we are working to achieve. Achieving this
desired peace also requires the release of political prisoners and
detainees in Israeli prisons without delay.
2. The PLO and the Palestinian people adhere to the
renouncement of violence and rejection and condemning of terrorism in
all its forms, especially State terrorism, and adhere to all agreements
signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel.
3. We adhere to the option of negotiating a lasting
solution to the conflict in accordance with resolutions of international
legitimacy. Here, I declare that the Palestine Liberation Organization
is ready to return immediately to the negotiating table on the basis of
the adopted terms of reference based on international legitimacy and a
complete cessation of settlement activities.
4. Our people will continue their popular peaceful
resistance to the Israeli occupation and its settlement and apartheid
policies and its construction of the racist annexation Wall, and they
receive support for their resistance, which is consistent with
international humanitarian law and international conventions and has the
support of peace activists from Israel and around the world, reflecting
an impressive, inspiring and courageous example of the strength of this
defenseless people, armed only with their dreams, courage, hope and
slogans in the face of bullets, tanks, tear gas and bulldozers.
5. When we bring our plight and our case to this
international podium, it is a confirmation of our reliance on the
political and diplomatic option and is a confirmation that we do not
undertake unilateral steps. Our efforts are not aimed at isolating
Israel or de-legitimizing it; rather we want to gain legitimacy for the
cause of the people of Palestine. We only aim to de-legitimize the
settlement activities and the occupation and apartheid and the logic of
ruthless force, and we believe that all the countries of the world stand
with us in this regard.
I am here to say on behalf of the Palestinian people and the
Palestine Liberation Organization: We extend our hands to the Israeli
government and the Israeli people for peace-making. I say to them: Let
us urgently build together a future for our children where they can
enjoy freedom, security and prosperity. Let us build the bridges of
dialogue instead of checkpoints and walls of separation, and build
cooperative relations based on parity and equity between two neighboring
States – Palestine and Israel – instead of policies of occupation,
settlement, war and eliminating the other.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Despite the unquestionable right of our people to self-determination
and to the independence of our State as stipulated in international
resolutions, we have accepted in the past few years to engage in what
appeared to be a test of our worthiness, entitlement and eligibility.
During the last two years our national authority has implemented a
program to build our State institutions. Despite the extraordinary
situation and the Israeli obstacles imposed, a serious extensive project
was launched that has included the implementation of plans to enhance
and advance the judiciary and the apparatus for maintenance of order and
security, to develop the administrative, financial, and oversight
systems, to upgrade the performance of institutions, and to enhance
self-reliance to reduce the need for foreign aid. With the thankful
support of Arab countries and donors from friendly countries, a number
of large infrastructure projects have been implemented, focused on
various aspects of service, with special attention to rural and
marginalized areas.
In the midst of this massive national project, we have been
strengthening what we seeking to be the features of our State: from the
preservation of security for the citizen and public order; to the
promotion of judicial authority and rule of law; to strengthening the
role of women via legislation, laws and participation; to ensuring the
protection of public freedoms and strengthening the role of civil
society institutions; to institutionalizing rules and regulations for
ensuring accountability and transparency in the work of our Ministries
and departments; to entrenching the pillars of democracy as the basis
for the Palestinian political life.
When division struck the unity of our homeland, people and
institutions, we were determined to adopt dialogue for restoration of
our unity. We succeeded months ago in achieving national reconciliation
and we hope that its implementation will be accelerated in the coming
weeks. The core pillar of this reconciliation was to turn to the people
through legislative and presidential elections within a year, because
the State we want will be a State characterized by the rule of law,
democratic exercise and protection of the freedoms and equality of all
citizens without any discrimination and the transfer of power through
the ballot box.
The reports issued recently by the United Nations, the World Bank,
the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) and the International Monetary Fund
confirm and laud what has been accomplished, considering it a remarkable
and unprecedented model. The consensus conclusion by the AHLC a few
days ago here described what has been accomplished as a “remarkable
international success story” and confirmed the readiness of the
Palestinian people and their institutions for the immediate independence
of the State of Palestine.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is no longer possible to redress the issue of the blockage of the
horizon of the peace talks with the same means and methods that have
been repeatedly tried and proven unsuccessful over the past years. The
crisis is far too deep to be neglected, and what is more dangerous are
attempts to simply circumvent it or postpone its explosion.
It is neither possible, nor practical, nor acceptable to return to
conducting business as usual, as if everything is fine. It is futile to
go into negotiations without clear parameters and in the absence of
credibility and a specific timetable. Negotiations will be meaningless
as long as the occupation army on the ground continues to entrench its
occupation, instead of rolling it back, and continues to change the
demography of our country in order to create a new basis on which to
alter the borders.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a moment of truth and my people are waiting to hear the answer
of the world. Will it allow Israel to continue its occupation, the only
occupation in the world? Will it allow Israel to remain a State above
the law and accountability? Will it allow Israel to continue rejecting
the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly of the
United Nations and the International Court of Justice and the positions
of the overwhelming majority of countries in the world?
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine,
the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be
upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), to
speak on behalf of the Palestinian people in the homeland and in the the
Diaspora, to say, after 63 years of suffering of the ongoing Nakba:
Enough. It is time for the Palestinian people to gain their freedom and
independence.
The time has come to end the suffering and the plight of millions of
Palestine refugees in the homeland and the Diaspora, to end their
displacement and to realize their rights, some of them forced to take
refuge more than once in different places of the world.
At a time when the Arab peoples affirm their quest for democracy –
the Arab Spring – the time is now for the Palestinian Spring, the time
for independence.
The time has come for our men, women and children to live normal
lives, for them to be able to sleep without waiting for the worst that
the next day will bring; for mothers to be assured that their children
will return home without fear of suffering killing, arrest or
humiliation; for students to be able to go to their schools and
universities without checkpoints obstructing them. The time has come for
sick people to be able to reach hospitals normally, and for our farmers
to be able to take care of their good land without fear of the
occupation seizing the land and its water, which the wall prevents
access to, or fear of the settlers, for whom settlements are being built
on our land and who are uprooting and burning the olive trees that have
existed for hundreds of years. The time has come for the thousands of
prisoners to be released from the prisons to return to their families
and their children to become a part of building their homeland, for the
freedom of which they have sacrificed.
My people desire to exercise their right to enjoy a normal life like
the rest of humanity. They believe what the great poet Mahmoud Darwish
said: Standing here, staying here, permanent here, eternal here, and we
have one goal, one, one: to be.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
We profoundly appreciate and value the positions of all States that
have supported our struggle and our rights and recognized the State of
Palestine following the Declaration of Independence in 1988, as well as
the countries that have recently recognized the State of Palestine and
those that have upgraded the level of Palestine’s representation in
their capitals. I also salute the Secretary-General, who said a few days
ago that the Palestinian State should have been established years ago.
Be assured that this support for our people is more valuable to them
than you can imagine, for it makes them feel that someone is listening
to their narrative and that their tragedy and the horrors of Al-Nakba
and the occupation, from which they have so suffered, are not being
ignored. And, it reinforces their hope that stems from the belief that
justice is possible in this in this world. The loss of hope is the most
ferocious enemy of peace and despair is the strongest ally of extremism.
I say: The time has come for my courageous and proud people, after
decades of displacement and colonial occupation and ceaseless suffering,
to live like other peoples of the earth, free in a sovereign and
independent homeland.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to inform you that, before delivering this statement, I
submitted, in my capacity as the President of the State of Palestine and
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, to H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United
Nations, an application for the admission of Palestine on the basis of
the 4 June 1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, as a
full member of the United Nations.
I call upon Mr. Secretary-General to expedite transmittal of our
request to the Security Council, and I call upon the distinguished
members of the Security Council to vote in favor of our full membership.
I also call upon the States that did not recognized the State of
Palestine as yet to do so.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The support of the countries of the world for our endeavor is a
victory for truth,freedom, justice, law and international legitimacy,
and it provides tremendous support for the peace option and enhances the
chances of success of the negotiations.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your support for the establishment of the State of Palestine and for
its admission to the United Nations as a full member is the greatest
contribution to peacemaking in the Holy Land.
I thank you.
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