I would
like to start by congratulating Ms. Haya Rashed Al-
Khalifa on her election to preside over this session and
to wish her success in achieving the objectives of the
United Nations, which are accepted by all nations of
the world, which believe that the Organization was
created to safeguard international peace, human rights,
and the right of peoples to self-determination. Indeed,
as President Woodrow Wilson said in his first inaugural
address:
“Nowhere else in the world have noble men and
women exhibited in more striking forms the
beauty and the energy of sympathy and
helpfulness and counsel in their efforts to rectify
wrong, alleviate suffering, and set the weak in the
way of strength and hope.”
I hope, therefore, that this session will promote
cooperation between nations and peoples in pursuit of
their common interests, namely the principles
enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, which
form the basis for membership in this Organization.
We must commend highly the Secretary-General,
Mr. Kofi Annan, for the effective role he has played
and the considerable efforts he has deployed, as well as
for his wise leadership in enhancing the United Nations
and reinvigorating its role. We also commend him in
particular for his efforts in respect of the Arab-Israeli
conflict, the core of which is the question of Palestine.
Only a few weeks ago, the fires of war stopped
raging in Lebanon. Despite the gravity of the losses,
the destruction and the tragedy, the international
community expeditiously, effectively and successfully
intervened to put an end to the war and to provide
support to the people and the legitimate Government of
Lebanon in order to safeguard its security and
independence and to put an end to the era of wars on
its land. I commend the role played by the international
community, and I hope that that positive and effective
intervention will be extended, politically and
practically, so as to resolve the root causes of all the
conflicts and wars that have plagued our region for
many decades.
Indeed, I need not reconfirm the fact that, after
the experiences of war and suffering that we have been
through, unless the question of Palestine and that of the
continuing occupation of Palestinian and Arab lands
since 1967 is resolved, the elements of tension and
conflagration will keep the conflict alive and leave the
door wide open to all forms of violence, terrorism,
regional confrontations and global crises.
It is unfortunate today to see that international
plans and initiatives, foremost among them the road
map, which was endorsed by the United Nations
Security Council, have reached a state of stagnation,
even regression. Calls for the resumption of
negotiations are faced with preconditions. Despair and
frustration thrive in the midst of the roar of the
bulldozers that are preparing for the construction of
illegal settlements, changes in the demographic nature
of Jerusalem and erection of an apartheid separation
wall inside our occupied land and between its various
parts. They thrive on the continuation of the frightful
siege, through military checkpoints that have turned
our cities and provinces into reservations, on the
continuous saga of killings and assassinations that have
claimed hundreds of civilian lives, on the demolitions
of homes and on the ongoing arrests of more than
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8,000 Palestinians, including parliamentarians and
cabinet ministers. Some of the detained have been
languishing for three decades, and their release and
freedom are still eagerly awaited by their families and
their people.
Under such conditions, I can reasonably ask: how
can the international community expect extremism to
retreat or the waves of violence to ebb? How can we
and all the forces of moderation and peace in our
region forcefully intervene and convince our public
opinion that there is hope on the horizon? Or that the
option of dialogue, negotiation and international
legitimacy — which is our strategic choice and the
path which we relentlessly advocate and which we will
never abandon — will be fruitful and has a real chance
of success?
Living in the midst of this tragedy, I am not the
only one who must answer this fundamental question.
The whole international community, particularly
influential Powers, is called upon to provide tangible
evidence that it will support an unconditional
resumption of negotiations and provide those
negotiations with true international support to ensure
their success through the cessation of settlement
activity, collective punishment and separation walls.
This would provide a positive atmosphere for
relaunching the negotiations and reaching the
objectives of a just peace based on a two-State
solution, as called for by President George Bush of the
United States of America. Such a solution must be
based on international legitimacy, as stressed in the
Arab Peace Initiative, through the establishment of the
independent State of Palestine on the 4 June 1967
borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and in
reaching a just and agreed solution for the problem of
the refugees — who constitute more than half of our
Palestinian people — in accordance with United
Nations General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of
11 December 1948.
Lately, we have heard from the Government of
Israel that it will abandon its policy of unilateralism
and one-sided actions. This is encouraging, provided
that the alternative is not stagnation or the imposition
of faits accomplis on the ground, but rather a return to
the negotiating table and to reaching a comprehensive
solution to all of the permanent status issues in order to
ensure a secure future for our children and theirs.
Recently, in tandem with all the strands and
persuasions of the Palestinian political spectrum, I
have sought to establish a Government of national
unity that is consistent with international and Arab
legitimacy and that corresponds to the principles
established by the Quartet. Based on our commitment
to these criteria, I would like to reaffirm that any future
Palestinian Government will commit to and abide by
all the agreements that the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian National
Authority have committed to in the past, particularly
the letters of mutual recognition dated 9 September
1993 exchanged between the two late, great leaders,
Yasser Arafat and Itzhak Rabin. These two letters
contain the mutual recognition by Israel and the PLO,
the renunciation of violence and the adoption of
negotiations as the path towards reaching a permanent
solution leading to the establishment of the
independent State of Palestine alongside the State of
Israel.
Any future Government will commit to imposing
security and order, to ending the phenomenon of
multiple militias, lack of discipline or chaos, and will
commit to the rule of law, since this is primarily a
national Palestinian need. The efforts that we have
exerted are for the sole purpose of establishing national
unity that has real substance in order to achieve
national Palestinian consensus around our national
objectives, which comply with international legitimacy
and the Arab Peace Initiative and call for peaceful
means for the realization of these objectives. When
such a national consensus is reached and a new
national unity Government has been established
according to it, it must be viewed as a qualitative
achievement — not a step backwards or a limited
regression from the path to which we have always been
determinedly committed — even in the face of the
bleakest of conditions.
I would like to reiterate that negotiations with
Israel have been and will remain under the jurisdiction
and responsibility of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, which I chair. The outcome of these
negotiations will be presented to the Palestinian
National Council, the highest Palestinian national
body, or to a national public referendum.
What we have achieved in this regard should
suffice to lift the unjust siege imposed on our people.
That siege has inflicted extensive damage on our
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society, our livelihood and the means to our growth and
progress.
Madam President, I come to you bearing the
wounds of a people who are bleeding on a daily basis.
We are a people who seeks normal life, where our
children can go safely to school, where children are
born to live, not die; where youth can find honourable
and decent work that provides them with a dignified
path to a secure future so that they can be partners in
formulating their history, rather than be victims to the
cruelty of history; where women give birth in hospitals,
not at the checkpoints of the occupation; where
families gather in the evening to dream of a new day, a
day without killing, imprisonment or arrest.
I simply want tomorrow to be better than today. I
want my homeland, Palestine, to be a homeland, rather
than a prison — independent and sovereign, like
homelands of all other peoples of this world. I want
Jerusalem to be the point of convergence for the
dialogue of all prophets and the capital of two States
living side by side in peace and equality.
Thirty-two years ago, from this rostrum, the late
President Yasser Arafat issued his famous and
resounding call: “Do not let the olive branch fall from
my hand” (A/PV.2282, para. 82). I now reiterate that
call. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I
repeat: do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.