For 78 Years, Palestinians Denied their Self Determination
HAVANA TIMES – For seventy-eight years, the question of Palestine has been on the agenda of this General Assembly, almost as long as the institution itself.
Resolution 181 (II) was adopted by the General Assembly on November 29 1947 – laying the foundation for the Two State Solution and calling for the establishment of both an Arab State and a Jewish State in Palestine.
But while the Jewish State, the State of Israel, is a recognized Member State of the United Nations, the Arab State, the State of Palestine, is not.
Seventy-eight years later, Palestine has still not been admitted to the UN as a full Member.
For 78 years the Palestinian people have been denied their inalienable rights – in particular, their right to self-determination. Now, it is high time that we take decisive action to end this decades-long stalemate.
The atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th set off one of the darkest chapters in this conflict. Two years of war in Gaza have left tens of thousands of civilians killed, including many women and children. Countless more have been injured, maimed, and traumatized for life.
Communities are starving; civilian infrastructure is in ruins; almost the entire population is displaced. Children, mothers, fathers, families like us.
The hostages who have been finally released and reunited with their loved ones are slowly recovering from captivity under extremely dire conditions, while other families are mourning over the returned bodies. Again, children, fathers, mothers, families like us.
And while the horrors of Gaza have dominated the news for two years, settlement expansion, demolitions and increased settler violence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem continue to undermine the prospects for a sovereign, independent, contiguous and viable Palestinian state.
Palestinian communities are bifurcated by the rapid expansion of settlements. Movement, communication and access to essential services and livelihoods are severely restricted for Palestinians by checkpoints, confiscations and demolitions.
While in my previous capacity, I visited a small village in the West Bank to actually meet with Palestinian farmers and teachers who wanted to show me what settlement expansion and settler violence meant for their daily lives.
As we stood on a hillside overlooking their farmland, a drone from an Israeli settlement began hovering above us, circling in the air, monitoring what we were doing and probably saying.
We know what happens when foreign people and cameras are no longer there. It’s not just a drone watching; it’s outright violence, including farmers being attacked as they try to go to work, as they try to harvest.
Beyond the violence itself are the daily indignities confronting the residents of the West Bank, including children getting to school or thousands of pregnant women rushing to hospital to receive care or give birth, only to be stopped at checkpoints or by road closures.
All that has happened in the last two years has all underlined what we have known since decades. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved through illegal occupation, de jure or de facto annexation, forced displacement, recurrent terror or permanent war.
This only adds to grievances and fuels the flames of conflict.
Israelis and Palestinians will only live in lasting peace, security, and dignity when they live side by side in two sovereign and independent states, with mutually recognized borders and full regional integration –
As outlined in the New York Declaration, which is indeed a ray of hope, and the adoption of Resolution 2803 in which the Security Council endorsed the “Comprehensive Plan to End the Conflict in Gaza”.
We see unfortunately again on a daily basis that these are only words on paper if we do not deliver. We need to ensure that the ceasefire is consolidated and becomes a permanent end to hostilities. Since this ceasefire at least 67 children have been killed; and again, we see children being left without parents, or left in the rubble.
This has to end.
And as we brace for the increasing cold in New York ourselves, imagine what winter means for the people of Gaza: tents collapsing under rain, families shivering without shelter, children facing the night with nothing but thin fabric between them and the wind, and countless people still going to sleep hungry.
If we want to live up to our commitments, we need humanitarian agencies, on the ground without hindrance and without excuse.
And we need to ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered throughout all Gaza in a full, safe, unconditional and unhindered manner, in full accordance with international humanitarian law and humanitarian principles. And this includes delivery through UNRWA.
And as outlined in the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the obligations of Israel in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, allowing UNRWA to fulfil its mandate and continue operations there is not merely a gesture of goodwill, it is a legal obligation.
Both the General Assembly and the Security Council have been consistent on the parameters that must guide any peaceful resolution of the conflict. So, we know what we have to do.
These parameters are again reiterated in the draft resolution before this Assembly today, relating to the New York Declaration, which was endorsed by a vast majority of Member States, and identified a comprehensive and actionable framework including tangible, timebound and irreversible steps for the implementation of the Two-State-Solution, in particular that resolution underlined that Gaza must be unified with the West Bank. There must be no occupation, siege, territorial reduction, or forced displacement.
It underlines that Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority.
It makes clear that the Palestinian Authority must continue implementing its credible reform agenda focusing on good governance, transparency, fiscal sustainability, fight against incitement and hate speeches, service provision, business climate and development.
And it calls on the Israeli leadership to immediately end violence and incitement against Palestinians, and immediately halt all settlement, land grabs and annexation activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. It makes clear that it has to end the violence of the settlers.
As diplomats we all know this is hard diplomatic work. And therefore , I want to be frank and clear.
The quest for peace, stability and justice in the Middle East needs our United Nations. It needs this Assembly to play a meaningful role.
It requires every Member State to walk the talk: to engage in this process, to uphold the United Nations Charter, to adhere to international law, and the promise this institution made to all the people of the world eighty years ago.
Let us recall once more: self-determination, and the right to live in one’s own state in peace, security, and dignity, free from war, occupation and violence, is not a privilege to be earned, but a right to be upheld.
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