Mahmoud Abbas Address At UN
Video and Transcript
“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?”
“I would like to inform you that, before delivering this statement, I,
in my capacity as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of
the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
submitted 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 AI-Quds AI-Sharif as its capital, as a
full member of the United Nations.”
Posted September 23, 2011
Mahmoud Abbas Address At UN
Video and Transcript
“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?”
“I would like to inform you that, before delivering this statement, I,
in my capacity as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of
the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
submitted 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 AI-Quds AI-Sharif as its capital, as a
full member of the United Nations.”
Posted September 23, 2011
A full transcript of President Mahmoud Abbas’ address to the 66th
session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept.
23, provided by the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency.
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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