State of Palestine, 2006

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

06-53005 52

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

53 06-53005

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.