State of Palestine, 2001

I would

like to begin by extending my congratulations to you,

Mr. President, on your election as President of the

General Assembly at this session. I would also like to

extend my congratulations to Mr. Kofi Annan on his

re-election to a second term as Secretary-General of the

United Nations. I also wish to congratulate him and the

United Nations on being awarded the Nobel Peace

Prize.

It is important for me to be here today at this

meeting, which is being held in very critical and

important circumstances in the aftermath of the

horrific, criminal and ugly terrorist acts against the

cities of New York and Washington, D.C., on 11

September 2001. We strongly condemn those acts. In

this context, I would once more like to extend our

deepest and warmest sympathy to President George W.

Bush and to the Government and the friendly people of

the United States. In particular, I wish to express my

condolences to the families of the victims.

The Palestinian people have expressed their

readiness to confront all forms and manifestations of

international terrorism, including State-organized

terror, in order to build a new world that guarantees

justice, peace, security and freedom for all peoples — a

new world based on human rights and international

legality. We call on all nations to coordinate their

efforts within the framework of the United Nations and

international legality and the need to pursue and

encourage a dialogue between all nations, religions and

civilizations.

I would like to express my deepest appreciation

to President George W. Bush for the declaration

contained in the statement he made yesterday with

regard to the need to achieve a just peace based on the

implementation of Security Council resolutions 242

(1967), 338 (1973) and 425 (1978) and on the basis of

a two-State solution — Israel and Palestine — and with

regard to expeditiously resuming the peace process.

For our part, we will exert every possible effort to

achieve those objectives. We have worked to provide

the best possible conditions for that endeavour, and we

will continue to do so.

I would also like to salute, and extend my

appreciation to, all my brothers who have preceded me

and clearly and eloquently made references to the

question of the Palestinian people and their right to

realize their legitimate rights under international

legality.

Last year I had the honour of addressing the

United Nations Millennium Summit. Today I am once

again addressing the Assembly, bringing the pain of the

Palestinian people and their just cause, which still

awaits a just solution. As Members will recall, in 1947

the General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (III),

which provided for the partition of Palestine into two

States — one Jewish and the other Palestinian. But the

Palestinian State has still not been recognized by the

United Nations. The Palestinian people faced

tremendous historic injustice, and the majority of them

were uprooted from their homes and made refugees.

The Palestinian people continue to seek their

rights to self-determination and return — rights that

today form the backbone of all relevant Security

Council and General Assembly resolutions, the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international

33

law and international humanitarian law and that should

be exercised on the Palestinian national soil. Members

are aware that we have accepted the solution provided

for by international legality. Yes, we have accepted less

than 25 per cent of historic Palestine, while the General

Assembly granted us almost 50 per cent of historic

Palestine, as provided for in resolution 181 (III). On

this new approach, we went to the Madrid Peace

Conference, which was based on the principle of “land

for peace” and which had the objective of

implementing all relevant international resolutions

related to Palestine, particularly Security Council

resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 425 (1978) and

General Assembly resolution 194 (III) concerning the

Palestinian refugees. Then we signed the Oslo

Agreement at the White House in Washington, D.C., in

the presence of and witnessed by representatives of the

United States of America, the Russian Federation, the

European Union, China, Japan, Egypt, Jordan and other

countries, including Arab, African, Asian and Latin

America States.

Later we signed a number of agreements and

memorandums of understanding. After the

assassination of my late partner, Mr. Yitzhak Rabin —

my partner in the peace process — consecutive Israeli

Governments clearly took the path of non-compliance

and did not implement Israel’s obligations stemming

from the signed agreements. This impeded our sincere

efforts to reach a comprehensive, just and lasting

peace — the peace of the brave. The number of

settlements and settlers has doubled since the start of

the peace process. This reflects the lack of seriousness

of the Israeli Government and its lack of commitment

to the agreements signed between us.

Then came Sharon’s visit to the holy sanctuary in

Holy Jerusalem. I had personally and officially warned

the Israeli Government of the grave consequences that

would have on the peace process and the region. This

action sparked the Palestinian intifada, reflecting the

rejection by the Palestinian people of the Israeli

Government’s non-compliance with the agreements

signed, the settlement policies, which deepen the

occupation rather than end it by withdrawing from the

occupied Palestinian territory, and its policies of

undermining our Christian and Muslim Holy Places.

The current Israeli Government continues the

aggression against the Palestinian people begun by the

previous Government. State terror is being practised

against the Palestinian people and land, using the might

of the Israeli army, including F-15s, F-16s, Apache

helicopters, tanks, missiles, armoured vehicles, navy

vessels and lethal weapons, including those that are

internationally banned. Practices of the Israeli army

also include the assassination of Palestinian political

leaders, the demolition of homes, the destruction of

private and government institutions, ruining farms and

fields and uprooting hundreds of thousands of olive

and fruit trees, as well as the killing of women,

children and the elderly. There have been

approximately 1,800 Palestinians killed and 37,000

wounded. Many of them have been handicapped for

life. Thousands have been arrested in only 13 months.

It should also be noted that the Palestinian

economy has been devastated. The losses amount to

$7 billion as a result of all forms of economic,

financial, medical and food closures and sieges

imposed on all the Palestinian cities, villages and

refugee camps. These practices continue to restrict the

movement of goods and people, including students and

teachers who are prevented from reaching their schools

and universities. All these acts of closure and siege

have recently been tightened. Our international

borders, checkpoints and airports have been closed. All

these measures violate outright basic human rights.

Workers have also been prevented from reaching their

work places, their means to sustain their families and

children.

Facing this aggression, escalation and the bloody

war of State terror being waged by the Israeli

Government against our people, land, Holy Places, —

Jerusalem in particular — and Bethlehem, Beit Jala,

Hebron and other Palestinian towns, the incursion into

our cities, villages and refugee camps with tanks and

the brutal massacres committed in various locations in

the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, we call on the

international community, as represented by all present,

and on the peace-, freedom- and justice-loving people

who defend human rights and dignity throughout the

world to work sincerely and resolutely and to exert all

possible efforts to stop this war of aggression and to

send international observers to protect our people from

the occupation, terror and ethnic cleansing practised by

Israel and to supervise the implementation and the

consolidation of the ceasefire, by which we are abiding

and which has been consistently violated by the Israeli

Government.

International sponsorship of the Middle East

peace process is the only true guarantee for efforts by

34

the international community to make peace an

established reality in our region. The absence of

international involvement in this conflict — in the

serious search for a solution to the Palestinian question,

in accordance with justice and the principles of

international law — will push the region back into a

spiral of violence, confrontation and bloodshed and

could make the situation more explosive and fragile.

Therefore, I call upon the international

community to redouble its sincere efforts to end the

current situation and the escalating crisis that, in the

absence of the peace process, threatens to explode,

with grave consequences for our region. The active

involvement of the international community and the

influential Great Powers is essential to save the peace

process and to put it back on the right track, to move it

forward sincerely, resolutely and effectively. Lasting

peace will not be achieved or sustained without

international legality to provide an effective and

binding international mechanism to implement the

relevant Security Council and General Assembly

resolutions. The accurate and honest implementation of

these resolutions will establish and sustain peace and

will prevent bloodshed in our region.

Proceeding from our belief in peace as an

irreversible strategic choice of our people, we have

cooperated fully and positively with all international

efforts and initiatives, including the Egyptian-

Jordanian initiative, the Tenet Understandings and the

Mitchell Report, which we accepted as a

comprehensive, integrated package. We have also

unilaterally declared an immediate comprehensive

ceasefire, and we have exerted maximum efforts to

sustain that ceasefire. On the eve of the Jewish New

Year, we initiated the Palestinian call for peace, offered

our sincere congratulations to the Israeli people and

called upon them to make the New Year an occasion

for a new era of peace, security and peaceful

coexistence between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples

and the peoples of the whole Middle East region. We

made very clear and unequivocal our strategic

commitment to peace, negotiations and the political

solution to all outstanding issues between us and the

Government of Israel.

Most regrettably, the Israeli Government

instructed its war generals and army to escalate the

military campaign against our people, cities, villages

and refugee camps. This included the buffer zones and

the siege that closed off wide areas of cities, villages

and cultivated lands and led to the destruction of our

farms and the uprooting of thousands of trees in

various places in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Allow me to extend my deepest appreciation and

to salute sincerely all the brotherly, friendly nations

and to the Great Powers that have realized today, more

than ever before, that the establishment of an

independent Palestinian State, with Holy Jerusalem as

its capital, is the only guarantee for peace, security and

stability in the region and the world. This constitutes a

basic cornerstone in establishing and sustaining that

peace.

We call upon these nations, particularly the

United States, the United Kingdom, the Russian

Federation, France, China, Japan, the members of the

European Union and the non-aligned countries, the

international community, individually and collectively,

to exert every possible effort to translate this vision

into action and political reality in order to enable the

Palestinian people to live in peace, dignity, freedom,

independence and sovereignty within their independent

State on their national soil, with Holy Jerusalem as its

capital. This can be achieved by bringing Israel, the

occupying Power, to withdraw fully from all of the

occupied Palestinian and Arab territories, including

Holy Jerusalem, to the boundaries of 4 June 1967, in

accordance with the principles of the Madrid Peace

Conference, to end settlement activities and evacuate

settlers from our land, and to guarantee the right of

return to the Palestinian refugees, in accordance with

General Assembly resolution 194 (III), which provided

for this right and called for compensation to those not

wishing to return.

We welcome the positive positions taken by

President George W. Bush and other leaders who have

called for the establishment of a Palestinian State. We

believe this constitutes a significant step towards

ending the conflict and establishing peace in the

Middle East. I will say candidly to you that reviving

and completing the peace process will need a new

qualitative push, and after all that has happened it will

not be possible to confine ourselves to interim

solutions. It is impossible, of course, to achieve another

interim agreement, as called for by some. To control

the situation on the ground and to get the situation back

to the way it existed before 28 September 2000

requires clear political imagination and new hope.

35

What the peace process now requires to achieve a

just and lasting peace is a genuine effort on the part of

the co-sponsors of the peace process — the United

States and the Russian Federation — as well as

influential international actors, including the European

Union, and of course the Arab and Muslim countries

and other friendly nations in the Non-Aligned

Movement as well as in the United Nations. All of

them should immediately introduce a comprehensive

framework for a permanent final solution based on

international legality and the agreements signed so that

both parties can negotiate expeditiously the details of

that permanent solution. This, of course, should be

preceded by the full and immediate implementation of

the Mitchell Report and the Tenet Understandings.

It is clear that we are in need of greater

international efforts, including an international

presence on the ground, to help the parties move

forward. In any case, the United Nations and the

Secretary-General must carry out their natural and

important roles in this regard so that we can achieve

our desired peace objectives. I call upon the Israeli

Government and the Israeli people to respond

positively to this approach so that we can together

build peace in the land of peace, the Holy Land of

peace — the Holy Land; I repeat, the Holy Land.

Needless to say, we need an expeditious effort

that brooks no further delay, especially at the current

international situation. We are ready to carry out our

share of responsibility. We trust you are also ready to

shoulder your share of responsibility. I realize that the

international community, after the assassination of my

partner, Yitzhak Rabin, is looking forward to the peace

process. From here I convey to the Israeli people my

full commitment to the peace process, which I began

with my late partner Yitzhak Rabin, and my partner

Shimon Peres, a peace that guarantees freedom,

stability and security for the Israelis and the

Palestinians and all the peoples in the Middle East

region — the peace of the brave; the just and

comprehensive and lasting peace that will end the

Israeli occupation of all the Palestinian and Arab

territories and will lead to the establishment of the

independent Palestinian State with Holy Jerusalem as

its capital.

This is what we should be working for, for the

sake of our children and their children. From here I call

upon the Israeli Government to resume the final status

negotiations in order to implement the resolutions of

international legality and the agreements signed.

I salute all of you and hope that this session will

produce the required solutions and recommendations

which will enable our peoples and our nations and the

whole of humanity to live in peace, stability, progress

and prosperity.

May peace and God’s blessing be with you.