2024-05-18 Time: 22:21:33 (Jerusalem)
الموقع الاخباري الرسمي لمنظمة التحرير الفلسطينية
Statement by H.E. Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine, before the UN General Assembly, following use of the veto to block admission of the State of Palestine to the UN, 1 May 2024
Mr President, Dear colleagues, I stand before you today as the massacres against the Palestinian people continue unabated.
The atrocities and discovery of mass graves in the vicinity of hospitals that were besieged and attacked by Israel is a new dark chapter in this never-ending tragedy.
As we meet here today, Israel is still trying to push the Palestinian people out of geography and out of history, its occupation descending to deeper levels of depravity.
It has, through air, land and sea bombardments and mass killings, forcibly displaced two thirds of the Palestinian people in Gaza all the way to Rafah at the Palestinian-Egyptian border and now threatens at any moment to invade Rafah. This gruesome scenario must be prevented at all costs.
An immediate ceasefire - long called for by this Assembly and demanded by the Security Council - is indispensable, it cannot be delayed any further. The mass indiscriminate killing, the wounding and maiming, the siege, the starvation, the collective punishment and mass arbitrary arrest and torture must be brought to an immediate end.
This methodical devastation and dismantling - on a scale unprecedented in modern history - of the very requirements of life in Gaza is an integral part of the attempts to erase a nation, by destruction, displacement and death.
There are only two paths ahead, one that leads to shared life and one that leads to common death.
The more we wait, the harder it is to embark on the path that leads to just and lasting peace and shared security.
You cannot say that you support the two-State solution and stand idly by while Israel is openly trying to destroy the Palestinian state, as openly confessed to by the Israeli PM. Netanyahu is acting every day upon his commitment to obstruct peace, for decades now, and he is relying that, beyond protest, the international community will prove unable to take meaningful action to hold him accountable and to enforce international law and the two-State solution.
The admission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations is an unequivocal signal that Palestinian selfdetermination and statehood are not subject to the whims and will of the extremists in Israel.
Our admission to the UN is long overdue, it has been 75 years in the making. How can those who supported the admission of Israel 75 years ago while it was violating the Charter and fundamental UN resolutions and in isolation from a just solution of the conflict explain that Palestine’s admission 75 years later should be conditioned to the achievement of such a solution? Page 2 of 2 The words double standards are not enough to describe how absurd this logic is.
Let me be clear: we will never accept that the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, to statehood and admission to the UN could be in any way subject to an Israeli veto.
These are the natural rights our people are entitled to and we will take our rightful place among the community of nations. We will not be deterred in our pursuit for freedom. I want to thank Algeria, as the Arab representative on the Security Council, for putting forward the draft resolution for the admission of the State of Palestine to the UN.
I want to thank the Arab Group, the OIC and NAM for their principled support to our request for admission. And I want to thank the 12 members of the Council who have supported this request, reflecting the broad and global support for Palestine’s admission, for the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, for the independence of our State.
We will now bring the matter for consideration by the General Assembly on the 10th of May in a resumed 10th emergency special session, and trust that this body representing the international community will unequivocally support the admission of the State of Palestine to the UN and call on the Security Council to reconsider our application for admission favorably.
Allow me from this podium to call on every State to use the means available to them to end the carnage in Gaza and to advance freedom and peace. This is the time for action, for accountability. Netanyahu attacked the ICC, just as he had attacked before it the ICJ, the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, the Secretary-General and virtually every state on earth, calling you the “immoral majority” among other offensive slurs simply for upholding international law and denouncing Israeli crimes and illegal actions.
Will you protect the international law-based order or let Israel trample it? The time to end complicity is right now.
The ICJ reminded states of their international obligations relating to the transfer of arms to parties to an armed conflict, in order to avoid the risk that such arms might be used in the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. All states also have an obligation to take measures against Israel’s colonial policies in Palestine.
The time for recognition of the State of Palestine is right now.
We are grateful to Barbados and Jamaica for their decisions immediately after the Council vote on admission to recognize the State of Palestine, joining 140 states that had already undertaken such an important step.
For those who have not yet recognized Palestine, we say there are no grounds for further delay. Those who want to destroy the Palestinian state and with it any chance for peace are not waiting.
Those who support selfdetermination and a peaceful settlement should not defer to them, nor let them dictate our collective future.
If you wonder if you are on the right side of history, ask yourself one question: is what I am doing advancing freedom and peace or enabling continued oppression and conflict? Act. Act now.
To stop the massacres and ensure life prevails. To end the occupation and conflict and ensure freedom and peace prevail. Thank you Mr. President
