Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I hereby declare that the people of the intifada, the
Palestinian people whom I represent, are committed to peace based on justice. Our heritage
and culture and our Islam, Christianity, and Judaism disallow hatred and repudiate
aggression. Inasmuch as they open our minds to peace based on justice, they shape our
resolve to defend ourselves, uphold our rights, and resist the occupation.
We respect our international commitments. We also respect
international legitimacy. At the same time, we believe that a just peace cannot be
achieved through the selective application of half of what international legitimacy
provided for and the dumping of the other half.
That is why it is imperative that we witness and sense the
respect by Israel and the US administration of international resolutions, particularly
those upholding the Palestinian peoples right to self- determination and statehood,
and which constitute the cornerstone of the proposed international peace conference.
I also declare from this rostrum that several contentious
points, as well as issues raised as preconditions in their minute details, hinge on the
success of negotiations at the international conference. Other points will figure on the
agenda of negotiations to take place at the authoritative international conference, under
the auspices of the United Nations and with the participation of the permanent Security
Council members and all the parties to the conflict in the region, including Israel, and
the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
It would be possible at the said conference, and through
the negotiations that will take place within its framework, to discuss and agree [upon]
arrangements for international guarantees of peace among all states of the region,
including the independent Palestinian state.
Israel has never defined the terms of reference for the
settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. We wonder: are they the UN Charter? Or the
resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council? Or the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights? Or the 1977 Vance-Gromyko statement? Or the natural right of peoples? Or
international legitimacy with all its implications in as far as the establishment of the
State of Israel is concerned?
As far as we are concerned, many of you wonder about our
position vis-a-vis resolutions 242 and 338 in view of our commitment to international
legitimacy.
We endorse the charter of the United Nations Organisation
and all its resolutions, including 242 and 338. International legitimacy is an indivisible
whole, and no one can choose to accept only what suits him and discard what does not.
How can the United States and Israel accept the only birth
certificate of the State of Israel, namely Resolution 181, which provided for the creation
of two states in Palestine, and simultaneously reject, for instance, Resolution 194
(1948), which called for the repatriation of the Palestine refugees or the payment of
compensation for the property of those choosing not to return?
How can we be asked to accept Resolution 242 and forget
the other international resolutions, the most recent of which were Security Council
resolutions 605, 607, and 608 as well as resolutions 252, 446, and 465 and General
Assembly resolutions 3236 and 3237 especially since Resolution 242 concerned Israel
and a number of Arab states, yet did not address the Palestine question or the rights of
the people of Palestine? It only referred to the need to achieve a settlement of the
refugee problem. Even this reference was interpreted in the US-Israeli (or
"Vance-Dayan") statement of 1977 as meaning Jewish and Arab refugees.
Consequently, we declare our acceptance of one of the two
following options as the basis for convening the international conference under UN
auspices and with the participation of the Security Councils permanent members and
all the parties to the conflict in the region, including the PLO and Israel:
a. All UN resolutions relevant to the Palestine question,
including Security Council resolutions 242 and 338.
b. Resolutions 242 and 338 along with the legitimate
rights of the Palestinian people, foremost among which is their right to self-
determination.
Allow me to cite another example where the selective
application of international legitimacy led to distorted results, undermining
international legitimacy as such. The example relates to Mr George Shultz, the US
secretary of state, and his so-called Middle East [peace] initiative.
In the course of his fourth and last visit to the area, he
stood up in Cairo to declare that he had discovered that the conflict in Palestine is one
between two peoples over the same land and that the solution lies in the recognition of
both peoples rights.
We saw in this the first positive stand by Washington in
terms of recognising the Palestinian people and their rights.
No sooner had Shultz made his statement than he reverted
to the practice of partitioning international legitimacy by translating Israeli rights
into an independent state, a government, and a people, while dismissing the Palestinian
state, government, and people by speaking of Palestinian rights in terms of a mere entity
attached to the Kingdom of Jordan and of Palestinian residents being absorbed within the
Jordanian population.
In this context, and in order to create an atmosphere of
good will conducive to a just peace, we responded positively and still do to
all proposals calling for the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces from the
Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 and placing these under UN administration or an
internationally supervised European force for a limited interim period. The proposed
international force could stay on after the establishment of the independent Palestinian
state for as long as the Security Council deems necessary, to guarantee the security of
everyone concerned.
Mr Chairman, Ladies and gentlemen,
We all know of the measures recently adopted by Jordan
concerning the West Bank. The PLO Central Council accepted these measures and decided to
shoulder the responsibilities resulting therefrom, including the political among them,
regardless of the timing and the manner in which the measures were introduced
without consultation or co-ordination with us and irrespective of the difficulties
that we found ourselves facing.
The Jordanian measures ended the European, American, and
Israeli debate on Palestinian representation at the international conference. No one can
claim any more that there is someone else to share with the PLO the representation of the
Palestinian people, particularly after the cessation of the Jordanian option and the
failure of the autonomy option. The only option left is the right, realistic, and
irreplaceable one namely, the Palestinian option, the essence of which is the
independent Palestinian state ...
Source: Palestinian Visions a documentary
account of the peace initiative, Palestine Human Rights Campaign / American Council for
Palestine Affairs, Chicago and New York, 1990.
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