President Arafat to U.N. General Assembly: We Look
Forward to Palestines Participation in the Millennium Summit as a Member State of
the United Nations
President Yasser Arafat visited the United Nations from 22 to 23 September 1999 to participate in the General Debate of the General Assembly for the second consecutive year. President Arafats participation in that debate began last year following the upgrade of Palestine at the U.N. through the adoption of resolution 52/250 of 7 July 1998. Your presence here today leading this
session is an attestation to the victory achieved by the people of Namibia in the battle
for freedom and independence. It strengthens
the hope of the Palestinian people that the dawn of their freedom and independence of
their homeland of Palestine is near
I come to you today, you the
representatives of the international community, for the second consecutive year, seeking
the continuation of your support for the realization of the inalienable rights of the
Palestinian people, particularly at this crucial and sensitive stage, which lies between
us and the declaration of our independent Palestinian State and sovereignty over our
liberated land
The coming Millennium Summit, with all the renewed hope it represents
for the people on earth for a new and promising beginning for all of us, must represent a
decisive deadline for the achievement of peace in the Middle East
I look forward to the participation of Palestine
as a Member State in the United Nations in the deliberations of this Millennial Summit,
and I trust in your support of this Palestinian determination to achieve independence so
that Palestine will take the position it deserves within the family of nations. As you know, we concluded with Mr.
Barak, the new Prime Minister of Israel, the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum on the 4th
of September
The Memorandum aims at the implementation of all the obligations of the
interim period under the Oslo Agreement, the Wye River Memorandum and the Hebron Protocol,
and for the resumption of the permanent status negotiations. This was done with the hope of bringing an end to
the practice of delaying and freezing implementation that was pursued by the former
Israeli government
As we reaffirm once more our
commitment to the peace process and the implementation of the agreements reached, we hope
that this time the Israeli side will undertake the scrupulous and honest implementation of
these agreements, including the phases of redeployment agreed upon in the Wye River and
Oslo agreements, the release of prisoners, and the implementation of the other obligations
of the transitional period, such as the safe passage between the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip and the construction of the Gaza seaport.
The realization of the right of
the Palestinian people to establish their independent state, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif
(Jerusalem) as its capital, will provide the definitive guarantee for the establishment of
a permanent peace in the Middle East and will also be a validation of the Charter of the
United Nations and its numerous resolutions for over fifty years, beginning with
resolution 181, which called for the establishment of two States in Palestine, one Jewish,
which is Israel, and one Arab, which is Palestine. The
rights of peoples do not diminish with the passage of the years or with oppression, and
our people have proven throughout the long years that they deserve life and freedom and
deserve an independent state. The time has come for the international community,
represented by the General Assembly, to reaffirm this right and work for its realization. The goal of the current peace process is the
implementation of Security Council resolutions 242, 338, 425 and the principle of land for
peace that is the total Israeli withdrawal from all the Palestinian and other
territories occupied in 1967, including Al-Quds Al-Sharif, the Holy City of
Jerusalem
The catastrophe that befell our
people 51 years ago and uprooted them from their homeland and dispersed them into exile,
stripping them of their rights as humans and their dreams and attempting to negate their
existence, is one of the greatest human tragedies witnessed by the twentieth century. The question of the Palestine refugees is the
oldest and largest refugee question in our contemporary world. We must recognize the legitimate right of those
refugees to return to their homeland in accordance with United Nations resolutions. Four million Palestinians live in exile and in
refugee camps, awaiting the time of their return to their homeland, from which they were
expelled by arms. There is no way to achieve
peace, stability and security in the Middle East without a solution for the question of
the Palestine refugees and the implementation of resolution 194, which states their right
to return to their homeland.
We must increase all efforts
until the coming new millennium in many places and spheres and not only in the Middle
East. In this respect, we have observed some
positive developments, which are reassuring. There
is tangible improvement in the area of conflict resolution on the African continent on the
path towards achieving better economic and social development in this great continent. There is the international attention given to
Kosovo and other measures in the Balkans. There
is also the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court as well as the
additional consideration being given to the Four Geneva Conventions on the occasion of
their fiftieth anniversary. We refer here,
with appreciation, to the convening of the Conference of the High Contracting Parties to
the Fourth Geneva Convention last July regarding the Israeli occupation of our land. All of the above are important
developments, but perhaps not enough for us to begin the new millennium with a new
situation, particularly if we take a look at some events and worrisome developments at
several levels
But I would like, in particular, to refer to the rise of extreme
poverty and the widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots on the individual
level and on the level of countries and regions.
We must exert serious efforts and
seek creative means beyond hasty and temporary remedies.
While it is time for the South to be more prepared to strive for this
achievement, the North should also be more prepared for partnership and a more realistic
and just sharing.
We must also strive for some
necessary improvements at the political level, particularly with regard to international
political relations. It is here in which the
importance of ascribing greater significance to the United Nations by all of us arises. This must be done in order for this body to truly
become the effective center for international political relations and the source of
international legitimacy
I speak now with great pride of
the Bethlehem 2000 celebrations. The
Palestinian city of Bethlehem, the birth place of Jesus Christ (PBUH), is where we are
making preparations to celebrate the end of the second millennium and the beginning of the
third and where the past and the future will meet in Palestine in a global vision of hope
for all peoples
Here, I wish to extend
once more the invitation by our Palestinian people to you and to all the leaders of the
world to visit us during this important historical and religious occasion in Bethlehem and
Al-Quds Al-Sharif (Jerusalem)
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