Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People

Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People
Solemn Commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
Phyllis Bennis - TNI Fellow
on behalf of the Institute for Policy Studies & US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation
Trusteeship Council Chamber, United Nations, New York, 1 December 2003

I would like to extend my appreciation to the General Assembly's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People for inviting civil society to participate in today's solemn commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. It is a tribute to the longstanding and continuing commitment of the Committee, especially that of its chairman, Ambassador Fall, Ambassador al Kidwe, and the rest of the Committee's leadership, that the General Assembly continues to remind the international community of the plight of Palestinians living under the illegal Israeli occupation.

That is an important act, without which the Palestinians might be functionally abandoned by many governments and institutions around the world. But while recognizing the importance of keeping the issue of the occupation of Palestine at the center of the diplomatic stage, we must simultaneously recognize the larger failure of the international community to end that occupation. Despite the exceptional work of the Committee, and its support by many Member States, the General Assembly itself must be challenged for the inadequacy, so far, of its response to Israel's occupation.

As you all are aware, the conditions facing the civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have significantly deteriorated. United Nations special rapporteurs have documented hunger and malnutrition on the rise. And it is significant that the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, identifies that crisis as constituting a violation of the right to food, an internationally recognized human right, by the Israeli occupation authorities. Similarly, the UN's Special Rapporteur dealing with human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories reports that "the occupation of the OPT continues to result in widespread violations of human rights, affecting both civil and socio-economic rights, and of international humanitarian law". John Dugard goes on to state that he "finds it difficult to accept that the excessive use of force that disregards the distinction between civilians and combatants, the creation of a humanitarian crisis by restrictions on the mobility of goods and people, the killing and inhuman treatment of children, the widespread destruction of property and, now, territorial expansion can be justified as a proportionate response to the violence and threats of violence to which Israel is subjected". The cruel illusions of the so-called "Road Map" have collapsed with the United Nations still denied the central diplomatic role mandated by the UN Charter in favor of the false multilateralism of the US-dominated "Quartet". And crucially, Israel continues construction of the separation Wall, what many around the world describe as the "Apartheid Wall", in violation of UN resolutions. Secretary General Kofi Annan's report to you, as mandated in paragraph 1 of General Assembly resolution ES-10/13, indicates unequivocally that "Israel is not in compliance with the Assembly's demand that it 'stop and reverse the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory'".

Non-governmental actors in Palestine and Israel are today announcing a draft peace plan which could emerge as a starting point for new negotiations. The success of any such process will be determined largely by whether its results are in keeping with the requirements of international law and all UN resolutions. As representatives of all the Member States of the United Nations, as constituents of the most democratic organ within the UN family, you, excellencies, hold a grave responsibility. The protection of those languishing under military occupations lies in your hands. The restoration of human rights to those illegally denied such rights is your obligation. The defense of those unable to protect themselves is your burden.

And till now, I am sorry to say, that responsibility, that obligation, that burden all remain unmet.

Since we last met in solemn commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the world has seen unprecedented transformations and faces new dangers. The deterioration of conditions of life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories parallels escalations in war, human rights violations, and other dangers across the Middle East region. We have watched our global institutions face new challenges, as the Government of the United States, the most powerful nation in history defied the Security Council to wage an illegal, unauthorized war in Iraq. We have watched as the Council has faced a new pattern of US vetoes of otherwise unanimous resolutions aimed at providing protection for Palestinians living under occupation, at stopping the expansion of settlements and the land-grabbing Apartheid Wall, even at urging Israel not to carry out its threat to assassinate elected Palestinian President Yasir Arafat.

We have recently come through an extraordinary eight and one-half month period in which the Security Council, and the United Nations as a whole, resisted Washington's demand for war. Since that time, we have watched the US Government announce its intention to veto any future Council resolutions on the Middle East unless its unilateral demands are met. And we have seen the US claim that the United Nations would become "irrelevant" if it refused to back Washington's wars. But I would assert, to the contrary, that our global organization has never been more relevant, has never been more important, and has never engendered more support from the peoples of the world, than during that period when the United Nations defended its Charter mandate to "prevent the scourge of war".

The Security Council has been subjected to unparalleled diplomatic, political, economic and other pressures. The "Uncommitted Six" countries which stood defiant of the call to war faced threats of potentially catastrophic consequences. And yet they responded to the demands of their staunchly anti-war populations, and continued to say no to war. We should note that those governments largely escaped unscathed.

But the Assembly too, faced unprecedented pressures. Many of you may have been recipients of the letter distributed by the US Government to governments around the world, in the last few days before Washington's invasion of Iraq. That letter, demanding that the Assembly reject even a discussion of the Iraq crisis, used harsh language to make clear an unmistakable threat. "Given the current highly charged atmosphere", one version of the letter read, "the United States would regard a General Assembly session on Iraq as unhelpful and as directed against the United States. Please know that this question as well as your position on it is important to the US"

We are not aware of a similarly specific threat regarding the Assembly's work in defense of Palestinian rights and for an end to Israeli occupation. But we recognize that civil society, operating without the constraints of diplomacy, has the obligation to say out loud what many governments and international civil servants cannot. It is clear that my government's pressure on every Member State, whether overt or unstated, as well as its pressure on the global institution itself, remain key obstacles to fulfillment of the Assembly's goals.

The General Assembly has taken important steps in responding to situations in which the Security Council is prevented, by veto or threat of veto, from acting. When the United States vetoed the Council's resolution urging an end to threats against President Yasir Arafat, the Assembly moved into Emergency Session and responded with Resolution 10/12 of September 25, 2003. A month later, on October 27, the Assembly passed Resolution 10/13, also in Emergency Session, calling on Israel to stop and reverse construction of the Wall.

These steps are important, particularly because they demonstrate the virtual consensus that exists within the international community, largely excepting only the United States and Israel itself, for an end to Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. (Resolution 10/13 was particularly important in its reaffirmation of "the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force", so often ignored in the reiteration of resolution 242.)

But these steps, important as they are, are not enough. As many of you know, more than 300 people representing non-governmental organizations from all over the world working on the question of Palestine met in September here at UN headquarters. Although some participants were unable to come because of restrictions imposed by the Host Country, delegations arrived from Palestine, Israel, many European countries, Japan, across the US and elsewhere. During the meeting we reconstituted and renamed the International Coordinating Network on Palestine, representing global civil society activists involved with the fight for human rights and the application of international law to reach a just peace and an end to Israeli occupation. We remain very grateful to the Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and particularly to Ambassador Fall, to the Secretariat, and most especially to the Secretary General for his support of the NGOs working on this issue, and his recognition of the importance of civil society's role with and within the United Nations.

During that NGO meeting we agreed that our top programmatic priority for this period must be to oppose the construction of the separation Wall. We all agreed that the Wall provides the clearest example available of the nature of Israeli military occupation: expropriation of land, denial of economic and social rights, excuses for the killing and injuring of countless Palestinian civilians at checkpoints, making a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel impossible, and more. We have all been shocked to see the photographs on the UN website showing that the Wall's reach has made it only the second man-made object visible from space - after the Great Wall of China.

We welcome the Assembly's resolution demanding that Israel stop and reverse its construction of the Wall. But we believe that the international community, and specifically the United Nations, is obligated under international law to go farther. There is a widespread view within civil society that the clear legal violations inherent in Israel's construction of the wall demand a legal response; we support General Assembly efforts to bring the issue to the International Court of Justice, or at least request an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the legality of the Wall.

As civil society, we are concerned with raising public awareness of the urgency of this issue, understanding that the goal of such education campaigns will be to increase the pressure on our governments across the world to play a more active role in pressing for an end to occupation. We recognize the United Nations as the only legitimate actor to center international involvement aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. And further, we believe that strengthening the General Assembly's position within the broader UN framework is a vital part of our work. As a result, we urge the Assembly to increase its strength, credibility and influence by responding to the vetoes of otherwise unanimous Security Council resolutions by passing resolutions identical to those obstructed in the Council, thereby demonstrating the world body's rejection of the unilateral assertion of "might makes right" by one Member State.

Along with our focus on bringing down the separation Wall, we remain concerned about the urgent necessity for protection for Palestinian civilians. When the ICNP met in September, we sent a letter to the Secretary General and to the Presidents of the Security Council and the General Assembly, urging an immediate campaign to provide such protection. In what has become an unfortunate kind of "business as usual", the United States vetoed a proposed Council resolution called for an end to Israeli threats to deport or harm President Arafat. The Assembly, appropriately, responded with its own resolution recognizing the illegality of Israel's extrajudicial killings and of deportations of Palestinians, as well as demanding an end to threats against Arafat.

But international obligations go farther. It is time the Assembly took greater initiative, acting under the Uniting for Peace precedent as it has in convening the 10th Emergency Session, to craft a viable, operational plan to provide serious international protection to Palestinian civilians living under military occupation. Such protection, would also, of course, provide protection to Israeli civilians facing the attacks that are themselves the consequence of occupation. And it is unacceptable for the occupying power to be allowed to block the will of the international community.

So far such protection has not been forthcoming. The failure of the international community - the failure of the United Nations - to provide serious protection to Palestinians living under occupation stands as a continuing indictment of the inadequacy of our efforts. This failure -and it is, I believe, a failure of political will, not of capacity-has led to too many grievous injuries, too many deaths. I want to remind you today about just one of those deaths. Not, as her parents so often remind us, because her death is more important than the deaths of so many Palestinians, like four-year-old Hanan Assar, killed by the Israeli military in Gaza's Nuseirat refugee camp just one day after Rachel was killed, but because the death of young Rachel Corrie has become emblematic of civil society's efforts to step into the breach caused by UN failure to provide protection to Palestinians living under occupation. Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old American peace activist, who was crushed to death by a Caterpillar bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier demolishing a Palestinian house in Rafah, in the occupied Gaza Strip just eight and one-half months ago.

Our civil society organizations are very very proud of Rachel Corrie, and the non-violent movement of which she was a part and which carries out its work today in her memory. But our pride is not enough. We are determined to fight for a truly international protection force, under United Nations authority, which would make sacrifices such as Rachel's unnecessary. We are sobered by the recognition that as of today, neither we nor the Palestinian people can count on such a commitment by the United Nations, and so the work - and sometimes the sacrifices - of these brave young internationals continues.

In the US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation, and in civil society organizations around the world, we remain committed to bringing an end to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. We remain committed to working for a just peace and equal rights for all, based on human rights, international law, and the primacy of the United Nations. We look to you, the General Assembly, as the repository of legitimacy and the most democratic component of the United Nations, to take the lead in reclaiming UN centrality in this global campaign. We recall the shining moment, the eight and one-half months when you, the United Nations, stood with us in global civil society and with governments around the world to say no to war.

On the morning of February 15, 2003, as the peace campaigners whom the New York Times would later name "the second super-power" were gathering in cities around the world, a small group came here to the United Nations to meet with Secretary General Kofi Annan. The delegation was led by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a longtime friend of the secretary general, and the two African statesmen, the two Nobel peace laureates who together held the hopes of so many around the world on that singular day, faced each other across a table. And the first thing Bishop Tutu said to the secretary general was that "we are here on behalf of the people marching in 665 cities all over the world, as the world says no to war. And we are here to say that on behalf of those people marching in all those cities, we claim the United Nations as our own, we claim it as part of our global mobilization for peace".

I believe that Bishop Tutu was right. If we are serious about ending Israeli occupation, if we are serious about reasserting the rule of international law in the Middle East, if we are serious about rebuilding international legitimacy in Israel and Palestine as well as elsewhere around the world, then we must be serious about reclaiming the United Nations as our own, to stand with global civil society in saying no to war, and no to occupation. It is the responsibility of the General Assembly, more than any other part of the United Nations system, to stand with civil society. If we are to reverse not only the Apartheid Wall but the occupation as a whole, we need a new internationalism to do it - an internationalism made up not only of governments, not only of global civil society, not even only of the United Nations - but of all of them together. That will be the internationalism of our future, and the internationalism that can bring peace and justice and an end to occupation for the Palestinian people in whose name we gather today.

Thank you, Ambassador Fall. Thank you, Excellencies.