I watched hours and hours of television on Friday, September 23, 2011 on the historic day when democratically elelcted President Mahmoud Abbas , the Palestinian leader, gave his speech to the UN calling for the UN to establish the state of Palestine.
I have the privilege of visiting Israel and Palestine annually for the past 20 years. Throughout the day, I kept wondering to myself what my Palestinian and Israeli friends are making of all of these developments in the UN.
At the end of the speech by the Palestinian leaders, UN delegates got up on their feet and gave a spontaneous applause . Abbas spoke with dignity, conviction and with a statesman like presence.
Much to my surprise, I found myself getting off my sofa and standing to applaud as well.
Was this one of the finest speeches ever given in the United Nations? I asked myself.
President Abbas articulated the Palestinian appeal for statehood with a depth of detail while making it crystal clear that he opposed violence and would not water down his country’s determination to achieve statehood, via the UN, despite the prior warming from President Obama that he would veto a UN vote.
To its credit, Haaretz, the leading Israeli newspaper published the full text of the speech of President Abbas, as well as other media sources around the world.
Here are extracts from the speech from the Palestinian leader, Mr Abbas
“We aspire for and seek a greater and more effective role for the United Nations in working to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in our region that ensures the inalienable, legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people as defined by the resolutions of international legitimacy of the United Nations.
We did not leave a door to be knocked or channel to be tested or path to be taken and we did not ignore any formal or informal party. …
The core issue here is that the Israeli government refuses to commit to terms of reference for the negotiations that are based on international law and United Nations resolutions, and that it frantically continues to intensify building of settlements on the territory of the State of Palestine.
The occupying Power also continues to refuse permits for our people to build in Occupied East Jerusalem, at the same time that it intensifies its decades-long campaign of demolition and confiscation of homes, displacing Palestinian owners and residents under a multi-pronged policy of ethnic cleansing.
The occupation is racing against time to redraw the borders on our land according to what it wants and to impose a fait accompli on the ground that changes the realities and that is undermining the realistic potential for the existence of the State of Palestine.
At the same time, the occupying Power continues to impose its blockade on the Gaza Strip and to target Palestinian civilians by assassinations, air strikes and artillery shelling, persisting with its war of aggression of three years ago on Gaza, which resulted in massive destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, and mosques, and the thousands of martyrs and wounded.
The occupying Power also continues its incursions in areas of the Palestinian National Authority through raids, arrests and killings at the checkpoints. In recent years, the criminal actions of armed settler militias, who enjoy the special protection of the occupation army, has intensified with the perpetration of frequent attacks against our people, targeting their homes, schools, universities, mosques, fields, crops and trees. Despite our repeated warnings, the occupying Power has not acted to curb these attacks and we hold them fully responsible for the crimes of the settlers.
The goal of the Palestinian people is the realization of their inalienable national rights in their independent State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the land of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in the June 1967 war, in conformity with the resolutions of international legitimacy and with the achievement of a just and agreed upon solution to the Palestine refugee issue..
The PLO and the Palestinian people adhere to the renouncement of violence and rejection and condemning of terrorism in all its forms, especially State terrorism, and adhere to all agreements signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel.
I am here to say on behalf of the Palestinian people and the Palestine Liberation Organization: We extend our hands to the Israeli government and the Israeli people for peace-making. I say to them: Let us urgently build together a future for our children where they can enjoy freedom, security and prosperity.
Let us build the bridges of dialogue instead of checkpoints and walls of separation, and build cooperative relations based on parity and equity between two neighboring States – Palestine and Israel – instead of policies of occupation, settlement, war and eliminating the other.
It is a moment of truth and my people are waiting to hear the answer of the world. Will it allow Israel to continue its occupation, the only occupation in the world?
I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people in the homeland and in the Diaspora, to say, after 63 years of suffering of the ongoing Nakba: Enough. It is time for the Palestinian people to gain their freedom and independence.
At a time when the Arab peoples affirm their quest for democracy – the Arab Spring – the time is now for the Palestinian Spring, the time for independence.
The time has come for our men, women and children to live normal lives, for them to be able to sleep without waiting for the worst that the next day will bring; for mothers to be assured that their children will return home without fear of suffering killing, arrest or humiliation; for students to be able to go to their schools and universities without checkpoints obstructing them.
The time has come for sick people to be able to reach hospitals normally, and for our farmers to be able to take care of their good land without fear of the occupation seizing the land and its water, which the wall prevents access to, or fear of the settlers, for whom settlements are being built on our land and who are uprooting and burning the olive trees that have existed for hundreds of years. T
The time has come for the thousands of prisoners to be released from the prisons to return to their families and their children to become a part of building their homeland, for the freedom of which they have sacrificed.
My people desire to exercise their right to enjoy a normal life like the rest of humanity. They believe what the great poet Mahmoud Darwish said: Standing here, staying here, permanent here, eternal here, and we have one goal, one, one: to be.
I call upon Mr. Secretary-General to expedite transmittal of our request to the Security Council, and I call upon the distinguished members of the Security Council to vote in favor of our full membership. I also call upon the States that did not recognized the State of Palestine as yet to do so.
The support of the countries of the world for our endeavor is a victory for truth, ,freedom, justice, law and international legitimacy, and it provides tremendous support for the peace option and enhances the chances of success of the negotiations.
Your support for the establishment of the State of Palestine and for its admission to the United Nations as a full member is the greatest contribution to peacemaking in the Holy Land.
I thank you.‘
Mr. Netanyahu followed on with his address to the UN. I watched. I found myself squirming on the sofa. I hoped that my many Israeli friends were not watching the Israelis leader’s speech. They would surely find it very embarrassing. (I should add here that I returned earlier this month from making a personal pilgrimage to Auschwitz to help deepen my understanding of the slow but gradual recovery from the Shoah of millions of beloved Jewish families).
I took a look today (Sunday) at the comment on Netanyahu’s speech on the online edition of Haaretz. One of the newspaper’s leading feature writers, Gideon Levy, seemed to have much the response as myself. Here is a brief extract from what he wrote:
“Every decent Israeli must be ashamed of their prime minister, who stands before the world and tries to sell it the same old shopworn, even rotten goods that are long past their expiration date.
“Netanyahu, peddler of emotions, did not shrink from or forget anything, save reality. Abraham the patriarch, Hezekiah, Isaiah, pogroms, the Holocaust, 9/11, the children, the grandchildren and, of course, Gilad Shalit – all fodder for the tear wringer that assuredly didn’t bring forth a single tear anywhere on the planet….
Netanyahu needed thousands of years of history to obscure reality, but Abbas’ sense of history proved to be much more developed: He had no need to call up distant memories to elicit sympathy; all he needed was to soberly depict current events in order to attempt to shape a new history.
The world and the auditorium cheered for Abbas because he spoke like a 21st-century statesman, not like a co-opted archaeologist of centuries past.”
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PS. I would vote for a one state solution to be called Palisrael.
There would be elected assemblies in Tel Aviv, Gaza and Ramallah with a central Parliament in Jerusalem.
Just as the UK has Parliament in London with assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Then all Israelis and Palestinians could stay or move to wherever they wish to live in the new Palisrael.
Salaam
Shalom.