President Yasser Arafat addresses the Third World Conference Against Racism

Author:President office
Subject:Third World Conference Against Racism
Date:9/1/01

HE President Thabo Mbeki

HE President Mary Robinson,

Excellencies, the Presidents, Prime Ministers, Ministers,

HE Mr. Kofi Annan

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Allow me first to express to my dear brother and friend, Thabo Mbeki, the President of the Republic of South Africa, and to President Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, my sincerest thanks for their generous invitation for us to attend this important conference, the Third World Conference Against Racism and Racial Discrimination, which is being held in the city of Durban. The extensive international participation at this conference affirms the common interest in confronting the ramifications and consequences of the policy of oppression and racial discrimination.

The people of South Africa, as the whole African continent and many other peoples of the world, have suffered severely and painfully for many decades as a result of this racist policy. They have crowned their steadfastness and struggle with victory, with solidarity and support from the international community. Your victory, and that of the other peoples, over this inhuman and immoral policy is a victory for all peoples who are still suffering, in a grievous manner, from this racist policy; among such peoples is our Palestinian people, who are fighting and struggling for freedom and liberation from the claws of the Israeli occupation and from all that it flagrantly and vigorously embodies in terms of racial discrimination policy in their ugliest forms and images.

The issues to be discussed at this conference are very important issues and they are of great interest and importance to all participants. This conference is the first world conference of the United Nations in this new millennium. The convening of this conference represents a firm conviction and a common desire in finding the appropriate approach to deal with the ramifications and consequences of the policy of racial discrimination as well as to handle seriously and effectively the disasters caused by these polices, that are still being carried out in many regions in the world, especially in Palestine. Such polices are taking on various forms and images that are more complex and dangerous. This demands that we all activate and strengthen our coordination, cooperation and consultation so as to put down the appropriate strategies to combat this policy, to contain and get rid of it and of its social, economic and political implications.

The common struggle against the continuation of the policy of oppression and racial discrimination goes on par with the struggle for liberation, independence and freedom from foreign occupation in all its forms. The Israeli occupation, based on military force, the establishment of settlements, is totally in contradiction with the aims and principles of the United Nations Charter; indeed it represents a flagrant and dangerous violation of this charter and of the international human rights and human law. Israeli occupation is a new and advanced type of apartheid; and a dangerous threat to universal peace and security.

Mr. President,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Serving humanity and its just causes, especially those of human rights, has to be at the core of our interest and our top priority. This has to be done by one standard that does not accept reinterpretation or wrapping up in narrow policies and positions that serve the interests of certain states and cover up the crimes of other states. Serving humanity and human rights have one very clear address and one standard, which have to be applied on all without exceptions and without being eclectic. This has to be so if we want really to serve this noble cause in a transparent and responsible manner. In this regard, crimes that are being daily committed against humanity do not lapse by time. The logic of law, right and justice requires the punishment of the perpetrators, whoever they are, and in whatever position they work. Consequently, this is the importance of the conference in Durban. It creates the appropriate opportunity to formulate and crystallize the political behavior of international morality and the enlightened public opinion. The importance of the conference stems also from the international interest and consensus, which is bent on ridding the world from racism in all its forms. This in itself is considered a progressive objective indicator pointing out towards the awakening of human conscience.

Mr. President,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As you know, our Palestinian people have been subjected to a painful and grave historical injustice as a result of the rivalry and conspiracies of the colonialist forces in the region at that time. For long decades, our people have been waging a struggle for liberation and independence. Our people have suffered, and are still suffering, under the most severe policies of oppression and racial discrimination as a result of the ongoing Israeli occupation of their land and holy places. This occupation, which is the last colonialist military occupation in the world, has over the years, practiced and is still practicing against our people, all sorts of oppression, suppression and torture, murder and assassinations, and eviction in order to force our people into submission and to impose a solution that legitimizes and consecrates the occupation itself through settlements and laws enforced on our land, holy places and riches. Israel, the occupation authority, followed the practices of racial discrimination, which are on par with crimes, which have been committed in certain regions of the world. In addition to occupying the Palestinian and Arab territories by force in the aggression of 1967, the consecutive Israeli Governments, worked by all means, to change the geographic and demographic realities of the Occupied Territories, especially in the Holy Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Beit Sahoor, and Hebron. They have as well worked against the Christian and Moslem holy places in Palestine and the City of Jerusalem, the city which is being subjected now to a wild onslaught carried out by the forces of occupation and extremism to obliterate its Arab, Islamic and Christian characteristics, and to attempt to evict our mby force. In addition, Israel practiced as well, the isolation of our Palestinian inhabitants, attempting to prohibit them from practicing their religious rites, and from practicing their right to work, to move and to live in peace. It also demolished their homes and seized their lands for expansion purposes and for building settlements, destroyed public facilities, bulldozed farms, and turned the Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps into prisons besieged from all sides. The ugliness of these Israeli policies and practices against the Palestinian people has become manifest and obvious during the popular uprising-Intifada that has been going on for the last eleven months. There, Israel is using in its aggressive war, from its military arsenal, all weapons of murder, destruction and assassination even those internationally prohibited, according the testimony of many international organizations. These policies against our people reached their zenith when a number of extremist rabbis called, in a flagrant and inciting manner, for the murder of Palestinians and Arab for they are considered serpents and insects. Indeed, and on top of that, Israel practices, in an open and official manner, state terrorism against our people by carrying out the polices of assassination, the latest of which, the assassination of the heroic martyred leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, the Secretary General of the Popular Front, in addition to the liquidation and destruction by F-15, F-16 and Apache fighter-planes and helicopters and remote-controlled missiles, by shutting highways off inhabitants, by humiliating them at [Israeli] military checkpoints, by imposing the military siege and a medical and provision-supply blockade on whole towns and a whole people for the eleventh consecutive month. Israel even prevented our fishermen to fish in the Sea of Gaza and sequestered our funds and dues.

The persistence of Israel in perpetrating its crimes against our people without any deterrence only encourages her to continue her occupation and settlements and her policies and crimes in flagrant violation of International and Human Law.

Mr. President,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In spite of the grave and painful historical injustice inflicted upon our Palestinian people, an injustice that is unprecedented by any other injustice in contemporary history, yet we have chosen, out of our deep-rooted belief in the values of freedom, equality and justice in the world, the road of just peace out of our conviction and sincere desire to find a just and permanent solution on the basis of the resolutions of international legitimacy: 242, 338, 425 and 194 and the principle of land for peace. We have participated in the Madrid Peace Conference and called for the realization of the peace of the brave. As you know, following the negotiations that took place; we have signed, with my late partner Yitzhak Rabin, the Oslo Agreement in 1993 and all other subsequent and supplementary agreements. Following his assassination we have not been able to arrive to the realization of this aspired peace, based on the above-mentioned resolutions of international legitimacy because the Government of Israel followed a policy of maneuvering, procrastination and evasiveness. Thus she carried out only a very minute part of the signed agreements. Israel sought many times to change the point of reference of the peace process. She disregarded all resolutions of international legitimacy and the principle of land for peace. The Government of Israel, having frustrated and caused the failure of the bilateral talks and the international initiatives for the implementation of the agreements, resorted to military means, solutions and escalation to force our people on their knees and to make them, through force and suppression, succumb to her occupation and settlements. For the eleventh consecutive month our people are subjected to an Israeli military campaign to force them to surrender and to accept the fait accompli of the occupation of and the settlements in our homeland, Palestine. Israel imposed a strangulating military and security siege on our land and people, paralyzed all forms of economic, medical, social and educational life, destroyed the basic infrastructure of our economy, and shelled our towns, villages and refugee camps. Israel killed the civilian inhabitants and policemen, destroyed homes, farms, institutions and industrial facilities, demolished bridges, and committed brutal aggressions against the Christian and Islamic holy places, especially in Al-Quds Ash-Shareef, Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahoor and others, in an open attempt to destroy these places.

This war waged by Israel against our people, - a war that it codenamed in Hebrew the Oranim plan, i.e. the plan of hell, and the continuous military escalation make it incumbent on the international community, and you are at its forefront, to bear its responsibilities. It is unacceptable that the international position remains paralyzed and incapacitated in the face of aggression. It is necessary to find the appropriate international mechanism that will force Israel to stop her war against our people and to provide them with international protection, to make her accept international observers so as to hasten and to oversee the implementation of the Egyptian-Jordanian Initiative and the Mitchell Commission Report Recommendations which had been accepted by the G-8 summit, China, and the Arab, Islamic, African and Non-Aligned summits; to make her respect her commitments under the signed agreements; to make her carry out the resolutions of international legitimacy and the Sharm El-Sheikh Summit Understandings to put an end to the Israeli occupation of our land and of all other Arab occupied territories, to enable our people to regain their land and to exercise their right to self-determination and their right to a free and dignified life in their independent state with Holy Jerusalem as its capital and to ensure a just solution to the Palestinian refugees problem on the basis of U.N. Resolution 194.

The explosive situation in the Palestinian Territories cannot wait and cannot bear any procrastination. We hope that the resolutions of international legitimacy be implemented in Palestine as they have been implemented in many other parts of the world. Double standards, namely, undermine the credibility of international institutions. The establishment and consolidation of peace in Palestine is not only a Palestinian interest. It is also an Israeli, regional and international interest. The peace we want, for which we have made big sacrifices, is the peace that gives each party its rights and security. Our Palestinian people, who have yearned for so long for this peace, and who were deprived for many decades of their rights, are struggling in sincerity and dedication, to realize this peace. It is the peace, which will enable them to live a dignified and free life, to get their independence and to establish their independent state, with Holy Jerusalem as its capital. And it is the peace, which will provide all the peoples of the region with security, peace, and stability will be in the interest of our children and their children.

The world has to recognize that enabling and helping the Palestinian people to achieve this sacred and legitimate right of independence and sovereignty will not be at the expense of anyone. The independent Palestinian State is the basic and firm guarantee of the success and the consolidation of a just and permanent peace, the peace of the brave, in the whole region.

Mr. President,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

From Palestine, the Holy Land of prophets, we reiterate, despite our wounds and sorrows, our call for peace, because the just peace based on the resolutions of the international legitimacy, the termination of the Israeli occupation and the establishment of the independent state of Palestine, with Holy Jerusalem as its capital, is the only peace that can provide security and stability to both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, and the peoples of the whole region. I would like to say here, that our belief ipeace is solid and unwavering. This belief stems from the fact that God Almighty has created people equal. We all have one father who is Adam, peace be upon him, and one mother, Eve. Competitiveness for precedence among peoples should not be based on discrimination and racism, or a superiority complex. It should be made on the basis of tolerance, respect of others and equality. This is the correct standard that we want humanity to depend on. No one has the right to have a monopoly on that. Indeed, the horizons should remain free for all peoples to be creative, to remain in contact and be interactive in order to consolidate the values of goodness, justice and equality and renounce all forms of rancor, hate, fanaticism and racism.

Finally, we reiterate our thanks to all who oversaw and participated in convening this important world conference, especially the United Nations, the Commission of Human Rights and our friends in the Republic of South Africa, which is hosting this world encounter. We hope that this conference will adopt a program of action that will lead to the realization of the aspired results and aims, which definitely will serve all of humanity and will for ever close the chapter of racism in all its detested forms and images.

Peace be upon you