MR. CHRIS DOYLE--NGO REPRESENTATIVE:  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.  Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.  On behalf of the International Coordinating Network of NGOs on Palestine, I'd like to convey our deepest thanks and appreciation both to the General Assembly and indeed for the Committee for their continued support on the question of Palestine and for continuing to mark this issue every year.
Today, we are gathered here to mark the day when the United Nations voted to partition Palestine back in 1947.  It is a sad tragedy that 58 years later the consequences of partition are still ongoing conflict, exile and occupation while we still have one state missing.  This conflict has cost many people so much.  At the end, there will never be one winner, only losers and degrees of losing unless there is a viable peace process.  
Throughout the world global society there has been huge and massive interest and concern over the fate of the Palestinian people and indeed, the Middle East peace process -- or to put it more accurately -- the lack of it.  There must be more focus on peace merely than just process.  This is a vital requirement not just for Israelis and Palestinians, but for the entire region.  The conflict that has lasted over hundred years needs closure.  Both Israelis and Palestinian need security.  Israelis have their state; Palestinians need theirs.
And in this regard, we welcome the commitment of President Bush to this, reiterated in the statements of the Quartet.  But it needs all the members of the Quartet to be fully engaged.  For this reason, it's welcome to see the European Union involved in the Rafah Crossing Agreement.  But we would also like to see greater involvement of the United Nations in bringing about this viable state of Palestine.  
This must not be long in coming.  There is a fear that it will be bogged down in temporary, interim phases or states with provisional borders.  It makes no sense to have two states with non defined borders in the region.  A Palestinian state is essential and essential now.  But not just any state, Palestinians need a sovereign viable state, one to be proud of based on the 1967 borders, a mere 22% of what was once their country.  Only this will enable any agreement to gain acceptance amongst the majority of the Palestinian people.  
This requires the complete, total and final end of the 38-year-old military occupation.  A people who remain under occupation will inevitably resist, will fight the occupation as history shows us all too clearly.  This, however, never excuses attacks on innocent Israeli civilians.  But the ending of the terror of occupation will save many more lives than wars, assassinations, home demolitions, and the like.
We also welcome the evacuation of settlements in the Gaza Strip and four on the West Bank.  Palestinians are now in control inside the Gaza Strip.  This is welcome -- the freedom to move from one end of the Strip to the other and the return of the Palestinian land to their rightful owners.  But this is not just a requirement for Gaza, but also for East Jerusalem and the West Bank.  The latest border-style terminals at Bethlehem and Calandria and up to five other locations in the West Bank -- are yet more disturbing attempts to create facts on the ground that will only undermine confidence in any peace process in the future.  Gaza and the West Bank have to be truly free by land, air and sea.  Checkpoints have left the inside of the Gaza Strip.  They need to leave the inside of the West Bank.  
We welcome the end of colonization in Gaza.  We want to see the end of colonization as well in the West Bank.  The Israeli government has taken much credit for this evacuation, but sadly we as NGOs have seen a net increase in the Israeli settler population and that's increase in the land area used by settlements and related infrastructure.  So far there have been an additional 11,000 settlers this year added to the 400,000 illegal settlers in the occupied territories, a rate of a thousand additional settlers a month.  
The Israeli government has now demonstrated that settlements, even those in the West Bank, can be evacuated.  There is no excuse to stop now from evacuating out the settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.  Indeed, it must never be Gaza first and last.
The building of the Wall inside the West Bank continues in clear and open defiance of the United Nations and the international community.  And failing to adhere both to the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, at the 9th July 2004 and the subsequent UN General Assembly Resolution regrettably the Israeli government stands once again in breach of international law.  There is a clear duty to take action to reverse this destructive process.  The Wall once completed will still be twice the length of the Green Line, severing Palestinian communities from each other, their land, their water, their resources.  
Concern is also now mounting about the eastern part of the Wall in the Jordan Valley.  Action must include penalizing those companies that collude in the construction of the Wall when it is in Occupied Territory.  
Israeli activities in Jerusalem are also a major source of concern.  The recent European Union report on Israeli activity exposes the seriousness of the threat to a two-state solution.  Roughly about 35-40% of the Palestinian economy relies on East Jerusalem.  Therefore, donor funds could once again be wasted unless action is taken.  They may serve only to prop up an occupation instead of ending it unless East Jerusalem is opened up once again for Palestinians.  
All in all, once you include the Wall, the settlements, the roads and the military camps effectively only 54% of the West Bank currently remains for Palestinian usage.  In front of our eyes, openly the two-state solution is being imprisoned in a grave of concrete, of barbed wire, but also of hatred, anger and mistrust.  The other ingredient to full and lasting peace is without question human rights.  This is universal and essential.  Torture, house demolitions, confiscation of land, assassinations, detentions without trial -- all of these only serve to exacerbate the situation.  The levels of violence remain too high.  Some think there has been relative calm, but that is news to the families of the 204 Palestinians and 36 Israelis killed so far this year.  
Economic regeneration is vital which is why the progress of the Gaza-Egypt border is so welcome.  To be able to enter and exit at will is a key sovereign right which we also hope will be afforded to Palestinians in the West Bank before long.  We also hope that the safe passage, airport and port, will be open as soon as possible.  But the situation remains very severe.  According to the World Bank, about half the West Bank's population of Palestinians and nearly 70% of the Gaza Strip's live well below the poverty line.
We'd also like to endorse the UN Secretary-General's recent call on the 16th of November 2005 for donors to continue their support to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, but also to increase it.  The agency now has the onerous task of catering for the needs of 4.2 million Palestinian refugees.  The rights of refugees, of course, remain another key concern of civil society organizations around the world.  They must not be forgotten.  
NGOs also look to the United Nations and its members as the upholders of international law without discrimination.  We hope that members will take this very seriously and see that upholding law is in the interest of all peoples and all parties.  But right now, Israel is defying this situation.  It is waving its fist at the United Nations -- in effect, boasting to the world that it can get away with anything and that it has a Teflon status.
That era must come to an end.  Nobody -- no state should be above international law and to mock the United Nations.  Your Excellencies standing up for the rule of law is not being anti-Israel, it's being pro-peace.
Civil society organizations have been active on numerous fronts.  At this year's annual United Nations International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Middle East Peace in Paris, there was a clear emphasis from NGOs on boycott divestment and sanctions campaigns.  The aim is simple and clear -- to persuade Israel to abide by international law and end the occupation -- nothing more, but definitely nothing less.
Over the next few months, we shall no doubt witness in both the Palestinian and the Israeli elections possible changes in governments and parliaments.  The Palestinian elections are particularly welcome but they must be free and fair and that includes freedom of movement for candidates, for voters alike.  
None of this though will alter the essential principles necessary for the full and final resolution of this conflict.  A viable two-state solution with security for all based on United Nations Security Council resolutions and international law.  We want peace in Palestine, not Palestine in pieces.  Thank you very much.