November 4, 2008
Unofficial Transcript of EYEontheUN
Statement of the Palestinian Observer at the Third Committee on the Rights of Peoples to Self-Determination

Nadya Rasheed, Palestinian Observer

Thank you Mr. Chairman. My delegation is now taking the floor to speak under Agenda Item 63-the Rright of People to Self-Determination. Mr. Chairman, the achievement of freedom and independence for a great number of nations are among the most important accomplishments of the past century. During the same time period the world has also witnessed the eradication of countless manifestations of colonization and subjugation. But despite such significant achievements, many new forms of  discrimination and injustices have continued to emerge. As such the international community should increase its efforts until all forms of repression are eradicated and the right to self-determination truly becomes a universal reality. Mr. Chairman the right to self-determination and foreign occupation stand in fundamental conflict to one another. This statement is confirmed by the tragic reality of the Palestinian people who continue to live in a situation where their right to self-determination, hence their freedom, sovereignty and statehood, has continued to be withheld by force and relentlessly violated by an occupation that has persisted for 41 years. Every year that passes in which the Palestinian people are denied their right to self-determination is another year of agonizing suffering and indescribably misery. Unfortunately suffering and misery are only part of the Palestinian narrative for it is the denial of their right to self determination, a right that would allow them to determine their own destiny and future, that allows Israel the occupying power to perpetuate all of its illegal polices against the Palestinian people under its occupation. For this reason the international community, particularly the United Nations, must urgently take swift and concrete measures towards assisting the Palestinian people to finally realize their right to self-determination.  Mr. Chairman, for four decades the machinery of Israel’s occupation has produced systematic violations of a range of individual and collective rights guaranteed  by International Human Rights law. In addition to the right to self-determination other rights are just the right to life, liberty and security of persons, freedom of movement, livelihood, education, property and to development as well as many other rights, have been flagrantly violated. It is the same brutal machinery of Israel’s occupation which also produces illegal settlements, closures, check points, home demolitions, land confiscation, destruction of crops and wanton killings by illegal settlers and occupying forces. One glaring example in which the Palestinian peoples basic and fundamental right to self-determination has continued to be denied, is as a result if Israel’s continuation of its illegal policies and measures of creating new facts on the ground, a clear attempt to strengthen its subjection and strangulation of the Palestinian people and to satisfy its desire for territorial expansion. Before the eyes of the international community and in contravention of international law, UN resolutions, and the ICJ, Israel has been carrying out a massive colonization campaign in the occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem. The occupying power is doing so via the illegal construction and expansion of settlements and its unlawful wall which is inextricably linked to the settlements and intended to entrench and protect them. Settlement colonization continues to be especially intense in and around occupied East Jerusalem which is at the heart of the Palestinian territory, and Israel’s actively pursuing additional policies to further obstruct Palestinian access to the city and physically sever it from the rest of the territory. In its advisory opinion the ICJ concluded that the construction of the wall, along with measures taken previously by the occupying power, severely impedes the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to  self-determination and is therefore a breach of Israel’s obligation to respect that right. Moreover all of these illegal practices undermine the territorial unity, contiguity, and integrity of the occupied Palestinian territory which is comprised of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza strip and which is a territorial unit in which the Palestinian people are striving to establish their independent  state and exercise their right to self-determination. Mr. Chairman, this year marks sixty years since Al-Nakba, the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people in 1948 whereby the majority of Palestinians were forcefully expelled or fled in fear from their homes and villages as war raged around them. For decades they have endured oppression, loss and misery, uncertain of what the future hold for them as their national rights and aspirations for freedom and peace remain unfulfilled. Despite the overwhelming pain and loss that the Palestinian people have endured due to the Israeli occupation, it must be stressed that the Palestinian people will never succumb to the  forces of oppression, violence and injustice. Their desire for freedom and independence and their struggle to achieve them will continue until the Israeli occupation is brought to an end, allowing for the Palestinian people to finally live a normal, free and dignified life in their independent sate of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, wherein all  their rights including their right to self-determination will be realized. Mr. Chairman, in conclusion I wish to inform the committee that Egypt as the main co-sponsor will submit a resolution under this item entitled “the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination” for adoption. It is our deepest hope that the member states will send a strong message in solidarity with the Palestinian people by adopting this resolution by consensus, unequivocally affirming their long overdue right to self-determination and calling for its fulfillment. Thank you Mr. Chairman.