PERMANENT MISSION OF THE H,K. OF JORDAN TO THE UNITED NATIONS

CHECKAGAINSTDELIVERY

Statement

by

H.R.H. Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein Ambassador Permanent Representative

Before the

GeneralAssembly Tenth Emergency Special Session On Agendartem 5: rllegal;IsraelActionsin occupiedEastJerusalem and the Restof the Occupied Palestinian Territory

New Yorlg 15 December,2006

Madame President, On 20 July 2004,the GeneralAssembly,in its resolutionES-10/15,requested. from the Secretary-General that he "establish a register of damage caused. all natural to and legal personsconcerned connectionwith paragraphs152 and 153 of the advisory in opinion [then just issuedby the International Court of Justice]." The Secretary-G.rr".ul in his report, containedin documentAIES-101361,and,pursuant that resolution, to provides us with the institutional framework recommendedfor the Register of Damage, and suggestsa furttrer resolution be adoptedfor that purpose. My delegationwelcomes warmly the Secretary-General'sreport and finds favour generally with the thrust of the points presentedin it. We do believe a Register of Damage must be establishedimmediately, and this in keeping with the Coirt's findings, as articulated in paragraphs152 and 153 of the advisory opinion. And we feel it is important our position is also well understood. As we made abundantly clear in the orai pleadings before the ICJ on24 February 2004,we believe that, with the obvious exceptionof the Palestinians themselves whose livelihood, lives, and the fufure of an independent,viable, Palestinian state, are all being compromised by the sweeping penetrationsthe wall makes into Palestinian territory -- it is we, the Jordanians, wh.ocould be the next most affectedparty owing to Israel's decision to piace the Wall where it has, and where it intendi to do so itr tit" near future. I will not retreadover thosepoints today, as to why this is, saveto say the geographic proximity and the potentialfor the movement of peoplesdisplacedby the Wall and its reguiatorycontrols doesposeto us a direct threat. MadamePresident, Having said we view the Secretary-General'sreport favourably, I wish to make the following more specificremarks. In paragraph4 of the Secretary-General's report, it is arguedthat the registration of damageis "a technical, fact-finding process of listing or recording the fact and type of the damagecausedas a result of the construction of the wall ... the act of registrationof damageas such, doesnot entail an evaluationor an assessment the loss or damageclaimed." And certainlythis would be our hope. Later of in paragraph7, however, we note the Secretary-Generaladmits that the Board of the Registerwould determine,inter alia, "eligibility criteria", "establishthe procedureof registration", including defining the "objective criteria" to be used -- one assumesthis is the eligibility criteria just mentioned -- and have ultimate authority "in determining the inclusion of damageclaims in the Register." Moreover, in the next paragraph,the Secretary-General stresses that Board members must be chosenfor "their integrity, experience and expertisein such areasas law, accounting,loss adjustment,ass'essment of environmental damageand engineering."

Madame President, "the act of regishation of damage .. . does not entail an It is clear that while of evaluationor an assessment the loss or damageclaimed," the Board will nevertheless have to undertake evaluationson issueslike eligibility or title, for which specific qualifications are presentedas necessaryfor its distinguishedmembers. Their decisions could therefore be of some significance at a later date. And in view the SecretaryGeneral's recommendationthat the oflice of the Register be a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, we believe the General Assembly should be required to endorsethese appointments. that Board considerprimafacie Second,we believe it absolutelyessential evidence of title to property as sufficient for the pu{posesof then establishing the validity of the damageclaim. The general guidance offered in paragraph 14 is excellent, though also requiring - we believe -- the specificity we propose. Third, we agreewholeheartedly with the Secretary-General'ssuggestionon to verification, and believe that, subsequent the submissionof claims, this must of course take place. We would thereforesupportthe inclusion of the points I just mentioned,in any we draft resoiution,not just because respectthe decisionsand opinions of the LIN's judicial organ,but alsobecause region needsto seejustice where Palestine our principal is concemed. The Court's opinion was, and still is, quite simply law. The Court's opinion laid bare that Israel's construction of the Wall in the Occupied Paiestinian Territories, is including eastJerusalem, in violation of Israel's internationallegal obligations, its legal obligations erga omnes. The Court did not accept Israel's claims that including legal justifications exist for its actions, notwithstanding the creative legal terms used to describethose territories. And this is significant to us, becauseIsrael has long had the habit of denigrating the Green Line, and questioning what once lay beyond it - to such an extreme that no one now in Israel seemsto know where the country's easternboundary lies - or if it actually has one. Only days ago, Israel's Minister of Educationignited an uproar inside Israelby instructing that all the maps in new editions of Israeli textbooks show the Green Line obvious to us here today, but bewiidering and threateningto many Israelis. While earlier, 2006,Israe1'sForeign before the GeneralAssembly on 20 September in her statement Israel's more familiar exception to the Green Line by Minister, Tzipi Livni, expressed "There are those who the question of a common boundary: stating, in connection to believe that if only we could turn back the hands of time to 1967 all would be resolved. But in 1967 therewas no Palestinianstate ..."

This last point may be true, but whether there was or was not a Palestinian state in 1967 does not changethe basic fact that Israel subsequentlyoccupied territory that did not belong to it, and had not belongedto it. The significanceof the Green Line cannot thereforebe underappreciated.Sir Arthur Watts Q.C., Counselfor Jordan,in his pleading beforethe court on24 February 2004, explainedthis most clearry: It [the Green Line] is, in origin, the Armistice Demarcation Line, laid down in Article V of the Jordan-Israel General Armistice of 3 April L949. But it was given additional significanceby Security Council Resolution242 of 1967,which affirmed, unanimously, the principle of Israel's withdrawal of its arrned forces "from territories occupied in the recent conflict'i - which meant, and could only mean, territories on the non-Israeli side of the Green Line. Thus the Green Line is the startingline from which is measured extent of Israel's occupationof nonthe Israeli territory; originating n 1949 as an armistice line, it became in 1967 the line to the Israeli side of which Israel had to withdraw its forces, and on the nonIsraeli side of which territory was "occupied" by Israel.

Israel's virrual dismissalof the Green Line, over the years,is what has led many of us to interpret the route chosenfor the SeparationWall, as an attempt by Israel to carye out for itself, unilaterally, its eastern boundary. As the Court found, in its advisory opinion, the law requires that Israel abide by its intemational legal obligations, that it put an end to its violations related to the construction of the SeparationWall on Occupied Palestinian territory, and that it immediately restore the status quo ante by removing the portions of the Wall already constructedon that territory, and repealing the relevant legislation and administrative procedures. Israel must also restore to the Palestinian people all their legitimate rights; it must retum all confiscated property to its rightful owners; and it must compensateall thosewho have been harmed for the losseshe have incurred as a result of its illesal actions. Moreover, the law stipulates that the intemational community must not support Israelin the violation of its obligationserga omnes, under internationallaw, such as respectfor the right of self-determination and for international humanitarian law. Madame President, As this is probably the last time I addressthe General Assembiy as Permanent Representative,I wish to complete this statementby placing my own personal signafure on it - for which I bear sole responsibility-- and for which I beg your indulgence. MadamePresident.

Is it not wrong that Israei continuesto enforce its occupationof Arab, and - particnla:rl-y-Paleslinimlerr-ifol?s, s-trEtEh-1nT-now-foTdur-decadc-stheExpbsufe-Of our-Arab neighbors to an oppressiveand desperate existence? Is it not wrong for a people who themselveshave suffered so greatly for centuriesto maintain an occupation, the effect of which is to degradeanotherpeople -- a proud people, in many respects,the very best the Arab world has to offer. Is it not wrong for Israel to visit violence on civilian Arab populations like it has, and is it not wrong for Arab.groups to be doing likewise to civilians in Israel? Is it not also wrong for many of us in the Arab world and beyond to continue to deny or downplay the Holocaust, an event of immensepain and suffering to the Jewish people,the Roma and others? Can we not seethis too? Can we not also seewe are not perfect in our virtues either? Can we not seein all of this, Madame President,in all of thesecrises swamping our region, parallelsto the gameof chess, where play now slips into patternsso sickening in their predictability, and where the middle game will be reachedsoon enough: where ail the crisesof our region andjust beyondit, eventuallyfold into one another,creating the greatest political emergencyof our time, or pitching our region on a cusp of a war unlike any we have witnessedsince 1945. Can we not seethis? I pray we will be able to departfrom patternsof old. As peacewill only come when we seejustice done; seejustice eclipsepolitical expediencyfor all the peoples of our region. It is justice, the law, and a sense morality which will provide for of somethingbetter. Or to borrow from Daniel O'Connell's dictum, MadamePresident: "Nothing .. [can be] politically right which is morally wrong." I thank you Madame President

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