Statement by Algeria before the General Assembly 64th Session

Agenda Item 64: “Report of the Human Rights Council”

New York

4 November 2009

[ET: 00:58:40-01:05:05 - Algeria]
ALGERIAN REPRESENTATIVE:  Thank you Mr. President.  Sir, I would like to thank the president of the General Assembly for having responded rapidly to the appeal of the Arab group to place on the agenda of our meeting consideration of the recommendations of the report of the UN fact-finding mission on the Israeli active aggression against Gaza.  
I would also like to pay a well-deserved tribute and express our particular gratitude to the members of this mission headed by Judge Richard Goldstone for his integrity, his courage and his professional qualities which are unanimously acknowledged and appreciated.  
The broad participation of member states in this debate demonstrates, if need there were to do so, the huge resource of solidarity, sympathy and the positive attitude that this assembly has always had in regard to the Palestinian cause.  We also say here an outpouring of a spirit of legitimate anger against the continued impunity of Israel, which we condemn with the utmost vigor.
Algeria for its part would like to emphasize the importance it attaches to having our work produce specific decisions and actions.  Mr. President, the voluminous and well-documented report of the fact-finding mission of the UN evokes indignation.  We find they're a forceful description of the way in which the Israeli aggressor took hostage the civilian population of Gaza leaving behind a shameful trial of victims and devastation.  It indeed does honor to the authors of the report to have placed the civilian victims at the core of their concerns regarding the plethora of distinct violations of international law and international humanitarian law.  
It is totally understandable that their investigation dealt less with the question of the perpetrators of the violations than the nature and the instruments of the crime, by determining to the extent possible the circumstances they were made aware.  However, it would be unjust and morally wrong to put the aggressor and the aggrieved party on an equal footing by dividing equally between them the responsibility for their acts.  
Algeria is confident that the investigations which the Palestinian side has unanimously committed itself to conduct will demonstrate the untenability of the quibbling argument regarding the right to legitimate self defense put forward by the Israeli aggressor to justify its serious crimes regarding the bereaved survivors.  Algeria refuses to describe as a conflict the events in Gaza.  Rather, this is a brutal act of military aggression, yet one more time when Israel backed by sophisticated weaponry has conducted a war and waged war against civilians and has placed barbaric acts under the spotlight of the international stage.
Faced with this kind of aggression, advocating a sharing of responsibilities would be demonstrating a deplorable naivete.  As stated by Richard Falk (?), the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Gaza has provided the ideal framework for the implementation of the responsibility to protect the civilian population -- regarding a civilian population which here has been collectively punished by policies which are tantamount to a crime against humanity.
Mr. President, Israel has never concealed its insidious plans and certainly is not now involved in its last act of aggression.  Its history is studied with war crimes and crimes against mankind which have been deliberately perpetrated with an expansionist goal.  However, the most recent crime committed in Gaza, in full view and in full site of the international community and in particular of the Security Council, is indeed exceptional in that it threatens the very concept of the norms and standards of law.  
Condemned in the past by the international community, this new act of aggression of the Israeli army is a mass of flagrant violation and one with no alleviating circumstances of human rights, yet once again showing that Israel is ready to achieve its objectives to trample underfoot the norms of international law and the principals on which our organization has been founded.
It is, however, regrettable that this condemnation has not been backed by decisive action on the part of the Security Council, although the charter itself, in fact, endows it with that power.  Regarding Israel, that country it is clear has not adopted the attitude of firmness and vigorous action, which the seriousness of the situation and the threat that it is causing to peace and international security, as well as to the Israeli/Arab peace process would dictate that it adopt.  
Mr. President, Algeria welcomes the important statement that you have made at the beginning of this meeting.  We fully support the concerns shared by the majority of delegations to see the General Assembly and in particular the Security Council shoulder their responsibility and demonstrate coherence in order once and for all to put an end to the Israeli policy of aggression and to a threat which could not have been possible without the support and impunity that Israel knows it has.
It is indeed specifically that impunity and the action of blocking any political decision on the part of the UN system which is encroaching on the very credibility of our organization.  Thus, it is perfectly natural that the Security Council be called upon to finally undertake its responsibilities and exercise its prerogatives at a time wen the lethal Israeli acts of aggression are handing over the entire region of the Middle East to a dangerous revival of a spirit of confrontation which will act to the detriment of the dynamic process of peace which all parties have committed themselves to promote and which the international community must protect.
Here my delegation would like to urge the members of this Assembly to adopt by an overwhelming majority the draft resolution which the Arab group has submitted on the basis of the recommendations contained in the Goldstone report.  In so doing, they will be putting an end to that paralysis which has too long characterized the attitude of our organization regarding Israel and thus contribute to putting an end to the culture of impunity.  Thank you.