The MPPM notes with concern the role played by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, in the process leading to the resignation of Rima Khalaf from the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).

The succession of events deserves to be briefly mentioned. On Wednesday, 15 March, ESCWA published a landmark document accusing Israel of apartheid, in a report concluding that “Israel has established an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.”

The authors of the report – Virginia Tilley and Richard Falk, both experts in international law – “aware of the seriousness of this allegation, the authors of the report conclude that available evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international law,”. The report “is based on the same body of international human rights law and principles that reject anti-Semitism and other racially discriminatory ideologies, including the United Nations Charter (1945), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and the International Convention On the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965) ‘and’ is based on its definition of apartheid, in particular Article II of the International Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973) ‘. The authors of the report emphasize that ‘although the term’ apartheid ‘was originally associated with the specific case of South Africa, it now represents a kind of crime against humanity under customary international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court’ Adding that ‘this report reflects the consensus of experts that the ban on apartheid is universally applicable and has not been made irrelevant by the collapse of apartheid in South Africa and South-West Africa (Namibia)’.

The report highlighted in particular Israel’s discriminatory land policies enshrined in the country’s Basic Law (the equivalent of the constitution). ESKWA also mentions some of the Israeli policies of “demographic engineering”: the granting to all Jews anywhere in the world of the right to obtain Israeli citizenship while preventing the entry of millions of Palestinians with documented ancestral ties to the land where the State of Israel was created in 1948; Preventing family reunification of Palestinian citizens of Israel married to Palestinians from the occupied territories; The maintenance of segregated communities within Israel, with an extremely uneven distribution of resources. The report also underlines the fundamental importance of the different Israeli legal codes that apply to Palestinians within Israel, Occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, surrounded as “the main method by which Israel imposes an apartheid regime”.

The publication of the report was immediately the subject of fierce criticism from Israel and the United States, which urged the Secretary-General, António Guterres, to formally depart from the content of the report and demand it to be removed from the official website of the United Nations United. On that same day, in a statement by the Secretary-General’s spokesman Stéphane Dujarric, António Guterres made public his distancing.

According to statements made by Rima Khalaf, António Guterres asked her on 16 March to withdraw the report and, despite his request to reconsider it, Guterres insisted that he resigned. And indeed, on 17 March, the report was no longer available on the ESCWA website. The Secretary-General’s decision was hailed by Israel’s ambassadors Danny Danon and the United States, Nikki Haley, as well as the Zionist lobbying organizations in the United States.

MPPM condemn action in this case by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, awarding the country that has violated UN resolutions, Israel, to the detriment of the martyred Palestinian people, for whom the UN has a heavy and irrevocable historical debt. We must not forget that seven decades ago the UN decided to share the historic territory of Palestine, promising the creation of two states. But while one of these states, Israel, has existed for 68 years, the Palestinian people continue to wait for the UN General Assembly’s promise to it and which has been successively renewed through numerous Security Council and General Assembly resolutions that Israel Challenges daily.

MPPM praises Rima Khalaf’s upright position and considers António Guterres’s decision yielding to pressure from Israel and the United States of America – at a time when the latter is discussing cuts to the financial contribution to the UN budget – As seriously detrimental to the prestige, independence and the very raison d’être of the United Nations. On this occasion, it is worth remembering that in October 2016, at the election of António Guterres, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon expressed his hope that with the new Secretary General, the UN would abandon its “obsession with Israel” . The position taken by António Guterres, confirming the fears aroused by that statement by the representative of Israel, sets a serious precedent that fears the worst about the future unfolding of his mandate.

MPPM reiterates on this occasion the votes it made in its letter to António Guterres on the occasion of the beginning of his term as Secretary-General of the United Nations: that this is the mandate in which the United Nations will pay off the historic debt they owe to the people Of Palestine. Only by reviewing the attitude he has taken and adopting a position in line with UN resolutions, António Guterres will defend the authority and prestige of the organization he runs, and may favour a fair solution to the cause of the Palestinian people. Only then can the UN contribute to peace throughout the Middle East and the world.

Lisbon, March 22, 2017

The MPPM National Board

New York Times

HANAN ASHRAWIOCT. 3, 2016

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Now that the funeral of Shimon Peres, the former Israeli president and prime minister, is over and the effusive praise of world leaders has subsided, it’s time for a critical look at his legacy. While many remember him as a courageous and tireless advocate for peace, Palestinians recall a different man — one who was very good at talking peace but not so good at walking the walk.

Much of Mr. Peres’s reputation is based on his role in the Oslo Accords. In the early 1990s, he was involved in back-channel discussions that led to the historic signing of Oslo I, also known as the Declaration of Principles, by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization amid much fanfare on the White House lawn. In 1994, along with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat, he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

It was during this period that I first met Mr. Peres, after I helped to initiate contact between Israel and the P.L.O., along with the Israeli academics Ron Pundak and Yair Hirschfeld. As foreign minister in Mr. Rabin’s government, Mr. Peres followed up on these secret meetings, leading to Israel’s agreeing — for the first time — to negotiate with the P.L.O.

Back then, Palestinians were optimistic about a future free of Israel’s dominance. We hoped that Mr. Peres and other Israeli leaders would follow up their statements in support of peace with determined action to reach a just and lasting agreement to end the conflict. As it turned out, there was little correlation between their lofty rhetoric and their actual policies.

The promise of the Oslo peace process was never fulfilled, in large part because of the failures of Mr. Peres and the “peace camp” in Israel, but also thanks to the flaws in the Declaration of Principles itself. Because the declaration enabled Israel to act with impunity over destructive unilateral measures like settlement expansion— given the lack of will on the part of the United States to hold Israel to account — it was inevitable that a culture of hate and racism against the Palestinians would ensue.

During the negotiations of the accord, discussion of core issues — such as borders and settlements, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem — was postponed in favor of a gradual approach without any guarantees, arbitration process or accountability, giving Israel a free hand to prejudge the outcome. Oslo developed into a process for the sake of a process, rather than a means to end the conflict.

Secretary General: 20 years of bilateral negotiations have failed. The international community must compel Israel to accept its responsibility as the occupying force and implement the two-state solution.

Saeb Erekat

With the 50th anniversary of Israel’s military and colonial occupation of Palestine coming to a head, we have reached a critical juncture within the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. For over 20 years, bilateral negotiations between Israel and Palestine failed on account of Israeli intransigence over its refusal to recognize Palestinian national rights and the continuation and expansion of its settlement enterprise.

In fact, the number of Israeli settlers transferred into occupied Palestine has nearly quadrupled since the beginning of the “peace process,” yet Israel continues to enjoy impunity and is not held accountable. It is now critical to move from an imbalanced bilateral track between an occupied and occupier refusing to uphold basic principles of international law, to a broader framework whereby the international community assumes its responsibility to implement international law and see the realization of the two-state solution through sustained and effective engagement.

The French Initiative is the flicker of hope Palestine has been waiting for and we are confident that it will provide a clear framework with defined parameters for the resumption of negotiations. The international conference should be viewed as an opportunity to create a negotiating environment in which power is equalized and law and human rights prevail. The conference should not concern itself with how to grant impunity for Israeli violations but rather, with how to respect and uphold the principles of the UN Charter and of peace-loving, law abiding nations.

Palestine seeks the same rights and responsibilities enjoyed by other states, and accordingly, any negotiations and permanent status agreement should reflect that. Specifically, the conference must embody the basic principle of sovereign equality, and focus on the implementation and the materialization of Palestinian independence on the ground within a clear framework and timeline. Although a ray of hope, we are under no illusions that this conference will miraculously result in the immediate end of Israel’s settler-colonialism. Rather, we see this conference as a long overdue commitment by the international community to compel Israel to accept its responsibility as the occupying force and recognize that the way forward is to implement the two-state solution before it’s too late.

This means that Israel freezes all illegal settlement activity in Palestine, that Palestine must have control over its borders, East Jerusalem is and remains the capital of the Palestinian state, sovereignty is divided along the 1967 border, Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem are reopened and able to operate freely, our refugees scattered worldwide are treated with respect and in accordance with international law and UNGA Resolution 194, and Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons are released.

We support the French Initiative with the aim of securing our freedom from belligerent Israeli occupation, and thus independence for the State of Palestine, including its capital East Jerusalem. The solution to our colonial problem is not to reshape the Israeli occupation but to end it. Nothing short of full Palestinian sovereignty, with no Israeli interference inside the independent State of Palestine, will bring the just and lasting peace that we seek.

We envision a future where two sovereign and democratic states can live side by side in cooperation, peace and security – two states that will provide equal rights for all their citizens without discrimination. We call upon the conference to provide a clear path toward this goal.

This path should be clear and unambiguous whereby both parties are required to fulfill their obligations emanating from past agreements. The implementation of past agreements will serve as a means toward confidence building between both sides and will prepare the ground for social and political acceptance on both sides for a two-state solution. The international community of states should make it clear that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot linger any longer and should not be a source of instability in a region that is already unstable. The fact of the matter is that the parameters of a permanent and final status agreement between both parties are well known.

It is the responsibility of the world to ensure that Israel may not continue to deny a people of its most fundamental and precious rights, including the right to be free. Let us make next year an anniversary to celebrate, rather than mark yet another anniversary of collective international failure to place Palestine firmly on the map and for peace to reign.

Dr. Saeb Erekat is the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Article published in: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.722924

Há 40 anos, em 2 de Abril de 1976, foi aprovada pela Assembleia Constituinte e promulgada pelo Presidente da República a Constituição da República Portuguesa. Nela ficaram plasmadas as profundas aspirações do povo português que tinham sido reprimidas durante a ditadura: os valores da liberdade, da democracia, da justiça social, da independência nacional, da paz, da solidariedade. Nela ficou também estabelecida uma nova visão de relações internacionais que permitiu que Portugal se reconciliasse com o mundo.

O MPPM (Movimento pelos Direitos do Povo Palestino e pela Paz) assinala esse momento nuclear no processo democrático português com uma declaração da sua Direcção Nacional, a Missão diplomática da Palestina divulga este documento:

Há 40 anos, em 2 de Abril de 1976, foi aprovada pela Assembleia Constituinte e promulgada pelo Presidente da República a Constituição da República Portuguesa. Nela ficaram plasmadas as profundas aspirações do povo português que tinham sido reprimidas durante a ditadura: os valores da liberdade, da democracia, da justiça social, da independência nacional, da paz, da solidariedade.
A liberdade de dizer não à guerra e sim à paz e à solidariedade, o respeito pelos direitos dos povos, nomeadamente, à independência e soberania, a rejeição de qualquer forma de colonialismo e imperialismo, a adopção das normas do direito e de convenções internacionais, são liberdades e princípios expressos na Constituição, nomeadamente nos seus arts. 7º e 8º. Com estes princípios Portugal abriu-se e conciliou-se com o mundo.
Portugal, país colonizador, vivia em estado de guerra e levava a guerra aos povos das colónias. Expressar os ideais de paz e solidariedade era proibido. Não obstante, eles existiam e foram gritados bem alto no 25 de Abril e consagrados na Constituição. Esses bens maiores, direito e aspiração da humanidade, estão bem claros na Constituição e integram a essência da Carta das Nações Unidas, da Acta Final de Helsínquia e a Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos que Portugal assumiu após o 25 de Abril.
O 25 de Abril, ao consagrar na Constituição a liberdade de expressão e de informação e a liberdade de associação, abriu as portas à existência legal de organizações da sociedade civil, nomeadamente de movimentos pela paz e de solidariedade com outros povos.
Os objectivos do MPPM, que reflectem os sentimentos do povo português, estão assim em acordo e defendidos na Constituição.
Só a autodeterminação do povo palestino permitirá alcançar a paz na Palestina e até em todo o Médio Oriente.
O direito do povo palestino a uma pátria independente, livre e soberana, com fronteiras definidas e capital em Jerusalém Leste, está consignado em acordos internacionais, afirmado em Resoluções da ONU e suportado pela opinião pública internacional. O Estado da Palestina foi reconhecido por 136 Estados membros das Nações Unidas e pela Santa Sé.
A Constituição da República Portuguesa que diz que Portugal se “rege nas relações internacionais pelos princípios da independência nacional, do respeito dos direitos do homem, dos direitos dos povos”, e que salvaguarda o direito dos portugueses ao trabalho com segurança ao ensino, à saúde, à identidade nacional, à igualdade, à justiça, é uma Constituição progressista e humanista, que conduz, no cumprimento da sua letra e espírito, à defesa dos inalienáveis direitos do povo palestino.
Por tudo isto, o MPPM, regozija-se em assinalar o 40º aniversário da promulgação da Constituição da República Portuguesa e associa-se à celebração da efeméride, porque evocá-la e comemorá-la é também defendê-la.