S/PV.6123
6123rd meeting
Monday, 11 May 2009, 10.30 a.m.
New York
The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question
Mr. Shalgham (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) (spoke in Arabic): Mr. President, at the outset, I would like to express my gratitude to you for your initiative to hold this meeting of the Security Council at the level of Ministers for Foreign Affairs to discuss the situation in the Middle East. I also thank the Secretary-General for his presence among us and for his statement.
The problem referred to as “the Middle East issue” started over 60 years ago, and yet, despite the passage of those 60 years, it has not grown old. It is still as urgent, complicated and severe as if it were only 60 months or 60 days old.
At the centre of the so-called Middle East problem is the Palestinian people, who were evicted from their land, rendered homeless and scattered throughout the world. Those among the Palestinian people who remain in Palestine have seen their rights denied, their homes demolished, their identity destroyed and their farms uprooted and razed, and thousands of them are now held in Israeli prisons. And now, at a time when the resistance of the Palestinian people against this occupation, this violence, this expulsion, this destruction and this imprisonment is being criminalized, we find on the opposite side, in Israel, an increased push towards extremism and the denial of the rights of others, as well as a growing spirit of hatred towards Palestinians and the entire Arab people.
Today, we face a new Government in Israel, whose diplomacy is led by a man who does not even bother to hide his hatred for Arabs and who had once called for the destruction of Egypt’s Aswan High Dam and for the expulsion of the Palestinians from Palestine.
At a time when some people describe the Government elected by all Palestinians as an extremist Government, when some countries have put that Government on a list of terrorist governments, and when the resistance movement in Lebanon is described as terrorist, we do not hear anybody describing as extremist or terrorist Israeli Governments that launch wars, kill, destroy, uproot and raze farmlands and build a racist separation wall.
Since the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians, through the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, have been moving step by step in negotiations and peace talks with the Israelis. They have been moving from one international forum to another in the name of peace and in pursuit of a resolution of the Palestinian question. But what has the end result been?
On the Israeli side, we have an increase in the construction of settlements and the destruction of Palestinian homes, and today, in Jerusalem alone, more than 60,000 Palestinians face the destruction of their homes and who will be rendered homeless. Excavations under the Al-Aqsa mosque continue today, with the goal of destroying and completely removing the mosque. Israel also plans to construct an underground railway near the mosque.
The Arab Peace Initiative, which is now six years old, has been completely ignored by the Israelis. They want to take everything: they want the land, security and peace, and they offer nothing in return. The Israelis reject the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland; they refuse to give up weapons of mass destruction, which they continue to accumulate in their arsenals; they refuse to withdraw from the Golan; they reject a Palestinian State, which, in fact, is impossible to establish because Israel has taken the land and water sources, destroyed the infrastructure and imprisoned the Palestinian people.
There are now more than 11,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, and we hear no discussion of their suffering or of the importance of releasing them. In the West Bank alone, there are more than 600 Israeli checkpoints, which make the daily lives of Palestinians an ongoing, continuous torture.
At the end of last year and early this year, Israel launched a comprehensive war against the Gaza Strip. The international conscience agrees that Israel’s actions constituted war crimes which affected all segments of the civilian population. Thousands were killed or wounded, and internationally banned weapons were used. While we express our appreciation for the Board of Inquiry and the fact-finding mission concerning the Israeli aggression against Gaza, and specifically against United Nations facilities in Gaza, my delegation has also prepared a draft resolution to establish an impartial investigating committee to hold Israeli officials accountable and bring them to justice. We also look forward to the report of the independent fact-finding mission that was set up by the Human Rights Council to investigate all Israeli crimes in Gaza during the aggression.
Today, we need to raise the voice of right and the voice of courage. Humanity has entered the twenty-first century. We need a voice that calls for the renunciation of violence and war and the killing of man by his fellow man. We must all confront and stand up to all forms of racism.
Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together in Al-Andalus — Audalusia — for many centuries. They lived in unprecedented brotherhood, and together they produced a civilization that laid the groundwork for a historic human renaissance that helped to take humanity from the darkness of the Middle Ages to the enlightenment and progress of recent centuries.
We therefore say today that we need to reproduce the Al-Andalus experience, which we believe we are capable of doing. That civilization was built on coexistence, tolerance and acceptance of the other.
With full appreciation for the initiatives, resolutions and plans seeking to resolve what we call the Middle East question, and based on a spirit of coexistence, our brother and leader Muammar Al‑Qadhafi has published in the White Book his vision for a true solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. That vision includes the creation of a democratic State in Palestine where everyone lives equally, without discrimination based on religion or race. In that State, violence, confrontation and denial of the other would end. My country has confidence in the ability of the international community and of noble humanity to realize that dream, just as the dream of coexistence was realized in South Africa.
The White Book, written by our leader Muammar Al-Qadhafi, contains a chapter entitled “Isratine”, describing a time when everybody in Palestine — Arabs and Jews — shall share equally in the land, water, freedom, and even the name of the State, as happened when African Tanganyika and Arab-origin Zanzibar were merged into one State called Tanzania.
In conclusion, although we do not agree with much of the content of the draft presidential statement submitted to us because it does not adequately address the issues of Israeli settlements, the occupation of the Golan Heights, the situation in Gaza and the Sheba’a Farms, in appreciation of the good intentions and positive attitude demonstrated in the preparation of the draft presidential statement, in recognition of my country’s relationship with Russia and in order to preserve the unity and consensus of the Council, we will not object to the presidential statement.
