Tag: September state

UNSG BAN says two-state solution to Israel-Palestinian conflict "is long overdue"

Was the UNSG taking a diplomatic half-step back from his earlier support for a long-overdue Palestinian State?

What he said, at a hastily-summoned press conference at UNHQ/NY on Thursday, was exactly this: “I am profoundly troubled by the lack of progress in the peace negotiations. It is vital that they resume. Ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and achieving a two-state solution is long overdue. Time is not our friend”.

[As we reported in our last post, on 10 September, here, what the UNSG BAN said in Australia that day was somewhat different. According to AFP, he said this: “The two state vision where Israel and Palestinians can live… side by side in peace and security — that is a still a valid vision and I fully support it… And I support also the statehood of Palestinians; an independent, sovereign state of Palestine. It has been long overdue“.]

The U.S. State Department spokesperson said last Thursday that the Obama Administration would use the American veto in the UN Security Council if the Palestinians pursued their announced intentention to seek full UN membership.

Though U.S. envoys Dennis Ross and David Hale are on their second trip to the region in as many weeks to try to avert the Palestinian move, Palestinian officials say they are going to pursue it — unless, of course, an excellent offer is made up until the last minute.

Even if a Palestinian State is somehow admitted as a full member of the UN Organization, Palestinian officials say, they intended to pursue negotiations with Israel on the next day…

Palestinian Authority [PA] Foreign Minister Riyad Malki told members of the Foreign Press Association [FPA – in Israel] at a briefing convened at FPA request on Thursday that at end of Mahmoud Abbas speech around midday on 23 September from the podium of the UN General Assembly in New York, after the very last sentence, Abbas – who is Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, in addition to acting President of the PA — will present the official request for the state of Palestine to be granted full membership to the UNSG”.

UNSG BAN Ki-Moon will be seated on an elevated table behind the podium. All Mahmoud Abbas will need to do is turn around and hand up the official Palestinian letter of request — and this will be in public, in full view of the whole world.

Continue reading UNSG BAN says two-state solution to Israel-Palestinian conflict "is long overdue"

SG BAN Ki-Moon says Palestinian state is "long overdue"

During a visit to Canberra, Australia, the UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-Moon made headlines here, and probably around the world, by saying that a Palestinian state is “long overdue”.

AFP reported that the UNSG said: “The two state vision where Israel and Palestinians can live… side by side in peace and security — that is a still a valid vision and I fully support it… And I support also the statehood of Palestinians; an independent, sovereign state of Palestine. It has been long overdue …But… the recognition of a state is something to be determined by the member states …It is not by the Secretary General so I leave it to the member states to decide to recognise or not to recognise”. This report is published here.

It was, actually, an uncharacteristically bold and brave thing for him to say, coming just hours after the U.S. confirmed clearly that it held the opposite view — and would use its veto power in the UN Security Council to stop a Palestinian request for full membership in the organization.

A Palestinian State has already been declared, in November 1988. But, though a few legal scholars disagree on the basis of theory, it clearly doesn’t exist yet, “on the ground”.

Within hours of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence at a meeting of the PLO’s Palestine National Council in Algiers on 15 November 1988, the UN’s then-Secretary-General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, issued this statement through his spokesman in New York saying:

“The Secretary-General has not seen the full text of the statements issued by the Palestine National Council in Algiers. However, on the basis of the press reports that have emerged thus far, he believes that fresh opportunities now exist for progress towards peace. The Secretary-General has consistently maintained that a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict should be based on Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and take fully into account the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to self-determination. The Secretary-General believes that this session of the Palestine National Council has been of the greatest significance. He feels that all concerned should now seize the opportunity to make a determined new effort to achieve a just and lasting solution to the conflict in the Middle East”.

This statement is archived on the UN website here.

That was in November 1988.

Continue reading SG BAN Ki-Moon says Palestinian state is "long overdue"

The Wall is only about 70 percent complete, new deadline for completion is … not until 2020

Jamal Juma’, in an interview with Ida Audeh published on the Electronic Intifada [EI] website, said, about the announced intention of the Palestinian leadership to go to the UN in September, that: “We have been talking to the national forces and leftist and democratic forces and institutions, as well as to the Palestinian human rights [and civil society organizations]. We developed a working paper that outlines our positions. We wanted to get a legal perspective on what international law says about going to the UN. We concluded that we should in fact go to the UN but not in order to establish a state on the 1967 borders. We should be demanding that the membership of the PLO be raised to state status“…

What should go to the UN Security Council, Juma said, is the un-implemented Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in the Hague on The Wall.

Continue reading The Wall is only about 70 percent complete, new deadline for completion is … not until 2020

Report that Israel placed more anti-personnel mines in Golan in advance of September protests

This is a story that gets little reaction, despite more news coming in from time to time.

This time, it’s from a report, presumably in Hebrew, published in an Israeli military magazine.

The right-wing Israeli website, Arutz Sheva, is reporting here, that the latest edition of the Bemachaneh (On the Base) military magazine says that “Anti-personnel mines have been placed beyond the Golan border fence but on Israel’s side of the border … The mining in the area of the Golan territorial brigade is the first phase of activity that will extend to all of the border covered by the Israel Defense Forces’ 36th Division”.

The report also says that mines “already in place did not go off” during the May 15 protests in which Palestinian and Syrian protesters crossed the Golan and briefly entered the Israeli-controlled town of Majdel Shams, before being returned to Syria.  And, it says, this new planting of anti-personnel mines “is in addition to the erection of fences, the digging of trenches and other measures to prevent incursions by demonstrators or other hostile forces in September, when violence is expected to accompany the Palestinian Authority’s announced intent to unilaterally declare a state. Anti-tank mines are also being upgraded or replaced, in the first mining of the area in 10 years“.

UPDATE: The AP is now reporting, on Saturday 13 August, that “An Israeli army magazine says the military is planting new land mines along the border with Syria to dissuade protesters from rushing into the Golan Heights. The army decided to go ahead with the move after older mines failed to detonate when Syrian demonstrators rushed into the border area in June during a protest against Israel’s occupation. Israeli forces opened fire, killing some 20 protesters in efforts to push the crowd back. The mines are also part of beefed-up measures Israel is taking ahead of rallies that Palestinians are planning to hold in September”. This AP report is posted here.

NOTE: Our earlier reports on this story are posted:
17 June – here, and
16 June – here,
And our even earlier posts on this are:
9 June – here;
8 June – here;
and 7 June – here.

Continue reading Report that Israel placed more anti-personnel mines in Golan in advance of September protests