President Mahmoud Abbas today urged the colonial states to redress the historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people. Speaking before at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York in high-level meeting dedicated for the first time in UN history to mark the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, President Abbas held colonial powers, particularly the US and Britian, directly responsible politically and morally for the Nakba and stressed that they have a historical responsibility to bring the historical suffering inflicted on Palestinians to an end. The Nakba (Arabic for the ‘catastrophe’) refers to the 1948 displacement and dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians due to massacres carried out by Zionist militias. 500 Palestinian towns and villages were ultimately destroyed. President Abbas stated that the UN has either to oblige Israel to respect the United Nations’ resolutions, particularly the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 and UNGA Resolution 194, or else suspend Israel’s membership in the UN. He highlighted the pressing need to recognize the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, explaining that the most important prerequisites for regional peace and security is the recognition of the Palestinian people’s rights not only to self-determination, but also to independence, the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, the resolution of the refugees issue based on UNGA Resolution 194 and the release of all Palestinian political prisoners from Israeli prisons. Touching upon the founding myths of Zionism, President Abbas stated that the Palestinian narrative of the Nakba has begun to make its way to the awareness of the peoples, who have come to uncover the fraudulence of the Israeli narrative and listening to the Palestinian narrative and their tragedy. He refuted the Zionism’s founding myth of ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’, a myth that transformed in time to the idea of the uncultivated land, the greening of the desert and the idea of Israel’s defensive wars, while stressing that the indigenous Palestinian people have lived in their homeland, Palestine, since time immemorial and explaining that this myth has served as a cover to Zionism and Israel’s incessant attempts to obliterate the existence of the Palestinian people. He made reference to that Tantura: an explosive documentary directed by Israeli filmmaker Alon Schwarz that contains eye witness accounts of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians at the hands of the Zionist militias in 1948. Reversing the infamous myth made in 1973 by Israeli diplomat Abba Eban that ‘the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,’ President Abbas said that it is the Palestinians who have lacked a partner for peace, and the it is Israel that has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. He wondered how it could be that there is no a Palestinian partner for peace and that the Palestinian people do not have a genuine interest in peace when they have recognized Israel’s sovereignty over 78 percent of historic Palestine on the assumption that they would be able to exercise sovereignty over the remaining 22 percent. He affirmed that the Israeli occupation, Israel’s settler-colonialism and the ongoing Gaza siege are the root cause of the spiraling violence, whose effects were being felt around the world. He posed the question as to how long shall Israel remain above the law and how long shall it enjoy impunity, while stressing that the root causes of the ‘conflict’ and the Palestinian Question would remain unaddressed as long as Israel continues to act as a state above the law, demonstrate contempt for the law, fails to acknowledge its responsibility for the Nakba, seek forgiveness, redress the Palestinian people for this historical injustice and implement UN resolutions. If such a case persists, the Palestinian people would pursue all legal means to safeguard their rights, including pressing war crimes charges against Israel with the International Criminal Court, Abbas added. He stressed his keenness to achieve national unity within the framework of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and commitment to resolutions of international legitimacy. He concluded by pointing out that the UN decision to commemorate the Naka on May 15 constitutes a UN recognition of the perpetual historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people and a refutation of Zionism’s myths regarding the establishment of Israel. He voiced his confidence that the UN would not spare any effort in order to redress the historical injustice imposed upon the Palestinian people and eliminate the consequences of the Nakba. The UN commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba comes based on a resolution adopted by the General Assembly on Nov. 30, 2022, which stipulated that May 15, 2023, is considered a day to commemorate this memory.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency