(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency)
Amman, Nov. 29 (Petra) -- Deputy Prime
Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Ayman Safadi, took part in the Security Council's high-level discussion on the Middle East, particularly the Palestinian question.
During the meeting, Safadi gave the following speech:
In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful
It has been thirty-three days since I and my colleagues arrived to request a
resolution mandating that Israel stop its violence against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. The verdict is still pending. Aggression persisted. greater ferocity. It got more vicious, bloody, and cruel.
Israel saw the Council's silence on its aggression as a cover-up for its crimes. It has taken the lives of another 3,750 Palestinian children since our meeting on the 25th of last month, bringing the total number of children killed as a result of its aggression to 6,159, not counting those who are still buried under the rubble, and 61 children who were killed. The last of them, Adam Samer Al-Ghoul (8 years old) and Basil Suleiman Abu Al-Wafa (15 years old), were killed by the occupation yesterday.
Some of these youngsters were killed by the occupation's white phosphorous. Some of them died as a result of an illness for which Israel blocked the entrance of treatment. Others went into the ruins of homes leveled by Israeli precision bombs.
Their blood is light. Their blood is true.
This is blatant retaliatory Israeli aggression, which some continue to rationalize as self-defense, in yet another breach of international law, which clearly states that an occupier has no right to self-defense.
This is the vengeance that has killed 15,000 Palestinians from Gaza, and which has only allowed about 4,775 aid trucks to enter since the 21st of last month, meaning that it barely covers the need for three and a half days in 38 days, according to UNRWA estimates, which stated that the besieged Gaza Strip requires 800 trucks of aid daily.
This massacre feeds the instincts of Israeli racists who are used to dehumanize Palestinians and who have made their ministerial and parliamentary platforms platforms of hatred, from which policies of killing, displacing, kicking out, and starving Palestinians are launched, violating the sanctity of their holy sites and violating their right to life, dignity, and freedom.
Whoever wishes to safeguard his people does not steal other people's lives, equip settlers, or support their terrorism. Whoever wants his people's security should not conquer another people's territory and imprison their children without trial or mercy.
The occupation of Palestinian territory by Israel is the root of the conflict and the source of evil. Its abolition is the road to security and peace for Palestinians, Israelis, and all the peoples of the region.
Anyone who claims the dispute is religious is lying. He attempts in vain to forge history and the present, whose ugliness is enhanced by occupation with the blood of innocents and their agony, which calls into question our shared humanity. There is conflict because of a harsh occupation and flagrant injustice that has stolen an entire people's past, destroyed their present, and trapped their future in the narrowness of its oppression and hatred.
Bullying is a tool used by people who have no reasoning, no logic, and a weak argument. Do not succumb to the bullying of those who have chosen oppression as a strategy, assaulting the Secretary-General of the United Nations once, UNICEF and UN Women again, and everyone who says no to slaughter, starvation, siege, and breaking international law.
We, the Arabs, have presented a comprehensive proposal for a comprehensive peace in which both Palestinians and Israelis can live in safety. Our Arab initiative began in 2002. What did Israel, which had rejected our peace effort, have to contribute in order to restore peace to its people and the Palestinians? What did it do besides prolong the occupation?
We request that the Security Council impose a cease-fire to put an end to the aggression. We request that the international community push the occupation to end so that the conflict can be resolved.
You are all in favor of a the two-state solution, which by definition means the end of the occupation.
A new peace process that Israel is capable of initiating is an insane bargain that will not result in this solution.
There is only one path to the peace that we all seek: the Security Council adopting a binding resolution that recognizes an independent Palestinian state with occupied Jerusalem as its capital within the borders of June 4, 1967, imposes time-bound steps to implement it, and prevents unilateral, illegal Israeli steps that perpetuate the occupation and kill opportunities for peace and faith in it.
Israel's acceptance of this resolution brings peace and security to Israelis and Palestinians alike, putting the region on the way to a future free of fear, oppression, and hatred.
Its rejection means that it insists on the conflict becoming the fate of our region, and it must confront stern international action that besieges its arrogance, punishes its stubbornness, and makes the cost of its occupation so high that it is unsustainable.
Otherwise, the conflict will continue, and wars will erupt in the aftermath of the war in Gaza. At all times and in all places, there is a door to freedom.
Over the last thirty years, Israel has blocked peace efforts, denying the region and its right to security and stability.
Do not allow it to plunge the region into cycles of bloodshed and war for another thirty years.
The will to live outweighs the inclination to kill. The desire for freedom outweighs the desire for subjugation.
As soon as the truce allowed the Palestinians to breathe again, Gazans began walking north towards their communities, buried in the rubble of their homes.
As soon as Israel's bombs ceased bombing Gaza, its youngsters took to the streets, playing and fantasizing.
As soon as Wael Al-Dahdouh buried his wife, daughter, son, and infant granddaughter, his microphone was ripped open. He relates the story of his people, the Palestinians, who desire justice, freedom, truth, and life.
Today is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Let the solidarity be real, end the shedding of the blood of its children in Gaza and the West Bank, and assure them that the world stands with their right to freedom and self-determination, and against the occupation and the injustice of the occupation.
Occupation and peace are diametrically opposed concepts.
Occupation and security are diametrically opposed concepts that do not coexist.
We seek a just, comprehensive, and long-term peace, one whose only way is to end the occupation and establish an independent, sovereign Palestinian state, with occupied Jerusalem as its eternal capital, along the lines of June 4, 1967, so that it can coexist in security and peace with Israel.
This peace is a right for all the peoples of the region, including Palestinians and Israelis. Its path is clear, and achieving it is an international responsibility.
Take a stand against those who are preventing it.
Enforce this peace.
Thank you, and may God's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you."
Also, Safadi took part in the UN ceremony today to honor the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
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