The United Nations sponsored an official two-day anti-Israel hatefest last week, sponsored by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People to mark the half-century mark on Jordan’s failure to annihilate Israel in 1967.
Leading off the Forum on “Ending the Occupation: The Path to Independence, Justice and Peace for Palestine” was Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary-General Saeb Erekat, speaking as the Representative of the Palestinian Authority. His passion and eloquence conveyed his sincerity and commitment to that cause. But more than that, watching Erekat in action also makes it abundantly clear to the viewer why this man was chosen to be the Chief Negotiator for that entity, and why he is Secretary-General to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), representing the PA at the United Nations.
Following is the transcript of Erekat’s remarks.
“It’s my honor and privilege to be amongst you this morning and I would like to begin by relaying a message from the President of the State of Palestine, President Mahmoud Abbas, to you:
‘I wish,’ President Abbas said, ‘that this meeting had not taken place – 50 years of occupation should have ended a long time ago.’
And, President Abbas’ message, is that ‘the only option for us as Palestinians, is to live and let live. We have an organized State of Israel, the right to exist, and live in peace and security, and we believe that the only option is to establish a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital to live side by side with the State of Israel in peace and security.’
Unfortunately we don’t have a partner in Israel today. The Israeli government headed by Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to replace the two state solution with one state, two systems: apartheid.
Ignoring facts don’t mean they don’t exist.
Unfortunately, 50 years later this current Israeli government believes that the costs for the continuation of the occupation and the status quo is much less than the costs of peace, and this is very, very unfortunate.
We are going through difficult times in our region and the relevant question that we should ask ourselves today, is how to defeat ISIS.
This group – this group of thugs and murderers, who have no relations with our religion, Islam. As a matter of fact, they are 803 since my Prophet, God bless him, died, of those who decided to go to mosques to use God, and not to worship God.
The one relevant question that we should all ask ourselves, Madame Under-Secretary in the UN, is how to defeat ISIS.
And since man and woman did not have – they did not develop the techniques to kill ideas with bullets, neither did they develop the techniques to prevent ideas to travel with or without visas, because they travel.
What do we do to defeat them? There are two ways, combined, to defeat ISIS.
One, is ending the Israeli occupation that began in 1967. The relevance is there. There is no difference between a thug and a murderer who slit the throat of a Western journalist in Syria and Iraq, and between a thug and a murderer who burns – alive — an 18-month toddler, Dawabshe, along with his mother, father and brother simply because they’re not Jews. This is the fact. This is the culture of anti-life, of anti-humans.
And this is the cost of the continuation of 50 years of occupation that corrupts. Ending the Israeli occupation is a must, is a responsibility for the international community. And the logic of some of those who argue that wild beast Israel has 5,000 tanks, has 3,000 f–king planes, and nuclear weapons, Congress, Senate and Nikki Haleys to defend them justly or unjustly … and then, these people stand to speak about defeating ISIS?!
Enough. Enough. We deserve to live in the Middle East.
For the second point. That we need to defeat ISIS today as Arabs: The real threat that’s facing us as Arabs, is our demography. Fifty-five percent of us are resident 20 years of age. The age of expectation. Of life. And none of us as Arab leaders can compete with this thug and murderer, cold Abu Bakr Baghdadi. He’s promising our desperate youth. Castles and heavens. Whatever.
Kill people like … and come and claim it. I have 25 percent unemployment rate in the West Bank, 40 in Gaza. We cannot promise a single building. A job. Because 60 percent of the West Bank is not under my control. What can I do about it?
Today, we have – as we always did – an opportunity to look at things and see them the way they are. It is true, if it’s my word against an Israeli in the American Congress and Senate, I don’t stand a chance. And who said life is about fairness and justice?
But I’m trying my best to defend myself. I’m not doing the Israelis a favor when I call for the two-state solution – I’m doing my self the favor.
No one benefits more from achieving peace better than a two-state solution more than Palestinians, and no one stands to lose more in the absence of peace, than Palestinians.
This is the truth.
I hope and pray that one day we will find a partner in Israel who feels that when he sits with us to make peace they’re not doing us the favor, they’re doing themselves the favor.
They also need peace as much as we do. There is no option called “one state solution.”
A solution by definition requires two partners. Israel will never be a party to a one-state solution.
So if they don’t want the two-state solution and they can’t be a part of a two-state solution – they really believe that maintaining the status quo in a one-state two-system is doable.
Today 2017, 50 years later, Palestinians go with this green ID card. Israelis have blue ones.
They make us drive cars with white and green plates. They go with yellow plates. It is – there are roads in the West Bank today we cannot use as Palestinians. And such diseases as bigotry and racism, ones they inflicted underneath our skins, as humans, we had a tendency to justify it.
Sometimes we offer sociological, psychological, economic and now Israel is offering security reasons.
This environment is the right environment for the birth of extremism and more of it.
That’s the real danger in the Middle East.
That’s to maintain the Israeli occupation and to continue with the Israeli occupation, not only that – Mr. Netanyahu wants to continue occupying us and yet he says:
“Yes I will confiscate your land, I will demolish your homes, I will build more settlements, I will humiliate you, but you have to wake up in the morning and pray to God and thank him that you’re under my occupation. And if you dare–don’t I will unleash the forces of the Nikki Haleys and others to smear you and to play with you and to bully you.”
And then we seek about an international system that seeks to defeat ISIS and seek to achieve justice and peace in the region, and better economy and democracy and human rights.
We just cannot continue going ‘business as usual.’ It’s time to hold the Israeli government accountable.
It’s time for the nations of Earth to understand that security and peace cannot be achieved through speaking about it or through the realpolitik of some.
We’re going to have to take some real decisions.
We have an opportunity now through the administration of President Trump. We are fully engaged with him. As a matter of fact I’ll be meeting with him tomorrow in Washington, and we will leave no chance and we will leave no stone without turning it in order to see to it that we give peace a chance.
As I said, we’re not doing anyone a favor; we’re doing ourselves the greatest favor.
The last point I want to mention is about Gaza and Hamas.
Hamas is a Palestinian political party and I don’t think we can have Palestinian state in Gaza. I don’t think we can have a Palestinian state without Gaza. And I don’t think we’ll have a Palestinian state with multiple authorities, with multiple guns and multiple laws.
It’s time for Hamas to end this coup d’etat. It’s time for Hamas to allow the government of national consensus which we formed together to function with full responsibilities in the Gaza Strip and to dissolve the administrative committee and to say yes to the principle that when we differ as Palestinians we resort to ballots and not bullets.
Ballots, and not bullets. That is our offer. Hamas is a Palestinian political party as much as my party Fatah and 26 other political parties.
No one in Palestine is asked to see through the eyes of Mahmoud Abbas or listen through his ears because you’re thugs; we’re a democracy. We have an overabundance of complexities, we commit mistakes.
But in order to achieve our state, the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem must be a single territorial unit.