NEW YORK: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has slammed Israel for its “illegal measures” against the Palestinian people which it labeled “a breach” of the charter of the United Nations, humanitarian law and international resolutions. The actions of Israel were undermining any chance for peace, said Ambassador Khalid Abdalrazaq Al-Nafisee, permanent representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations. He also criticized the international community for failing to hold Israel, an “occupying power”, responsible for its actions. Al-Nafisee made the comments in a speech to the UN Security Council Thursday night in New York, which was carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). Al-Nafisee called on the international community, the United Nations and especially the Quartet Committee, to “follow a comprehensive strategic approach toward an immediate halt to all settlement projects in the occupied territories which has become one of the biggest obstacles placed by Israel” in the way of peaceful negotiations. Al-Nafisee explained that the “suffering of the Palestinian people began with the idea of giving the land of a people to a people without a land”. “The issue was an issue of a land and then became the issue of refugees, settlements, changing the history and demolition of religious sites in an ongoing series of woes paid by the Palestinian people in the complete absence of the international community to impose the decisions of international legitimacy against the occupier,” said the report carried by SPA.Al-Nafisee said that “had the United Nations, represented by the Security Council, carried out its role, the sufferings of the Palestinian people would have not continued for more than half a century”. He said Israel has continued with practices including the “worst forms of killings, displacement, imprisonment, blockade, annexation, confiscation of property and looting of goods”. This was being done to “destroy that people and push them to surrender”. He said the Palestinian people are suffering from a deep sense of “despair and frustration”. Al-Nafisee said that the Arabs opted for peace not surrender and their demand has been and still is the application of international legitimacy with the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and the principle of land for just and comprehensive peace. He said this would require a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territories to the borders of 1967, the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes, allowing them to regain their rights, and enable the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination and to establish an independent state with Al-Quds as its capital. There should also be a withdrawal from the Golan Heights in Syria and the Lebanese Shebaa Farms. Al-Nafisee said the “(building of the barrier wall) completely hinders all peace initiatives because they surround most cities in the West Bank and make it virtually impossible to establish a contiguous and viable Palestinian state in the future”. He added that for six decades, the Arab-Israeli conflict “has been and still is overshadowing all the issues in the Middle East and was a reason for the growth of extremism and terrorism and a fundamental obstacle to development and reform in the region”. He said the Arab world is still waiting for “a reciprocal and serious” Israeli commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative which is the only way to a “lasting and comprehensive peace between the two sides … that will be just to all parties”.
