MOSCOW, 1 July — The steps that needed to be taken by all parties to implement the two-State solution, a halt to Israeli settlement activity, the plight of Arab Israelis, Palestinian reconciliation and a new international framework to advance the peace process were discussed this afternoon as the United Nations International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace held its first plenary session.
Urging the international community to shun unmet expectations from direct Palestinian-Israeli talks over the past 20 years, the top representative of the observer State of Palestine called for the application of a “collective process”, which had shown promising results on Iran, Syria and Ukraine.
The top Palestinian diplomat at the United Nations this afternoon called on the Organization to include Israel’s army among the parties that committed grave violations against children during armed conflict, and to hold it accountable for attacks last year on United Nations-run schools sheltering civilians in Gaza.
Despite the collective failure of Israelis, Palestinians and the international community to advance a political solution during the 2014 International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People aimed at catalysing global action, “all good forces must now be mobilized”, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson urged today in a message from the Secretary-General.
“We cannot paper over the differences and the difficulties that we face today,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon told delegations gathered to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
Parliamentarians from around the world joined diplomats and United Nations officials at Headquarters today to discuss ways of advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process towards a two-State solution, a goal Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said could still be achieved if the parties, supported by the international community, demonstrated collective political will needed to implement the existing constructive proposals.
The Palestinian Rights Committee today approved four draft resolutions relating to the question of Palestine, as it considered the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as all violence against civilians, be they Palestinian or Israeli.
The youth of the United States were driving a change across the country that could, in the long term, alter its foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Noam Chomsky, international public intellectual and Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, today during a lecture to the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
As the world celebrated the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the situation on the ground was deteriorating, with the summer’s conflict in Gaza having caused the worst impact on civilians of all that had preceded it, and Israel continuing to expand settlements, the Palestinian Rights Committee stressed.
The two-State solution was “disappearing before our very eyes”, while the world was falling short of protecting Palestinians and holding Israel accountable for its actions, the Palestinian Rights Committee heard today in a briefing.
