Palestinian issues

Progress on Palestinian status at the United Nations would generate a “new dynamic in the peace process” and help safeguard the two-State solution, stressed the Palestinian Rights Committee this morning as it adopted its latest report and heard a briefing on plans to present a resolution to the General Assembly on the matter in the coming months.

Expressing serious concern over a deteriorating humanitarian situation, as well as evictions and demolitions of homes, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People would continue to call on the Security Council and the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to hold Israel accountable, its Chair said today.

BANGKOK, 11 July — Settlements were “a removable obstacle”, and of the 130,000 settlers in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, to be evacuated in order to create the Palestinian State, most would be willing to do so in return for generous compensation by the Israeli Government, the United Nations Asian and Pacific Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace heard this morning.

BANGKOK, 11 July — The 54 countries of the Asia-Pacific region could assist in resolving the question of Palestine, not only in addressing the obstacles, but in removing them and translating their support for the two-State solution into recognition of Palestinian statehood, a representative of Indonesia told the Asian and Pacific Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace this evening as it concluded its deliberations.

BANGKOK, 10 July — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that the long-hoped-for two-State solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was “increasingly at risk, moving us further away from our shared objective of a comprehensive peace in the region”. In a message to the United Nations Asian and Pacific Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace, the Secretary-General warned that the peace process had been for some time at a “dangerous standstill”.

BANGKOK, 10 July — The settlement “enterprise”, said one of five panellists this afternoon as the United Nations Asian and Pacific Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace rounded out its first day, had the purpose of solidifying Israeli control over the Occupied Territory and ensuring that under any future diplomatic arrangement, Israel would retain possession of vast and strategically important tracts of Palestinian land.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations Asian and Pacific Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace on 10 and 11 July at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), in Bangkok. The theme of the Meeting will be “International efforts at addressing the obstacles to the two-State solution — the role of Asian and Pacific governmental and non-governmental actors”.

The Palestinian Rights Committee this afternoon approved the provisional programme of the upcoming United Nations Asian and Pacific Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace, to be held in Bangkok, as it also heard reports on previous international meetings, as well as on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

PARIS, 1 June — Civil society organizations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel must play a more active role to bring about a just, stable peace in the region, speakers said today during the day-long United Nations Meeting of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace, which took place in Paris. Entitled “Civil society action towards ending the occupation: harnessing the power of youth and women”, the event featured four workshops.

PARIS, 31 May — The role of information technology in Palestinian social cohesion and state-building, strategies to bolster education and the need to hold Israel to account for human rights abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory were examined this morning as the United Nations International Meeting on the Question of Palestine continued in Paris.