Palestinian issues

The second plenary meeting of the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People heard a panel of experts assess in detail the Palestinian Authority Programme entitled “Palestine: Ending the occupation, establishing the State” and address such themes as gender equality in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, economic independence and the role of civil society in building an independent State.

At the conclusion of the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People today, the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations called for recognition of the State of Palestine now that an ambitious programme to end the occupation in two years had been introduced.

Five experts today addressed the current socio-economic situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the urgent need to bring relief and reconstruction to the Gaza Strip, during the first plenary meeting of the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People.

The situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory remained of concern, particularly in Gaza and East Jerusalem, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in a message delivered by Maxwell Gaylard, Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People opened in Vienna.

VIENNA, 22 March -- The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People at the United Nations Office at Vienna, on 24 and 25 March 2010.

This statement was issued today by the Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on the situation in occupied East Jerusalem:

The Palestinian Authority had embraced proximity talks to revive Middle East peace negotiations, but they had been spurned by Israel through the announcement of additional building plans in East Jerusalem and other provocations, the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine told the Palestinian Rights Committee this afternoon.

The following statement was issued on 24 February by the Bureau of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in connection with the announcement by the Government of Israel concerning religious sites in the Occupied Palestinian Territory:

While some might take issue with the United States’ past actions in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, few had any doubt that the country, under President Barack Obama, was committed to being an honest broker, its representative said today as the International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace entered its second day.

The United Nations Meeting, having assumed the task of considering the urgency of addressing the permanent status issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, did not hesitate to wade into that difficult terrain, managing to produce in the end some fresh ideas, unbound by the constraints of intergovernmental diplomacy.