PRESS RELEASE

RELEASED @ 11:00 GMT 14 MAY 1998

50 Years of “Naqba”

50 Years of Bitterness

50 Years of Memories

An Uncertain Future

While the world is preparing to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the International Covenant of Human Rights, the Palestinian people in Palestine and the diaspora are commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the “naqba,” the uprooting of the people of Palestine from their homeland by Zionist forces, who declared the birth of the Jewish state in full view of the international community.

The 15^th of May, 1948 represents a turning point in the history of the region and the people of Palestine. When the Jewish minority established the state of Israel, the Israeli army, in order to create the state, enforced a policy of ethnic cleansing, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in villages and cities were forced to flee. While Palestinians watch Israel’s celebration of independence on the greater part of historic Palestine, they are bitterly aware of being deprived of their inalienable right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent state on part of Palestine, the occupied territories of 1967.

Throughout the past fifty years, the people of Palestine have struggled against the Israeli war machine, which occupied the balance of historic Palestine in 1967. Successive Israeli governments have attempted to eradicate the people of Palestine, viewing the Palestinians solely as a threat rather than as a people with whom they could co-exist. Israel not only turned its back on the partition plan, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in November 1947 and gave legitimacy to the idea of a Jewish state, but also UN resolutions, international law and the will of the international community, which assure the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood.

Despite the fact that the PLO has offered its hand for peace and historic reconciliation on the basis of mutual coexistence, acceptance and respect in two states, the state of Israel and its occupying forces have continued an hostile and provocative policy to prevent the Palestinian people from exercising their right to self-determination and statehood in the occupied territories of 1967, including Jerusalem. Four years after the signing of the Interim Agreement between the government of Israel and the PLO,

which established the Palestinian National Authority in parts of the occupied territories, the government of Israel continues its occupation of Palestinian territory and continue its process of the settling Jewish Israelis in illegally occupied territories. The facts on the ground as a result of Israel’s aggressive settlement policy have made impossible the emergence of an independent Palestinian state and effectively destroyed the Oslo peace process.

The international community is now demanding that the government of Israel withdraw its forces from the rest of occupied territories in order to enable the people of Palestine to exercise their right to self-determination and statehood, and to ensure the right of return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN resolutions. The international community is obliged to ensure that Israel complies.

The world, which is now celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the International Covenant of Human Rights, a noble document which guarantees rights for all peoples, demands that meaning be given to this covenant for the people of Palestine. Peace in the Middle East is not possible unless the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination are exercised.

 

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