Legal and political experts said that the approach of the United Nations towards the Palestinian issue reflected a deep failure to achieve justice and achieve international legitimacy represented in ending the occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state.
This came in a meeting organized by the Council on International Relations – Palestine – in cooperation with the Center for Strategic Initiative Palestine Malaysia, entitled: “The United Nations position towards the Palestinian issue during and after the May 2021 aggression” with the participation of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Professor Michael Link and Minister The former Malaysian Foreign Ministry, Syed Ahmed Al-Bar, and the former Secretary-General of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Dr. Nafez Al-Madhoun.
Dozens of specialists, jurists, jurists, and diplomats from inside and outside Gaza participated in the meeting via the Internet.
The importance of the United Nations
President of the Council on International Relations – Palestine d. In the name of Naim, he stressed that the Palestine issue is an international issue par excellence and that the birth certificate of the occupying power was written in the corridors of the United Nations, and therefore any dealing with the issue away from the international community will be minor.
In his opening statement to the meeting, Naim said: “We may agree with the behavior of the United Nations or disagree, but the United Nations gateway remains essential within the framework of any vision for resolving this conflict.”
Decisions without action
For his part, Professor Michael Lynk, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, said that the United Nations failed to hold accountable and this led to an increase in the occupation and the expansion of settlements.
In his intervention, Link explained that the absence of international deterrence encourages Israel to expand and annex and threaten the two-state solution, which made it exercise an occupation without any cost and insist on its claim to own these lands.
He stressed that the Security Council, during the past decades, established three principles related to the occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza, and these principles are summarized in the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to this occupation, and that the seizure of land by force is illegal, and that building and expanding settlements violates international law and threatens the two-state solution .
He added: “Since February 2009, the Security Council has adopted more than 700 resolutions, but only one of them criticizes the Israeli occupation, which is Resolution 2334, and no other resolution has been issued even when the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories has seen an increasing deterioration.”
He stressed the task of the members of the Security Council to act and make clear that disobeying the decisions of the Council must have consequences.
In response to the audience’s interventions, Link said that he understands the justified anger and the conditions in which people live in Gaza, stressing the importance of supporting the investigation conducted by the International Criminal Court in the investigation of crimes committed in the Palestinian territories.
Pink promised that he would do everything in his power to reflect the views of the audience in his reports on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories.
enough evidence
For his part, former Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said that it is clear that we have enough data and a lot of refusals, and it is clear that we are facing a state of non-compliance with international law and United Nations resolutions.
Al-Bar pointed out that the establishment of the State of Israel is evidence of the failure of the international system, because it was unable to defend the rights of the Palestinians.
Al-Barr said in his intervention, “The United Nations bodies have sufficient mechanisms, but the position on the Palestinian issue has not changed. The establishment of the State of Israel shows the failure of the United Nations to preserve the rights of the Palestinians from the beginning.”
He explained that the failure of the United Nations to hold Israel accountable is due to the position of the United States, which must be more balanced.
He stated that we have sufficient evidence for accountability, and without it, there will be no solution or stability in the region. The former foreign minister considered that the two-state solution is no longer viable, and the most viable solution is the one-state solution with different religious ethnicities.
In response to the interventions of the audience, the former minister called for not feeling excessively discouraged, calling for the formation of a force to protect the Palestinians, noting that the United Nations alone cannot lead its efforts to a two-state solution, but its procedures must be strengthened at the same time.
weak solutions
On his part, Dr. Nafez Al-Madhoun, former Secretary-General of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that there are large numbers of resolutions issued by the United Nations, but the implementation steps are slow, which indicates a defect.
In his intervention, Madhoun said that through his follow-up, there is no vision towards the Palestinian issue in the political or legal dimension, and that the solutions have become weak, stressing that the Palestinian people have a great responsibility to continue the resistance that is protected by United Nations resolutions.
He explained that the policy of the United Nations is biased towards the Israeli side, and this makes it difficult for its mission to implement its decisions, and there must be new mechanisms to implement these decisions.
Popular frustration and demand for pressure
In their interventions, some of the attendees stressed that the statements and resolutions issued by the United Nations are insufficient, and they should be implemented and pressure to end the occupation.
Another side described the position of the United Nations as weak during the aggression of May 2021 and did not reach the level of condemnation, calling for the formation of other bodies along the lines of United for Peace to break the deadlock in the international system, praising the decision of the Human Rights Council to form a permanent investigation committee.
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