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STORY: UN / MIDDLE EAST
TRT: 04:10
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ARABIC / ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 20 JUNE 2017, NEW YORK CITY
RECENT - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UNHQ exterior
20 JUNE 2017, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Nikolay Mladenov, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, United Nations:
“Achieving a negotiated two-state outcome is the only way to lay the foundations for enduring peace that is based on Israeli security needs and the Palestinian right to statehood and sovereignty. Now is not the time to give up on this goal. Now is the time to create the conditions for a return to negotiations to resolve all final status issues on the basis of relevant UN resolutions, mutual agreements and international law.”
4. Wide shot, Security Council
5. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, Secretary-General, League of Arab States:
“Israel is in a state of constant violation of the United Nations Charter and the principals of international law; therefore it lacks the basic requirements to join the Security Council. Accepting it as a member of this Council would represent a blow to the core of its legitimacy.”
6. Med shot, Michael Doran
7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, Secretary-General, League of Arab States:
“Mr. President, the passing of 50 years on the occupation on Arab lands is a painful memory for every Arab. The time has come to end the nightmare of occupation which weighs heavily on the chests and was an essential reason for the growth of violence, radicalization, and terrorism all over the region.”
8. Med shot, Israeli delegation
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Doran, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute:
“Iran, the Assad regime, and Hezbollah have exploited the fixation of the international community on Israel to deflect attention from their wider regional aspirations, aspirations which they are pursuing with particularly murderous consequences in Syria today. More people have died in Syria at their hands in the last six years than have died on both sides in the Arab-Zionist conflict from its inception in the 1920s until today.”
10. Med shot, Palestinian delegation
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Lakhdar Brahimi, Member, The Elders:
“The not-so-discreet contacts of the Israeli Government with some countries in the region cannot be a substitute for peace with the Palestinians. Only a genuine, just solution to the Palestinian problem will open the way to lasting peace and cooperation between Israel and all its neighbours.”
12. Med shot, Ahmed Aboul-Gheit
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Lakhdar Brahimi, Member, The Elders:
“Israeli politicians, Mr. President, of the left and of the right, the media and civil society routinely speak of the danger of Apartheid. Some warn that their country may become an apartheid state; others denounce practices that are already creating an apartheid system. Be that as it may, Palestinians have rights; they have individual rights like all human beings and they have collective rights like any other people in the world. And they have the right to fight for their rights with all the legitimate means available to them.”
14. Wide shot, Security Council
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Nikki Haley, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations:
“Imagine, children playing in their schoolyard while Hamas moved explosives underneath their feet. Imagine children trying to learn, while a few feet below terrorists might have been crawling towards Israel. All of this happening under a building flying the flag of the United Nations, it’s an outrage.”
16. Wide shot, Palestinian delegation
17. SOUNDBITE (English) Nikki Haley, Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations:
“If you see the terrorist activity that is happening in that area right now, you would understand that every ounce of what we say in the Council, pitting the two sides against each other, is only strengthening the terrorists. Every ounce of what we do should be against Hamas. They are a dangerous actor who have no care for the Palestinians, no care for the Israelis, and they are determined to destroy everything in their path.”
18. Zoom out, Security Council
The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process said, after 50 years of Israeli occupation, achieving a negotiated two-state solution “is the only way to lay the foundations for enduring peace” adding that now “is not the time to give up on this goal.”
Briefing the Security Council today (20 Jun) on the implementation of Resolution 2334, Nickolay Mladenov said Israel had taken no steps in the past 3 months cease settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, as stated in the resolution. He added that since 24 March there has been substantial increase in settlement-related announcements as compared with the previous reporting period, with plans for nearly 4,000 housing units moving forward and 2,000 tenders issued. He said the policy of continued illegal settlement construction undermine the chances for the establishment of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution.
Mladenov stressed the urgency of addressing the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and called on Palestinian leaders to reach the necessary compromises that will return Gaza to the control of the legitimate authorities. He also said the continuing of terror attacks, violence, and incitement in the conflict remain a very serious concern. He called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to shoulder their responsibility in implementing measures that demonstrate their commitment to combatting violence and any acts of provocation and inflammatory rhetoric.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said 50 years after the occupation of the remaining 22 percent of Palestine under British mandate, Palestinians see no place to create their independent State. He said Arab countries, through the Arab peace initiative of 2002, called on Israel to withdraw from occupied lands in return for normal peaceful relations with its neighbours, but Israel has not recognized this initiative and only puts forth one alternative, the continuation of the occupation. Aboul-Gheit said the alternative Israel seeks would make a Palestinian government that is no more than a municipal authority under Israeli sovereignty.
He added that the peace agreements between Israel and each of Egypt and Jordan provided some hope that peace was not impossible, but stressed that any negotiations that does not resolve the occupation would fail. The Secretary-General said the “time has come to end the nightmare of occupation which weighs heavily on the chests and was an essential reason for the growth of violence, radicalization, and terrorism all over the region.”
Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute said the factors that prompted Israel to take control of the West Bank in 1967 persisted today. He said Iran aspires to be the leading power in the Middle East, a goal that it pursues in multiple theatres simultaneously, including the Arab-Israeli arena, where it openly advocates the destruction of Israel. Doran noted that the Security Council should work to advance Israel-Palestinian relations but it must avoid policies that work to the advantage of Iran and its proxies, or that allow the Palestinians to escape direct negotiations with Israel.
He stressed, “Iran, the Assad regime, and Hezbollah have exploited the fixation of the international community on Israel to deflect attention from their wider regional aspirations, aspirations which they are pursuing with particularly murderous consequences in Syria today.” He added that if Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were to sign a peace agreement tomorrow, neither Syria nor Iran would honour it. Doran said any withdrawal from the West Bank must come with strong guarantees to Israeli security. He said Israel was already aware that in a very short period of time they might find themselves peering across the Golan Heights at Iranian soldiers ensconced in Syria and asked how the world could ask them to take steps that could potentially lead to the Iranian penetration of the West Bank as well.
The Elders member Lakhdar Brahimi said their founder Nelson Mandela made Palestine one of three priorities for the group. Brahimi quoted an article by Nathan Thrall recently published in the New York Times in which he says the occupation has stood on three pillars, American support, Palestinian weakness and Israeli indifference; “together, these three insure that for the Israeli Government, continuing its occupation is far less costly than the concessions required to end it.”
He said a fourth pillar sustaining this situation is implied in the article and that is the near total paralysis of the United Nations Security Council. He said the “not-so-discreet contacts of the Israeli Government with some countries in the region cannot be a substitute for peace with the Palestinians” adding that only a “genuine, just solution to the Palestinian problem will open the way to lasting peace and cooperation between Israel and all its neighbours.”
Brahimi mentioned that Israeli politicians, the media outlets, and civil society, from the left and the right, “routinely speak of the danger of Apartheid” adding that some warn that their country may become an apartheid state while others denounce “practices that are already creating an apartheid system.” He stressed that Palestinian have “individual rights like all human beings and they have collective rights like any other people in the world; and they have the right to fight for their rights with all the legitimate means available to them.”
US ambassador Nikki Haley said Hamas was a force of terror that showed its true colours earlier this month when UN officials discovered a tunnel under two schools run by the UN in Gaza. She said the existence of this tunnel was not a surprise as Hamas regularly uses tunnels to hide military infrastructure in populated areas. She said what is happening to the people of Gaza was heart-breaking and preventable. She said Gaza is “prime real estate on the Mediterranean Sea with enormous potential which is being squandered by the “terrorists who govern it.” She said Israel did not cause the problems in Gaza as every Israel solider and settler was withdrawn from Gaza ten years ago.
She added that ten years after Hamas’s rule over Gaza, life in the Strip is worse than ever before. Haley called on the Security Council to adopt a resolution designating Hamas as a terrorist organization and providing consequences for anyone who supports it. She stressed that the Security Council must show Hamas that their terrorist tactics will only lead to more isolation. Haley said she saw the threats Israel faces at “every border” in her recent visit to the region.
She said, “If you see the terrorist activity that is happening in that area right now, you would understand that every ounce of what we say in the Council, pitting the two sides against each other, is only strengthening the terrorists; every ounce of what we do should be against Hamas.” She added that Hamas was a “dangerous actor who have no care for the Palestinians, no care for the Israelis, and they are determined to destroy everything in their path.”
