NEW YORK (United Nations) – Friday, 27 October 2023 (APS) – Algeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Community Abroad, Ahmed Attaf, said Thursday from New York that dangerous developments in the occupied Palestinian territories call for collective action involving all active and influential international players to bring about a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on the references of international legality, reiterating Algeria’s request to grant the brotherly state of Palestine full membership of the UN.
In his address to the 10th emergency special session of the UN General Assembly, devoted to the Palestinian cause, Attaf expressed the gratitude of the Algerian delegation for the favourable response to the joint request of the two Arab and Muslim groups on the organization of this emergency special session, after “the failure of the Security Council to rise to the rank of guarantor of the UN Charter and international peace and security.”
Attaf deplored the Security Council’s failure to protect the Palestinian people, stressing that “we are, today, before this august, unifying UN body to make up for the Security Council’s inability to guarantee the necessary protection to the Palestinian people and to put an end to the successive misfortunes befalling the tried, weeping and battered Gaza Strip”, he said.
“Once again, we call on the General Assembly, since the Security Council is paralyzed, preventing it from fulfilling its responsibilities and obligations towards the Palestinian cause,” and from countering the Zionist occupier so that “it ceases its tyranny and oppression of the innocent in Palestine, particularly in Gaza,” the FM assured.
Once again, we rely on the General Assembly to do justice to the Palestinian people and to defend their just cause, but also to call for respect for the legitimacy of their aspirations to a sovereign nation-state,” continued Attaf.
“This people, who have been oppressed by the Zionist occupier, must be brought to justice. This people whose rights have been stolen, but not their determination to remain resistant…this people whose property has been confiscated, but who have always been able to assert themselves…this people whose demands have been silenced, but who remain determined to defend their inalienable national project,” said the FM.
This position “has become habitual for us, as it has already been repeated dozens of times over the last seven decades, like a vicious circle from which there is no escape, despite its incidences and incessant harmful impact”, asserted Attaf, warning against the relationship of cause and effect, in the sense that “the impunity enjoyed by the Zionist occupier gives rise to the most hideous forms of crime.”
In this regard, he recalled that “a whole generation of Palestinians has not known the meaning of the peace process (…), has not seen any serious peace initiative to relaunch this process, and has not witnessed any international action to address their situation, nor of their legitimate aspirations to recover their freedom and end the occupation of their land in order to establish their independent state.”
Algeria reiterates its call for the State of Palestine to become a full member of the UN
For Attaf, “the absence of a just and definitive settlement of the Palestinian cause mortgages the present and the future of peace, security and stability in this geographical area and in the entire region,” asserting that “the Palestinian people are fed up with the variable geometry policy, with the unjustified and unlimited complacency greatly enjoyed by the occupation, and with the inertia of the international community in the face of the oppression, injustice and tyranny they suffer.”
“Isn’t it time to address this situation, which dishonours the values and principles of our organizations? Isn’t it time to put an end to this historic injustice against a people who have reached the limits of their patience, in the face of a barbaric, tyrannical and sclerotic occupier? Shouldn’t we launch an international drive for peace, one that will once again rekindle the glimmer of hope within the Palestinian people, and guarantee their inalienable and imprescriptible national rights in all honesty, sincerity and seriousness?” said the top diplomat.
According to Attaf, dealing with the dangerous developments in the occupied Palestinian territories, with all that this implies in terms of urgent action to stop the barbaric Zionist war on the Gaza Strip, come to the aid of the Palestinian people and guarantee them international protection, “must lead to collective action involving all influential and active international parties, to build a just and viable peace in the Middle East, based on the resolutions of international legality.”