YouSaid · the spoken record

El-Ad

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16
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2018-10-18
most recent
2018-10-18
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1
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un-security-council

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  1. “Just a few days ago, the Minister ofDefence described actions that are nothing short of a forcible transfer as "moving a small group of people within a several-kilometre radius". He called on the Council to stop its "flagrant interference" in Israel's plans, as if the forcible transfer of Khan Al-Ahmar, a strategic step in Israel's dismantling project, is somehow an internal and domestic matter. The members of the Security Council have spoken, and they have received Israel's answer. Action must now follow.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  2. “As Israel tests the international community's resolve to see how far and how fast it can proceed, what might happen any day now in Khan Al-Ahmar will determine the fate of Palestinian communities all over the West Bank. So far, Israeli preparations to demolish Khan Al-Ahmar continue unabated. High- level international statements have had no impact - not even the united voice, as expressed on 20 September, of the five current European members of the Council, joined by former member Italy and future members Belgium and Germany. They have my sincerest thanks and deep appreciation for those statements. Without their efforts, I doubt if Khan Al-Ahmar would still be standing today. Yet, Israel has already answered their call by continuing with preparations for the demolition.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  3. “The rules-based international order will not defend itself, and the successful fragmentation of Palestine is detrimental to Palestinians and Israelis alike, as well as to international law and the values enshrined in it. It is the role of the Security Council and the delegations seated in this Chamber to oversee precisely that. The stakes are high. The Security Council must take action. In fact, it has already decided to do so, even ifin a very limited fashion. However, it is a matter of record that the Secretary-General has so far had little to report to the Council on the implementation of paragraph 5 of resolution 2334 (2016). Before closing, I would like to take us all back to Khan Al-Ahmar. The need for action there is acute and urgent.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  4. “That is why we reject the occupation. We reject it because the current reality is wholly and utterly incompatible with what is right and what is just. It is a reality wholly and utterly incompatible with a life of freedom and dignity for all 13 million people - Israelis and Palestinians alike - living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And that is the future we strive for. Even if it now seems far off, and receding ever further away, we can make that future a reality. Assertive international action can make it happen. It is the only viable non-violent option. The world must let Israel know that it will no longer stand idly by and that it will take action against the continued dismantling of the Palestinian people.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  5. “Therefore, I say to Prime Minister Netanyahu that he will never silence us or the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who reject a present founded on supremacy and oppression and stand for a future built on equality, freedom and human rights. I am not a traitor, nor am I a hero. The heroes are the Palestinians who endure the occupation with courage and perseverance, wake up in the middle of the night to find soldiers barging into their homes, know that if a loved one is killed, impunity is all but guaranteed to the perpetrators and stay on their land, knowing that it is only a matter of time before the bulldozers arrive. I am one of a team of some 40 committed Israelis and Palestinians. We do not focus on how many is the right number of States to achieve a solution. Instead, we focus on the realization of human rights.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  6. “Granted, neither analogy is a perfect fit but history does not offer us precision. It offers us a moral compass, which points towards rejecting Israel's oppression of Palestinians with the same unwavering conviction with which humankind's conscience rejected those other grand injustices. Israel, however, appears to be following a different compass. While doing so, it is also busy removing any obstacles that might keep it from its objective. Ongoing efforts to legislate against Israeli human rights organizations now go hand in hand with the routine in which opposition to the occupation is being equated with treason. The Israeli Government's statements ahead of today's Council meeting are just one more unfortunate example of the spirit of the times.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  7. “If one looks beyond the blinders of the process, it is clear to see how its supposedly yet to be negotiated outcome is, in reality, being dictated day in and day out by unilateral Israeli actions. The only thing being processed here is Palestine. Consider the following historical analogies. Voter suppression was a cornerstone of the American south, under Jim Crow laws. But we have done one better - delivering no less than voter obliteration. As the occupied Palestinians remain non-citizens, not only can they not vote but they have absolutely no representation in the Israeli institutions that govern their lives. I will take a look at the discriminatory planning mechanisms and the separate legal systems in the occupied territories. They are reminiscent of South Africa's grand apartheid.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  8. “Israeli institutions, in which Palestinians have no representation, move pieces of paper along a well-choreographed disassembly line. How do we legalize the demolition of that community? How do we whitewash yet another killing? How do we take over that plot of Palestinian land? With more than 50 years of experience, we have had plenty of time to perfect that well-oiled farce. We are now quite the experts at constructing a facade of legality, which has been very successful in allowing us not to have to deal with any real international consequences. None of those actions has anything to do with security, as Israel tries to argue. However, they affect the amorphous construct called the Middle East peace process.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  9. “As with Khan Al-Ahmar, Israel's High Court of Justice found Israeli policies vis-a-vis the Gaza Strip to be legal on a range of issues, from authorizing various aspects of the blockade to recently approving rules of engagement that allow Israeli snipers to continue firing from a distance at demonstrators inside Gaza. The only problem with all of that is that none of it is legal or moral or even remotely acceptable. Yet, as long as that methodical, relentless process does not trigger international outrage and international action, Israel can successfully continue to carry off that contradiction in terms - oppressing millions, while somehow still being considered a democracy. That, in a nutshell, is the pattern that the occupation follows.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  10. “Its inmates have been staging protests for the past six months, after suffering for more than a decade under an Israeli- imposed blockade that has led to economic collapse, soaring unemployment rates, polluted drinking water, dwindling power supplies and, ultimately, deep despair. Since 30 March, more than 5,000 Palestinians have been injured by live Israeli gunfire and more than 170 have been killed, including at least 31 minors. The youngest were just little boys. Majdi Al-Satari, Yasser Abu Al-Naja and Nasser Musabeh were just 11 years old when they were killed.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  11. “One is beside a garbage dump and the other is next to a wastewater treatment facility. Moreover, relocation would completely undermine the community's ability to make a living. Lastly, in its ruling, the High Court completely ignored the reality of the planning regime in the West Bank. The fact that the High Court approved the Government's decision does not make the demolition just or even legal. It only makes the justices complicit by proving that the action is nothing short of the war crime of the forcible transfer of protected people in an occupied territory. With a population of nearly 2 million, the Gaza Strip has essentially become an open-air prison.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  12. “But such claims are nothing short of distortions, carefully constructed by eager attorneys building on the unsound and unjust foundations of hollow legal formalisms. First, there is no argument that the homes were built without permission from the Israeli authorities. But that is the case not because Palestinians are inherently law- breakers, as some in Israel suggest; rather it is because they have no other alternative. It is almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits from the Israeli authorities because the Israeli-established planning regime in the West Bank is meant by design to serve settlers and dispossess Palestinians. Secondly, the Government failed to mention that the two relocation sites that it so generously offered leave something to be desired.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  13. “None of that is random. All of it is policy-driven. Two of the most recent and most conspicuous examples are Israel's conduct in the recent protests in Gaza and its plans for Khan Al-Ahmar, a Palestinian shepherding community. Some 200 people live in Khan Al-Ahmar, just a few kilometres east of Jerusalem, in an area where Israel has long endeavoured to minimize the Palestinian presence and expand settlements. Israel plans to raze the entire community, claiming that all its structures were built illegally. The Government further claims that it has generously offered to relocate the community, even going so far as to guarantee that it would foot the bill for the relocation site. Israel also contends that its actions are legitimate. The High Court of Justice had given its seal of approval, had it not?”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  14. “It is a calculated and deliberate process of slowly splitting up an entire people, while fragmenting their land and disrupting their lives, separating Gaza from the West Bank, breaking up the West Bank into small enclaves and walling off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. Eventually, what remains are isolated bits that are easier to oppress - a family slated for eviction in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan; a community, such as Urif, south of Nablus, trying against all odds to hold on to its land and farm it in the face of Israel's long arm of unchecked settler violence; and all of Area A of the West Bank, conveniently said to be under full Palestinian control, but, in fact, essentially comprising large bantustans, slowly but surely being hemmed in by an increasing number of new or expanding Israeli settlements.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  15. “Since I last spoke here, 317 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces and 13 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians. Israel has demolished 294 Palestinian homes and has continued making arrests on a daily basis, including of minors. Israeli settlers have vandalized and uprooted thousands of olive trees and grapevines. Israeli security forces have continued to regularly enter Palestinian houses, sometimes coming in the dead of the night to wake children, register their names and take their pictures. Palestinians have lost countless hours waiting at checkpoints with no explanation. And so, the routine of the occupation marches on. All of that is often referred to as the status quo. Yet, there is nothing static about that reality.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source

  16. “Mr. El-Ad: It is very difficult, if not impossible, to fully convey the indignity, the outrage and the pain of a people denied the benefit of human rights for more than 50 years. Here in this Chamber, it is hard to articulate the flesh-and-blood meaning of the exposed lives Palestinians endure under occupation. But no matter how hard it is to describe, the real hardship is that of facing such an intolerable existence day in and day out, trying to live, raise a family and develop a community under those conditions. It has been almost two years to the day since I last had the honour of speaking before the Council - two more years of occupation, two years in which the routine of the first 49 years of occupation continued.”

    2018-10-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.8375 (2018) · source