Prime Minister Shtayyeh calls on the African Union summit to withdraw Israel’s observer status
Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh today called on the African Union (AU) to withdraw Israel’s observer status, stressing that accepting it as an observer in the AU will be an unmerited reward for its violations and for the apartheid regime it imposes on the Palestinian people.
Addressing the African Union summit meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Shtayyeh, representing President Mahmoud Abbas, said: “Our faith lies in your alignment with the principles of truth, freedom, peace, and justice. We are confident in your willingness to support the Palestinian people under Israel’s prolonged occupation. Israel should never be rewarded for its violations and for the apartheid regime it imposes on the Palestinian people. As an entity, Israel has progressed from a victim complex to paranoia, extremism, militarism and colonial expansion. This must stop.”
He added: “Based on your stated historical positions and your support for the Palestinian right, and per relevant decisions of the UN and previous African Union Assemblies, we call for the withdrawal and objection of Israel’s observer status at the African Union. We believe that granting Israel observer status in the African Union is an undeserved reward. This is actually a reward that encourages Israel to continue violating international treaties and breaching all agreements with us. With this reward, it gains impunity and unaccountability. I am confident in your inner wisdom and judgment.”
He called on the AU, instead, to condemn Israel for its crimes of persecution and apartheid against the Palestinian people.
“The African Union has constantly resisted colonialism and apartheid. It has continually rejected and condemned Israel’s discriminatory policies and practices. The time is right to condemn Israel for its crimes of persecution and apartheid. To end Israel’s colonial occupation and enable the Palestinian people to have their right to self-determination towards realizing the independence of the State of Palestine on the borders of 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. And to allow the return of Palestine refugees.”
Following is the full text of the Prime Minister’s address:
On behalf of His Excellency President Mahmoud Abbas, who sends you his warmest greetings and wishes you success at this distinguished Assembly, I am deeply honored to deliver the speech of the State of Palestine.
It gives me great pleasure to congratulate the Republic of Senegal and His Excellency President Macky Sall on assuming the presidency of the current session of the African Union. We wish him every success. We also extend our gratitude to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and President Felix Tshisekedi for the presidency of the previous African Union session.
This year’s Summit is being held under the increasingly important theme ‘Building resilience for food security and nutrition on the African continent: Accelerate the Human Capital, Social and Economic Development.’ Despite the many challenges the State of Palestine faces, our people assure you that we stand with you in achieving your priorities to the best of our abilities, expertise, and competencies.
In 2013, this auspicious body opened its arms to the Palestinian people and embraced the State of Palestine as an observer state within your assembly of states–a show of solidarity with us in our over seven-decade long struggle to liberate ourselves from the yoke of settler colonialism and military occupation. Of course, the people of the continent of Africa know only too well the devastation and dehumanization that are the hallmarks of colonialism and related systems of institutionalized racial segregation.
Mr. Chairperson
Your Excellences,
I am sorry to report to you that the situation of the Palestinian people has only grown more precarious. A few days ago, Amnesty International published a report confirming that Israel is not only guilty of denying Palestinians our human rights but that Israel is also committing the most grave of crimes, the crime of apartheid.
From the report, I quote: ‘Almost all of Israel’s civilian administration and military authorities, as well as governmental and quasi-governmental institutions, are involved in the enforcement of the system of apartheid against Palestinians across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territory and against Palestinian refugees and their descendants outside the territory. The patterns of proscribed acts perpetuated by Israel both inside Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian territory form part of a systematic as well as widespread attack directed against the Palestinian population, and that the inhuman or inhumane acts committed within the context of this attack have been committed with the intention to maintain this system and amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid under both the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute.’
Israel has created and is maintaining a system of oppression and domination of Palestinians through four main strategies:
– Deprivation of economic and social rights: Palestinians are deliberately impoverished to keep them at a considerable disadvantage compared to Jewish Israelis.
– Segregation and control: a system of policies and laws that confine Palestinians to enclaves where they are subject to several measures that control their lives and are segregated from Jewish Israelis.
– Dispossession of land and property: Decades of discriminatory land and property seizures, home demolitions and forced evictions.
– Fragmentation into domains of control: This system is rooted in keeping Palestinians apart into distinct territorial, legal, and administrative domains.
Mr. Chairperson,
Your Excellences,
Human Rights Watch last year also said the Israeli authorities had crossed the threshold by committing crimes of apartheid and persecution. Across the territories under its control, Israel has demonstrated intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians. In conjunction with that intention, Palestinians have been subjected to systematic oppression and inhumane treatment. Together, these three elements constitute apartheid.
When he was Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said in 2019: ‘Israel is not a state of all its citizens… [but rather] the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them.’
Currently, two million Palestinians live in Israel, three million Palestinians are under military occupation in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and two million Palestinians live in Gaza. Nearly seven million Palestinian refugees suffer from Israeli racist policies that deny them the right to return to their homeland.
Mr. Chairperson,
Your Excellences,
B’Tselem, an Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, asserted that Israel is an apartheid state. It concluded that ‘The Israeli regime enacts in all the territory it controls (inside the Green Line, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip) an apartheid regime. One organizing principle lies at the base of a wide array of Israeli policies: advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one group –Jews– over another –Palestinians.’
Based on these invulnerable facts documented by neutral parties, should Israel be rewarded for its adoption of apartheid, which targets the Palestinians with discrimination policies related to land, planning and housing, and hinders agricultural and industrial development for the Palestinians?
Should Israel be rewarded for deepening this fracture following its military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in 1967, which has led to the establishment of a military system and a separate legal and administrative system to govern the occupied territory and resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians?
Mr. Chairperson,
Your Excellences,
Israel, the occupying Power, should not be rewarded for its unlawful killings, torture, administrative detention, persecution, severe injuries inflicted upon the defenseless Palestinian people, and depriving them of their freedom.
Israel should not be rewarded for illegally constructing 280 colonial settlements in the West Bank inhabited by more than 700,000 Jewish settlers, neither for unilaterally annexing East Jerusalem and pursuing measures to continue to change the status and demographic composition of occupied Jerusalem.
Israel should not be rewarded for building the Annexation and Expansion Wall in the occupied West Bank, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice. Israel should not be rewarded for its crimes, including the ongoing siege, bombardment, killings, targeting civilians and destroying infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, in flagrant violation of international law.
Israel should not be rewarded for the imposition of movement restrictions, the closure and siege of the Gaza Strip, the confiscation of land, the creation of isolated and besieged enclaves “bantustans” in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, the forcible transfer and displacement of Palestinians, the violation of residency and civil rights, as well as depriving refugees of their rights.
Israel treats Palestinians as hewers of wood and drawers of water. This has to stop.
Mr. Chairperson,
Your Excellences,
Our faith lies in your alignment with the principles of truth, freedom, peace, and justice. We are confident in your willingness to support the Palestinian people under Israel’s prolonged occupation. Israel should never be rewarded for its violations and for the apartheid regime it imposes on the Palestinian people. As an entity, Israel has progressed from a victim complex to paranoia, extremism, militarism and colonial expansion. This must stop.
Excellences:
Based on your stated historical positions and your support for the Palestinian right, and per relevant decisions of the UN and previous African Union Assemblies, we call for the withdrawal and objection of Israel’s observer status at the African Union. We believe that granting Israel observer status in the African Union is an undeserved reward. This is actually a reward that encourages Israel to continue violating international treaties and breaching all agreements with us. With this reward, it gains impunity and unaccountability. I am confident in your inner wisdom and judgment.
The African Union has constantly resisted colonialism and apartheid. It has continually rejected and condemned Israel’s discriminatory policies and practices. The time is right to condemn Israel for its crimes of persecution and apartheid. To end Israel’s colonial occupation and enable the Palestinian people to have their right to self-determination towards realizing the independence of the State of Palestine on the borders of 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. And to allow the return of Palestine refugees.
Mr. President,
Your Excellences,
I stand before you today to reaffirm our position, vision, and peace initiative announced by H.E. President Mahmoud Abbas during his speech before the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September 2021. In his speech, the President called for the launching of political negotiations under the sole auspices of the Quartet based on international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative, leading to a just and comprehensive solution for the question of Palestine. To end Israel’s occupation of our land and people towards the embodiment of an independent State of Palestine on the borders of 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, within a specified time frame.
Let me close by wishing you a successful and fruitful summit. We hope that Africa, its countries and people will achieve their aspirations for prosperity based on comprehensive and sustainable growth, integration and political unity, good governance, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. We hope for a peaceful and secure Africa where development exists and is shaped by the abilities of women and youth, helping make Africa a strong and influential player in the international arena.
We wish the Republic of Ethiopia security and stability.
Long live Africa and its friendship with Palestine.
Source: Palestinian News & Information Agency