Press Releases

BADIL Resource Center
24 November 2003
For Immediate Release

Since 1977, the United Nations has observed 29 November* as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People to point out that the question of Palestine remains unresolved.

Is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict any closer in 2003?

In the past year there have been UN reports on housing, human rights and food supplies in the Occupied Territories. UNRWA called repeatedly for more support to carry out its education, health and social service programs for Palestinian refugees in Gaza, West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process regularly reported on the deteriorating economic situation in the Occupied Territories.

Settlements remain and grow. The “security” wall continues snaking its circuitous path through Palestinian land and Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank.

Peace proposals come and go, first greeted with great rapture and then seen as only shaky frameworks that omit human rights and in some cases even security council resolutions. They receive praise from UN and government officials.

A framework that lays out the basic agreement of the parties in conflict is necessary but more thought has to be given to the implementation process and the content of an agreement before too much praise is handed out. It is time to start filling in the blanks.

A number of peace agreements can show the way. Successful ones include specific provisions for human rights institutions and community participation in both developing and implementing a peace and reconciliation process.

BADIL has prepared a three-part analysis of recent agreements covering what they say about human rights, refugees and community participation.

The Day of Solidarity also focuses attention on the fact that Palestinians have yet to attain their inalienable rights as defined by the General Assembly: the right to self-determinations without external interference; the right to national independence and sovereignty; and the right to return to the homes and property from which they had been displaced.
 

*On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II) that provided for two states in Palestine: one Arab, one Jewish. The resolution has not been implemented.