The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination in a sovereign state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital, also known as the 1967 borders, has been universally recognized by the international community. For two decades, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has undertaken to achieve these national aspirations peacefully through negotiations with Israel. However, Israel’s refusal to halt illegal settlement activity is endangering the viability of the two-state solution, an independent, viable Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. As a result, Palestine will request UN membership as a state, a move that Canada rejects.
Palestine meets the legal criteria for statehood which, defined by the Montevideo Convention of 1933, should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. The fact that it has yet to establish effective control over all of its territory is a result of the continuation of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the continued siege over the Gaza Strip. The 1967 border is consistent with UN Security Council Resolution 242, a resolution Canada voted in favor of in 1967, which asserted that any attempt by Israel to acquire Palestinian territory by force is inadmissible and demanded Israel to withdraw from the territory it occupies.
According to Article 31 of the Interim Agreement, signed between the PLO and Israel in 1995, “neither side shall take any (unilateral) steps that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.” Since then, Israel has violated this article by continuing to build Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, thus artificially altering the status of the occupied Palestinian territories, both physically and demographically, to prevent its return to Palestinians. B’tselem, an Israeli human rights group, reports that the settler population in the occupied territories has increased to over 500,000 settlers. It also says that Israeli authorities routinely overlook settler violence against Palestinian citizens and property.
According to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the transfer by the occupying power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies is prohibited. Israel’s settlement policy and practices in the occupied Palestinian territories, have been determined by the UN Security Council to have “a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
The PLO signed the Oslo Accords in 1993 with the understanding that a sovereign Palestinian state would gain independence after a five year transition period. Article I of the Accords states “The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian self-governing authority for a transitional period not exceeding five years, … leading to a permanent solution based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338”. However, almost 20 years have passed and Israel continues to expand Israeli settlements on land meant to form the basis for the Palestinian state. In fact, Palestinians face land confiscations and home evictions are at a greater rate today than they did before the peace process began in 1993.
Israel continues to state that neighboring countries aim to destroy it, these claims are contradictory to the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, first proposed by King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, and agreed to by all Arab and Islamic states, which declares that if Israel abides by its obligations under international law of withdrawing from the 1967 borders and agree to a just solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees under UN General Assembly resolution 194, over 50 Arab and Muslim countries will establish full relations with Israel and consider the conflict ended. However, Israel continues to ignore this golden chance of peace with its neighbors.
The Palestinian bid for membership at the UN this September is not meant to isolate Israel, rather it is meant to isolate Israel’s policies and to revive the two-state solution. Israel has accused the Palestinians of taking a unilateral step by going to the UN. How is going to 193 countries, to the most multilateral place on earth, a unilateral step? So I ask Canada, given all these facts, why will you vote against Palestinian membership at the UN?
— Ammar Abbas,
