Address by H.E. President Yasser Arafat to the International Solidarity

Meeting Held in Pretoria,South Africa

November 29^th 1999

H.E. Mr. President Thabo Mbeki

Excellencies

Ladies and Gentlemen

Allow me, while you are celebrating this international Day of Solidarity with our Palestinian people in the friendly Republic of South Africa, to convey, from the blessed land of Palestine, my best wishes and thanks to H.E. President Mbeki for his patronage on this occasion. This is a reflection of the deep ties of friendship and solidarity connecting my country, Palestine, to your dear country, South Africa, to its leadership, its government and its people. These ties were forged on the path of Liberation, in the course of half-a-century of struggle for Freedom and Independence, for the recovery of the Land and the restoration of human dignity.

Mr. President,Ladies and Gentlemen,

Your celebration of this International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, taking place on the 29th of November, bears particular significance in this critical period of time. Two weeks ago, on November 15th, we celebrated the eleventh anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, and our Palestinian People is totally determined to recover its occupied land, and exercise its national sovereignty on its national soil, in the independent State of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its Capital. This determination is founded on the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to freedom and independence, on the basis of international legality as well as of the agreements signed with Israel. The Independence of the State of Palestine was proclaimed, on November 15th, 1988, in brotherly Algeria, and was welcome and recognized at the time by most brother and friendly countries. It embodied both the free will of our people and their great sacrifices, and the desire to conform to the will of the international community, on the basis of the resolutions of international legality, which warrant them the right to Self-Determination, to Return of Refugees and to the establishment of their sovereign state on the soil of their homeland, with Holy jerusalem as its capital.

Our Palestinian people are today confronting a crucial and critical stage. We are, more than ever, in need of the support of our friends and of all the lovers of freedom, justice, peace and democracy throughout the world, and of their active solidarity. The Palestinian people are in great need of all the possible forms of support in order to exercise their sacred and inalienable right to Self-Determination on their land, as well as the right of Return of Palestinian Refugees to their homeland, in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194. We hope this will occur, in an atmosphere of mutual understanding, trust, cooperation and respect. We hope to achieve a just peace, the Peace of the Brave, and that it will be supported and strengthened throughout the region. We hope it will realize justice, freedom and independence for our Palestinian people, as well as security, coexistence and cooperation for all the peoples of the region, including Israel.

Mr President, Ladies and gentlemen

The Peace-process and negotiations between us and Israel have resumed after three and a half years of stagnation and continued settlement activities, and the almost total destruction of that which had been achieved on the path of peace with our late partner-in-peace Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by the treacherous hand of settlers and their supporters in Israel. We hope that the resumption of these negotiations, both on the level of the interim agreements, the implementation of which had been thwarted by the previous Israeli government, and on the level of final status negotiations, will provide for a serious and genuine beginning, so that we can achieve a true and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis, and guarantee security for all. A suitable environment and the restoration of confidence between the two parties, however, requires the honest, accurate and full implementation of the agreements already signed. Settlement activities, however, constitute an aggression, as well as a time-bomb threatening to destroy the peace-process at any time. They must be decisively and definitively stopped. There can be no coexistence between settlement colonization and peace, because the former constitutes a flagrant aggression in the context of military occupation and reflects an expansionist mentality, while peace requires the recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, a commitment to implement the resolutions of international legality, in word and in spirit, and the materialization of the principle of Land for Peace. A true, lasting and comprehensive peace will not be achieved without the implementation of the international legal resolutions demanding that Israel withdraw from all Palestinian and Arab territories occupied in June 1967.

Implementation of the interim agreements, fulfillment of the obligations contained therein, and the unfolding of final status negotiations on complex and crucial issues demand sincere efforts. In that context, we look forward to your support and assistance, in order to promote and strengthen the just Palestinian stand, which relies upon the resolutions of the international community and upon international Law. We are entering these negotiations upholding our firm national position, recalling the inalienable rights of our people, and relying upon the terms of reference of the Peace-process: UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 and 425, and the principle of Land for Peace, as well as upon General Assembly Resolution 194, which outlines the international consensus on the solution of the Palestine refugee problem. We also rely upon the signed agreements, the need to implement all the unapplied and suspended clauses and obligations, and the need to achieve progress on all other Arab tracks, particularly the Syrian and the Lebanese tracks of negotiations.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

We strongly reject all unilateral actions and demand their immediate halting, because they affect final status issues now on the table of negotiations: unilateral acts such as the construction and expansion of settlements are overt attempts to draw and determine, unilaterally, the map of the permanent solution. Settlement colonization is not only contradictory and destructive for the peace process; it also contravenes the resolutions of the international community and international Law, particularly the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949. Peace and Settlements are incompatible, and can never meet. We reject the judaization of Holy Jerusalem, the attempts to isolate it from its surrounding, as well as the attempt to encircle, isolate and separate the city of Bethlehem from Jerusalem and other Palestinian areas.

Our Palestinian people are confident in the justice of their cause, in the support and solidarity of all brothers and friends, and in the determination of all those concerned to ensure the success of the peace process. This is why the reaffirmation and manifestation of your solidarity and support, at this particular juncture, reinforces the steadfastness of our people, its support for our just position, and its devoted efforts to establish a just, comprehensive and durable peace in the region; a lasting, firmly established and consolidated peace based on fairness, equity, mutual respect, coexistence and creative cooperation. Peace that will ensure security, stability and progress for all the states and peoples of the area, and guarantee freedom and independence for our Palestinian people. A Peace that will overcome all the suffering, pain and frustrations of the past, and will open a new era of coexistence and cooperation in the region as a whole. A peace marked by hope, security, and the aspiration to a better future for all our children.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I renew my greetings and my deep appreciation to the friendly Republic of South Africa, to its President, its government and its people, for their consistent and remarkable support to our cause. I renew our invitation, extended to all of you, to come to the city of Bethlehem, and participate, together with our people, in the celebration of the great historical and religious event, when the whole world and all our friends will commemorate with us the 2000th anniversary of the birth of the Messenger of Love and Peace, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Peace be upon Him.

Peace Be Unto You.