Excerpts of the Speech delivered by President Yasser Arafat in his address to the Conference in Gaza on 15 March 1997.

The signing of the Hebron Protocol was an important event which could not have been so important if it hadn't been for the tremendous efforts made personally by US President Bill Clinton and his decision to send a senior delegation to attend the negotiations. Besides, the great efforts made by President Hosni Mubarak, King Hussein, the European Community, Russia, Norway and the United Nations.

We believed the peace process was back on track and as we started to gain hope we were surprised by the decisions of the Israeli government to judiaze the city of Jerusalem, to build new settlements and to enlarge the existing ones in an attempt to pre-empt the final status talks that are due to start in two days. Later followed the decision of the further re-deployment which was a shock for us. This decision came as a shock since the redeployment in Area B had been done by 28 December 1995 and as such the Israeli government had declared that it would re-deploy its troops in less than 2 percent of Area C. In this respect, I would like to state that 34 articles of the agreement are still pending and the Israeli government has not fulfilled them. Those infringements are related to dozens of outstanding issues that are yet to be implemented.

When we agreed to postpone issues of Jerusalem, borders, settlements and refugees until the final status negotiations, we also agreed that neither party should carry out unilateral steps that would affect those talks . The Agreements have stated that our Palestinian People in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza Strip would elect their leader and their representatives in the Palestinian Council. Then it was Israel that came and claimed that the measures it is taking in Jerusalem are part of its sovereign rights in Jerusalem . How can this be accepted?

The US letter of assurances, dated 18 October 1991, stressed that the issue of Jerusalem would be discussed in the final status talks and that Israel has no right to unilaterally take measures that would change the demographic status of the city and in the occupied Palestinian territories. The world has confronted Israel's annexation of Jerusalem as was stated in UN Resolutions 252 of 1986, 267 of 1969, 271 of 1969, 298 of 1971, 446 and 452 of 1979, 465, 471, 476 and 478 of 1980, 672 of 1990 and many other resolutions that were adopted by the UN General Assembly, including the resolution of two days ago.

The decision to build the new settlement in Jabal Abu Ghaneim is an old decision that was frozen by the government of Mr. Yitzhak Rabin and its successor, the government of Shimon Peres, because both of them realized how serious the implementation of such a decision would be too the peace process. Now Mr. Netanyahou comes to implement a plan to isolate Jerusalem from the West Bank and to sever the northern parts of the West Bank from the southern parts. We have plans and maps that indicates hotels are to be built in this area in preparations for Bethlehem 2000 events. Such a plan aims at replacing the town of Bethlehem with the new settlements.

The situation is very serious and all the settlement projects in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas as well as in the rest of the Palestinian lands are not but a plan very detrimental to the peace process. In this respect I would like to present to you what the government of Yitzhak Rabin had committed itself to with regard to the settlements. Those commitments have become an official decision of the Israeli cabinet which was rescinded by the Netanyahu government once he came to power:

• No to new settlements.
• No works to enlarge existing Jewish settlements.
• No government money will be funneled for settlement activities.
• Fences are to be setup at a distance of 50 meters way from the last house of every settlement (borders of the existing Jewish settlements).

Settlements and confiscation of lands have continued in an unprecedented pace not only in Jerusalem but also in Hebron, Behtlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Qalqilya, Tulkarem, Jenin, Jericho, Toubas, Salfit and even in the Gaza Strip.

We endeavor to save the peace process, to protect it and to put it back on track. To achieve this, terms of reference of the peace process and the signed agreements should be honored. Israel has tried to transfer negotiations into dictation in order to dedicate accomplished facts on the ground by means of settlement activities, land expropriation, by-pass roads, house demolition, transfer of population, confiscation of identity cards of our people in Jerusalem in a serious ethnic cleansing campaign.

The Israeli government has forgotten or pretended to forget, its commitment to safeguard the holy shrines in Christianity and Islam as well as the Palestinian Institutions operating in Jerusalem, according to the letter of Mr. Shimon Peres to late Norwegian Foreign Minister Yohan Holst. The Israeli Government has also ignored its commitments vis-a-vis the agreement on refugees. The differences on this issue have continued and there has not been any progress in the four-way committee talks of Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

I have called for this meeting to save the peace process. Responsibility in this respect is collective. We need to find a mechanism efficient to face Israel's refusal to fulfill what has been agreed upon. We seek your support and aid to find the mechanism which can guarantee the accurate implementation of the singed agreements, and a mechanism that would guarantee that neither party carries out unilateral steps that might affect or harm the final status agenda.

I would like to reiterate our commitment to peace. And in the same time I call upon the government of Israel to express equal commitment and to stop those unilateral measures that are liable to destroy the whole peace process.

As we stated before the peace and terrorism cannot go hand in hand, so do peace and settlements. They cannot go hand in glove. I call upon the government of Israel to rescind its settlement plans to stop manipulation of the agreements as it did with regard to the first phase of the further re-deployment. We have no choice but to adhere to reason, wisdom and courage as well as to the option of peace, based on comprehensivness, durability and justice.

I again call for your assistance and support to protect the peace process and to put it back on track, far from the language of arrogance, de-facto policy or sense of superiority. Our people suffer from closure, siege and intransigence in not opening the safe passage between the West Bank and Gaza, or in opening the airport or the Gaza port.

The responsibility is collective and joint. Out of this conference, we should walk towards new horizons in order to safeguard a new future, clear of violence, suppression and bloodshed, not only for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples but to the peoples of the whole region.