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Palestine Calls for Security Council Vote on Observer Force
Palestine urged the UN Security Council on Wednesday to vote by next week for a draft resolution on the deployment of 2,000 U.N. observers to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem.
"The parties, after all that has happened, cannot put an end to this violence alone," said Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian observer to the United Nations, at a Security Council emergency meeting on the Middle East violence.
The meeting was held in response to a request from Libya, current chair of the United Nations Arab group.
However, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry, retorted that "an international force, whether of peacekeepers or observers, is not needed to stop the violence."
The violence between Israelis and Palestinians has been going on more than seven weeks, resulting in more than 250 deaths, mostly Palestinian.
Lancry repeated the Israeli view that, by calling for international observers, the Palestinians were "seeking to depart from the Oslo peace process" and from direct, bilateral negotiations.
The agreements had "provided a viable mechanism for the Palestinians to realize their goal of self-determination," Lancry said, adding that "98 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live under Palestinian rule."
The Oslo agreements, namely the "Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-government Arrangements," was hammered out in September 1933 by the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
But Nasser said the violence stemmed from Israeli occupation.
"If the occupying power is prepared to put an end to this occupation, all the ills would disappear," Nasser said. "Therein lies the remedy for them."
Palestinians Reiterate Call for UN Protection Force
Palestinian Permanent Observer to the United Nations Nasser Al-Kidwa reiterated November 17 the call to the Security Council for the urgent establishment of a UN protection force for the Palestinians.
This is the third time the Palestinians made the same call since late last month.
Palestinians Seeks Protection Force from UN
Palestinian UN Observer Nasser Al-Kidwa October 25 called on the United Nations Security Council to convene an urgent meeting and to send a UN force to protect Palestinians in the occupied territories.
In a letter to the Security Council, Al-Kidwa said it had "become very clear that Israel is ... persisting with its campaign of terror against the Palestinian people" in violation of the Fourth Convention on the protection of civilians in time of war.
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