Statement by

H. E. Dr. Javad Zarif

Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran

before the Security Council

on the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question

New York, 23 September 2002

…………………………………

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Mr. President;

I am pleased to see you presiding over the Council this month and would like to thank you for having convened this public meeting on the grave situation in the Palestinian territories.

Mr. President;

While the overall repression of the Palestinians in the occupied territories has continued unabated, the recent onslaught by the Israelis against the compound of President Arafat in Ramallah is deliberately designed to further deteriorate the situation. Flattening all buildings in the compound – with the only exception of a wing of the office building, digging a deep trench, running coils of barbed wire and placing explosives, tanks and bulldozers around the main building attest to the expansionist designs of the Israelis.

The closure of the East Jerusalem offices of the president of Al Quds University by the Israeli police, the tightening of curfews on several Palestinian towns and mounting raids in Tulkarm and in several parts of the Gaza Strip are among other recent repressive measures, which followed the raid on the compound.

Mr. President;

By launching a new round of violence, and making an issue of the Palestinians in the compound, Mr. Sharon seeks to sabotage any effort to develop a road-map for establishing a Palestinian state. In the past several weeks of relative calm in the occupied areas, the Israelis never stopped their campaign. They kept up their attacks, including bombing a Palestinian school. Tight Closures and curfew regulations continued unabated. Settlement building activities went ceaselessly. In other words, the Israelis were deliberately seeking to provoke a response, and thereby finding a new excuse to derail any efforts that might lead one day to the restoration of the Palestinian national rights.

Throughout the ongoing conflict, Mr. Sharon has demonstrated that he continues to have his long standing agenda and spares no efforts and misses no opportunities to push ahead with it. This agenda seeks to squash the Palestinians and to conquer them completely. The basic strategy the said agenda is predicated upon is to make the Palestinians capitulate fully and have them renounce their basic legitimate national rights. The ongoing siege of President Arafat’s compound and what preceded it in the past several weeks confirm once again the view maintaining that he does not believe in a negotiated settlement. Nor did his predecessors really believe in the peace process, as they ceaselessly expanded settlement building activity on the very lands they ostensibly negotiated to withdraw from.

Mr. President,

In the midst of tragic events taking place in the course of this ongoing conflict, the international community must contemplate on the reasons that prompt Palestinian teenagers and youngsters, who normally should see a bright future ahead, to sacrifice their lives. It should be borne in mind that the exceptionality of the response demonstrates the exceptionally ruthless crimes committed against the Palestinian people over a very long period of time - crimes that by any measure are unprecedented even in comparison with similar instances in the colonial era.

Mr. President;

Israel continues to flout all provisions of international law, including the fourth Geneva Convention, particularly those banning indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force as well as the humiliating treatment of a civilian population. It is also adamant in showing contempt for the recent resolutions of the Council, which stipulate its withdrawal from the reoccupied lands. We believe that the Security Council should not stand idly by and let its authority erode.

It is time for the Council to act more resolutely and demand full compliance with its resolutions. It is very unfortunate that those who sometimes stretch Council's resolutions to advance their interests, have no hesitation in flouting the letter and spirit of clear-cut resolutions on the Palestinian question. There is no doubt that selective enforcement of the Council's resolutions has an adverse impact on the authority of the Council, thereby undermining the over-all international security system.

It is also time for the Council to seriously consider the establishment of an international force to provide basic protection for the defenseless Palestinian civilians.

Thank you Mr. President.