Arafat Stresses Right of Return, Palestinian Strategic Peace Option

News May 2003 Al-Jazeerah.info

17/05/2003
Palestine Media Center- (PMC)

In commemoration of the 55th anniversary of Nakba, the Palestinian memorial marked on May 15, President Yasser Arafat on Thursday stated that Palestine “is our country, to which every Palestinian refugee has the right to return.”

“On this day of mourning, the Israeli state was founded as a result of a colonial conspiracy and was established on Palestinian land whose residents were expelled and massacred,” said Arafat.

On May 15, 1948, Arafat said, “the state of Israel was created by the force of arms, by colonial conspiracy, on the rubble of our homeland Palestine, and our people were uprooted and displaced in their homeland and in exile” by massacres.

He reminded the world of the massacres perpetrated at Dair Yasin, Qibya, Nahalin among others, which were committed by Zionist paramilitaries and Israeli regular army since 1948.

President Arafat referred to the United Nations General Assembly’s resolution of 1947, which stipulated the creation of two states in Palestine.

“In 1947, the colonial powers in control of the United Nations then dictated the partition of our homeland Palestine into two states: an Arab Palestinian state and a Jewish Israeli state. However, the state of Palestine has not been created yet,” in spite of international legitimacy resolutions, he said.

In a speech broadcast by the Palestine National Authority (PNA)-run local TV channel, Arafat said that the Palestinian people will not “accept humiliation, Israeli colonialism and the Israeli aggression carried out against Palestinians and their holy sites.”

Israel must withdraw from all the land it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War and Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to their homes, he insisted.

“For the past 55 years, martyrs... have fallen for the sake of the homeland, freedom and the return of the refugees,” he said from his Israeli-besieged offices in the reoccupied West Bank city of Ramallah to mark “Nakba” day.

“Every Palestinian refugee knows that his identity will be restored to him only upon the return of his homeland, and he will not be submissive to a patron, ”President Arafat added.

He reminded his audience of the old Zionist propaganda denial of the existence of the Palestinian people.

“At the beginning they wondered where were the Palestinian people. Do they dare today to ask where are the Palestinian people? Who can say that the elders die and the younger forget their history? For all those who say that the Palestinians don’t exist, I say that we are still here,” Arafat stated.

Moreover, Arafat condemned what he termed, “the subjugation of the land and the holy places by the Israeli occupation,” and added that, “today, no one wonders where the Palestinian nation is.”

He called for the withdrawal of Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) from all the Palestinian land occupied in 1967, stressing that no peace and security can be achieved with the continued Israeli occupation and settlement.

“No peace will prevail without a complete Israeli withdrawal from all our Palestinian and Arab land, to the June 4, 1967 line. The illegal settlements, which steal our land, security and freedom must be removed, and the settlers must leave our Palestinian land. No peace will prevail and no security will last under occupation and settlement,” he added.

Furthermore, Arafat reiterated the Palestinian leadership’s commitment to peace as the “strategic choice of the Palestinian nation”, but accused the Israeli “rule by force” of delaying peace initiatives in the region.

“We announced that the option of peace, the peace of the brave we signed with our late partner Yitzhak Rabin, is our strategic option,” but Israel has consistently rejected the Palestinian option for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace, he added, citing the Israeli rejection of the internationally-adopted “roadmap” to peace in the Middle East as the latest example.

President Arafat concluded with an appeal to “our people and our Arab nation” to unite their ranks and urged the Palestinian people to respect “national discipline,” public order and social solidarity.

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