Addressing the world on the National Day of rage against the Wall of Annexation and Expansion, President Yasser Arafat said Monday that peace and security can never prevail between the Palestinian people and the Israelis because of" this Racial Segregation Wall."
In a live address from his besieged headquarters in Ramallah, Arafat described the wall as "unprecedented human tragedy" and the climax of the1948 Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe ), when the Israeli state was created on the debris of Palestinian cities and villages.
President Arafat also called upon the Israeli pro- peace forces to "reject and prevent" the Wall for the sake of a just, permanent and comprehensive peace between the two peoples and for a bright future for Palestinian and Israeli children.
He also affirmed that the Wall hinders the peace efforts including the implementation of the Road Map peace plan.
President Arafat also stressed that the "Wall of Annexation, Expansion and Racial Discrimination aims at swallowing 58% of the Palestinian West Bank territory", and turning them into ghettoes .
The full text of the address:


In the name of God, most compassionate, most merciful.
Masses of our Palestinian people steadfast in the homeland and in the diaspora, Supporters of peace, security and the Palestinian-Israeli coexistence, International Solidarity and popular protection forces against the wall of Annexation and expansion, On this historic day, our Palestinian people supported by all honorable people the world over, look forward to listen to the voice of international law and to the sound of the humanist voice of justice, the voice of international legality. On this historic day, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) convenes at the City of Den Hague in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution in order to give its opinion on the issue of building the wall of annexation, expansion and racial discrimination being built by the Government of Israel on our Palestinian land. This wall of annexation, expansion and racial discrimination aims at swallowing 58% of the Palestinian West Bank territory and transforms our lands and cities into isolated Palestinians and ghettoes, controlled by the colonialist settlements established by the Israeli occupation, by force and contrary to the law, on our land and by aggression against our land as well as against our Christian and Islamic holy places. The aim is to deprive our people from their land, and to prevent us from establishing our Palestinian state, with Holy Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with the resolutions of international legality and the agreements signed by and with us. It also aims at obstructing the immediate implementation of the Road Map and the Saudi initiative, which was adopted at the Arab Summit in Beirut, as well as the vision of President Bush and the Quartet Committee for the establishment of the Palestinian state.
On this international day, the day on which the ICJ convenes, it is important that the world see the volume of this unprecedented human tragedy that befell our Palestinian people as a result of this occupation and aggression, especially following the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) that befell our people, upon which millions of Palestinians were expelled outside their homeland, where they live as refugees in the refugee camps of the diaspora in tragic conditions in all parts of the world, deprived of their right of return as stipulated by UNGA Resolution 194.
The climax of this tragedy, is the establishment of this wall of expansion, occupation, settlement and racism, which has transformed our cities, towns, villages and refugee camps into prisons and camps of collective detention. By what law and by what right are our people deprived of their land and imprisoned in the ghettoes established by the Government of Israel? At the same time, Israel's occupation army in collusion with the settlers, practice all forms of terror, aggression and killing against our people and land. They have destroyed all our infrastructures and bulldozed our agricultural lands, farms and houses. They have seized by force our underwater aquifers, sequester our tax- and customs- money for more than three years so far. Yet, our people, our giant and great people, are steadfast and patient despite these daily crimes committed against them by the Israeli occupation forces, by their tanks, cannons, missiles, planes and their internationally prohibited weapons, and despite these inhuman and tragic conditions, which have not been experienced by any other people before, the world over.
Our Palestinian people, who are steadfast and resilient in their homeland, in the land of their fathers and forefathers, declare today to the whole world, that the wall of annexation, expansion and racial discrimination has transformed our cities into collective detention centers and prisons and that it has confiscated our lands, uprooted our trees, destroyed our official and popular institutions and jeopardized our Christian and Islamic holy places, so much so that this wall is built around Holy Jerusalem, -- where has the Berlin Wall gone?-- and separates it from the place of nativity of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him. In addition it prevents the Palestinians from visiting the holy places in Holy Jerusalem, the first of the two qiblas and the third among the three holy mosques, the place of the nocturnal journey of our prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and the place of ascension of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, as well as preventing them from going to the holy Al Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. . The aim of the wall is to prevent our people from establishing their independent Palestinian state, with holy Jerusalem as its capital, and to live side by side, with the state of Israel, -- as we have agreed -- in security and peace, based on the agreement of the peace of the brave, which we have signed with my late partner Yitzhak Rabin who was assassinated by these extremist forces in Israel. Therefore, our people reject this wall of expansion and settlement. Security and peace can never prevail between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, indeed in the whole region, under the umbrella of this wall of annexation, expansion, settlement and racial discrimination. The Palestinian and Israeli peoples and the whole region, are in dire need of bridges of coexistence and cooperation and not of walls of separation, as has been underlined by HH Pope John II on more than one occasion, and the International Red Cross and Crescent Societies, and as has been emphasize by the United Nations General Assembly, the international committee of human rights, the US Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Israeli Betselem for Human Rights, the Arab Summit, the World Council of Churches, the Islamic Summits, the Non-Aligned Summits, the African, Asian, and Latin American states, the peace forces in Israel, all friends and honorable and freedom-loving people the world over, and by the Quartet Committee. We call upon our Palestinian people, on this day, the International Day, to make their voices heard against the wall of annexation and expansion, by the ICJ and all the states and people the world over. We call upon the Israeli people, especially its forces of peace, to reject and prevent this wall of settlement expansionism, for the sake of a just, permanent and comprehensive peace between the two Palestinian and Israeli peoples as well as the whole region, in accordance with the resolutions of international legality and with UNSC Resolutions 242 ,338, 425 and 1397 and the other related resolutions which were not respected by the Government of Israel that rules Israel now with its extremist forces, as was the road map not respected on which Israel declared 14 reservations which in themselves are more than the road map itself. From here, we call upon the peace forces, international and local, as well as upon the international popular protection forces, which stand on the side of our steadfast people in the land of steadfastness, against the wall of expansion, to act on the ground, in the capitals of the world and in Den Hague, in order to underline to world public opinion, the tragic racist reality of this wall of racism, that is being built by the Government of Israel on our Palestinian land, in order to perpetuate Israel's occupation and settlement, its flagrant and challenging rejection of the two-state solution, the Road Map and of all resolutions of international legality, which call for peace, security and coexistence between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples as well as the Arab states and the whole region. We are hopeful and confident that the ICJ will stand on the side of right and justice, international legality and human rights. The ICJ has today the opportunity to consolidate the legal basis of international legality, and to open the gate of hope and peace and to build the bridges of friendship and cooperation, as a solid alternative to the wall of annexation, expansion and racial discrimination, for the sake and in the interest of the two Palestinian and Israeli peoples, for a bright future for our children and for their children, as well as for the whole region, far away from racial discrimination, rancor and hate in the land of peace, the land of the messengers of God and of religions, in Palestine, the sacred place for the whole world. Peace and the mercy of God be with you all.