RAMALLAH, February 10, 2011 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas expected Thursday a meeting for the United Nations Security Council on Monday or as early as next week to discuss a resolution condemning Israeli settlements policies in the Palestinian Territory.
Abbas told the first meeting of Arab sports reporters held in Ramallah that “I believe the Security Council will meet on Monday or maybe the Arab countries will ask for a meeting next week to vote on a decision condemning Israeli settlements.”
He said, “We are going to the Security Council to denounce settlements, all settlement activities. We are using what (US) President (Barack) Obama and (US Secretary of State Hillary) Clinton have said about settlements and put them in the draft resolution. The Americans, however, are objecting and refuse it. This is strange. They say things they do not mean, and this is where the problem is going to be at the Security Council.”
Abbas added, “We are committed to international law and to reaching peace through negotiations as well as the right of the Palestinian people to popular resistance, like the ones in Bilin, Nilin and other Palestinian villages. These peaceful protests are done with the participation of a large number of Israeli peace supporters and volunteers from all over the world. It is a right of the Palestinian people, which we hold on to.”
He said, “Israel is determined to continue with settlement building in spite of the fact that we and the entire world, including the US and the majority in Israel, have asked to stop it. We are determined not to return to negotiations while settlements are being built. We are not asking for anything that did not come in international resolutions approved by the Security Council and the international community and which came in the road map and in Arab and Islamic conferences. Our rights are firm and known and they are that we want a state on the 1967 borders with a swap of small amount land equal in value and conditions, with Jerusalem as capital of the Palestinian state. We want what came in the Arab Peace Initiative regarding the refugee issue as per resolution 194. We will not accept anything less than this.”
President Abbas welcomed the Arab sports journalists telling them that “I will not be exaggerating or complementing you when I say that sports reporting showed more courage than political reporting. We always wanted our Arab brothers in the sports media to visit us. But the claim of normalization was always present and we used to tell them you are coming to see the prisoner and not the prison guard. Unfortunately, there are few visit and most of the reporters are still hesitant.”
He said, “I remember receiving two big delegations of journalists from Kuwait. We are proud of this and we hope the political reporter will have your courage and come to us. We need you. We need the Arab and international humanitarian voice to see what is going on here. You cannot know what is really going on in Palestine by just watching television or listening to the radio. You will know what is happening only if you come here and see with your own eyes what the Israeli occupation means. It is undoubtedly a brutal occupation and we have been under occupation for 62 years and this is the 63rd year. Yet, we are patient. We have the right and for this reason we are not going to leave this country and we will stay on our land until we build our independent state and Jerusalem as its capital.”
Abbas wished for the next meeting for sports journalists to be held in free and independent Palestine.
Muhammad Abdul Qadder, head of the Union of Arab Sports Journalists, said the meeting will be held every year in Palestine. He said the fifth Arab journalists’ festival may be held in Palestine in the year 2012.
M.A.
