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Senior UN official calls last 10 years "lost decade" for Israeli-Palestinian peace-making

Xinhua, November 30, 2016 Adjust font size:

The United Nations marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People at its headquarters in New York on Tuesday, and a senior UN official said that the last 10 years was "a lost decade" for making peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, who spoke at a special meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, said that sadly, in many ways the last 10 years can be described as a lost decade for Israeli-Palestinian peace-making.

If the stalemate continues or deepens, he warned, the two-state solution may well slip out of reach.

The deputy UN chief said that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will leave office by the end of this year "with a profound sense of sadness," since he did not see an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The secretary-general has visited the region 11 times, including during times of war, to see the situation first hand, help negotiate ceasefires and push the peace process forward.

The secretary-general will cover this issue and his persistent efforts at peacemaking in a special report to the Security Council later next month.

On Tuesday evening, the committee and the Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine will hold the opening of this year's exhibit, "Palestinian Embroidery: Threads of Continuity, Identity and Empowerment," in the Visitors Lobby of the UN General Assembly, where it will be on view for the public until Dec. 28.

Every year since 1977, the United Nations has observed the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on Nov. 29.

In 2016, once again under the auspices of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the United Nations is marking this important day with a series of official meetings and cultural events.

In 2012, the UN General Assembly voted to grant Palestine non-member observer State status at the United Nations by a vote of 138 in favor to 9 against with 41 abstentions by the 193-member Assembly.

The date Nov. 29 was chosen for this Day of Solidarity because on that day in 1947, the General Assembly adopted the Partition Resolution which provided for the establishment of a "Jewish State" and an "Arab State" within Palestine, where Israel serves as a corpus separatum under a special international regime. So far, only the Jewish State of Israel has come into existence.

The International Day of Solidarity is an opportunity to draw the international community's attention to the fact that the question of Palestine is unresolved and that its people have yet to attain their inalienable rights -- namely, the right to self-determination without external interference. Endit