Palestinians call on world to support nationhood bid

RAMALLAH, Palestine

Palestinian officials on Thursday urged the international community to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People by voicing support for the Palestinian struggle for nationhood.

The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People was instituted by the UN in 1977.

It falls on the same day -- Nov. 29 -- that the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (the UN Partition Plan for Palestine) in 1947.

“The suffering, dispossession, displacement and victimization of the Palestinian people began when the state of Israel was established on the land of historical Palestine,” Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian National Council, said in a statement.

“Solidarity is not just an body_abstract expression of empathy,” she said. “Rather, it is an active, positive and concrete engagement.”

She went on to urge world capitals to “send a strong message -- to both the Palestinian people and the global community -- that there is a price to be paid for Israel's persistent violations of international law and conventions”.

In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)’s Executive Committee, called on both the UN General Assembly and Security Council to “review all resolutions that Israel has so far refused to implement”.

“Throughout the years, Israel has failed to implement a wide range of UN resolutions,” Abu Yousef said.

Since being established in 1945, the General Assembly and Security Council have adopted scores of resolutions pertaining to Israel/Palestine -- the vast majority of which have never been implemented by successive Israeli governments.

Palestinian government spokesman Yousef al-Mahmoud, for his part, said the international community must work to empower the Palestinian people to enable them to establish a sovereign state.

He went on to hold the international community responsible for allowing Israel’s decades-long occupation -- and its many crimes against the Palestinian people -- to continue.

“International silence on the occupation and its crimes only encourages [Israel] to continue violating international resolutions and laws,” al-Mahmoud said.