In the Name of Allah The Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate
Honorable Audience,
At the outset, I would like to extend thanks to His Excellency Brother, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his invitation to this emergency conference and to the government and people of the Turkish Republic for their honorable positions supportive of the Palestinian cause and the just causes of peoples in general.
On the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian catastrophe (Nakba), the Israeli forces have committed a brutal massacre against peaceful Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza.
The question of Palestine has gone down in history as a cause of a people whose homeland was usurped, and refugees who have scattered in diaspora around the world, with the majority of them taking refuge in the Arab countries and in some Palestinian cities, including the Gaza Strip.
Before the elapse of two decades after the Nakba, the Gaza Strip fell under direct Israeli occupation in the aftermath of the 1967 war, as is the case of the West Bank and Jerusalem. After a protracted struggle and heavy sacrifices, as well as two well-known popular uprisings against the occupation, Israel withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip alone, but imposed a stifling siege on it that continues up to this day, which means, it has continued the occupation by other means.
Recently, the residents of the Strip, who are the sons and grandsons of those refugees have organized courageous peaceful marches to commemorate the right of return for the Palestinian refugees, which was approved by the United Nations in its Resolution No. (194) of 11 December 1948. To remind you I would say: Israel's commitment to implement that resolution and to implement the Partition Plan of 1947 was a prerequisite for its acceptance as a member in the United Nations.
During the march on May 15, which corresponds with the anniversary of the establishment of Israel, and which is considered by the Palestinians and the Arabs as the Nakba of Palestine, the massacre took place, and the world watched it live on TV screens. Israeli soldiers fired a type of explosive bullets to mass kill the demonstrators on broad daylight. The perpetrators of the carnage themselves have not claimed that the Palestinians were armed. For weeks, Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip have been launching peaceful marches as a reminder of the right of return, and to reject the liquidation of the Palestinian cause without a just solution.
Although the right of return is in itself a theme for legitimate demonstrations, it is rather difficult to understand this Palestinian outcry at the border with their country from which they were displaced without the backdrop of the suffocating and inhumane siege enforced on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip since they took the right to vote seriously in the 2006 elections.
As a result of the blockade, the Gaza Strip has been transformed into a large concentration camp for millions of people who are deprived of their most basic rights to travel, education, work and medical treatment.
When their sons take arms they are called terrorists, and when they stage peaceful demonstrations they are called extremists, and are shot dead with live ammunition.
We appreciate the countries that clearly condemned the massacre. We also respect those who expressed dismay and anger over this outrageous act and all those who called for establishing an independent commission of inquiry; but the Palestinian people and our peoples generally reckon this as not enough. Facts are well known, and Israel itself does not deny shooting at demonstrators.
What is required is to take a position to be followed by practical steps.
Who among us does not know the declared siege forced on Gaza Strip and collective punishment against its population? We also know that reports of commissions of inquiry may accumulate on shelves, as happened repeatedly in the past, if there is no international will to take real and effective steps.
Is it conceivable that a ceremony be held to celebrate the transfer of the American embassy to Jerusalem, the sovereignty on it is one of the most important issues of the permanent solution, which is supposed to be negotiated by American mediation, while blood is being shed in the Gaza Strip? What message does this convey to the Palestinian people, the Arab peoples and all peace-loving forces in the world?
The situation in the occupied Palestinian territories needs sincere positions and political will to take meaningful steps to eliminate the occupation. This is a prelude to any just solution.
Without a just solution to the cause of Palestine and redressing its people, this 70 year old bloodshed can not be stopped.
The siege imposed on the Gaza Strip must be stopped by a political decision, and a just solution to the Palestinian question must be imposed as the last case of colonialism that continues to be a cause of concern for the world.
There is an international consensus that transcend political and ideological differences on the need to put an end to the injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people. The way to this is through a historic settlement establishing a Palestinian State in the territories occupied in 1967 - that is to say 22% of the historic land of Palestine - with Jerusalem
as its capital. There is an international consensus that the Israeli expansionist policies, in terms of the construction of settlements and the Judaization of Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute an obstacle in the way of achieving this historic settlement.
But the international community stands helpless in front of Israel's rejection of this consensus and takes no steps vis-à-vis such intransigence, despite its danger to regional and international security.
This issue must remain a matter of consensus in our organization, and we should not, in any case, subject it to differences between our States.
The issue of Palestine is still an open wound in the consciousness and memory of peoples, and disregarding that by some regimes does not change this fact. This cause has become a symbol for the oppressed peoples everywhere. The recent massacre perpetrated against peaceful demonstrators deepens the sense of injustice and inactivity of international legitimacy. But on the other hand, it proves that a people who has been patient, struggling and making sacrifices for 70 years is a vivid people, whose cause can not be liquidated without achieving justice.
May peace, mercy and blessings of God be upon you.