Yesterday, Abdel-Halim Khaddam, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Syria, delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he specifically stated that Israel, due to its violation of commitments made when it joined the United Nations in 1949, particularly its disregard for the UN partition resolutions and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, has become “unfit to join the international community.”
The Syrian minister pointed out that Israel is a “racist entity” created by imperialist and Zionist interests, accompanied by the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine. These Arabs have remained deprived of their rights since then, according to the demands of the United Nations. Khaddam requested the United Nations to declare, “without hesitation,” that there can be no just peace in the Middle East unless Israeli forces withdraw from the Arab territories occupied since 1967 and all changes introduced by Israel to the demographic, economic, and cultural structure of the occupied territories are reversed.
The Syrian minister continued to say that if Israel does not meet these demands, the United Nations must immediately take the actions stipulated in its charter to deprive it of its status as a member of the United Nations and compel it to withdraw entirely from all occupied territories, restoring the national rights of the Palestinian people.
Khaddam appealed to the United Nations General Assembly to address the root causes of the explosive situation in the Middle East and move forward, considering that the return of national and other rights to the Palestinian people is an inevitable step toward achieving a just and lasting peace.
In this context, Khaddam pointed out that the exercise of the Palestinian people’s undisputed right to self-determination, as specified in UN resolutions, requires the Palestinians’ right to return to their homes and compelling Israel to revoke all measures taken to deprive the Palestinian people of their national and human rights.
