Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May/June 1998, Page 75

Diplomatic Doings

U.N. Holds Brussels Conference in Support of Palestinians

During the last week of February 1998 I attended an international “Conference in Support of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” in Brussels, Belgium. More than 100 nations had sent high-level ambassadors to make presentations. Among them were China, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Belgium, Colombia, Japan and Saudi Arabia, a truly international gathering. The United States had a desk and a nameplate, but although I sat nearby, I did not see anyone sit there during the conference.

The conference, hosted by the Belgian government, was organized by the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, in cooperation with the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the League of Arab States. Yasser Arafat was gracious in his appreciation of the global support of the Palestinian people, and in the ensuing press conference he answered all questions forcefully and clearly.

Ambassador Ka of Senegal, chairman of the U.N. committee, opened the conference with an unequivocal declaration: “Adequate steps must be taken to ensure that the Palestinians themselves exercise their sovereignty over their own land, as a state. The legal instruments exist. They are the very decisions adopted by the United Nations over a period of many decades as instruments of a peaceful and lasting settlement of the Middle East crisis.” He then listed those legal instruments, beginning with the U.N.’s 1947 plan that partitioned Palestine into two lands, Israel and Palestine, in General Assembly Resolution 181(II).

One background paper documented the European economic support as follows: “The European Union is doing its part. The Commission and the EU member states are the principal donors to the Palestinians. Together with the European Investment Bank, they have contributed nearly 2 billion dollars since 1993, over half the total international assistance provided to Palestinians during that period.”

The president of the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. Hennady Y. Udovenko, summarized its Resolution 52/52 of December 1997: “The General Assembly, while expressing its full support for the ongoing peace process and the necessity for commitment to the aforementioned principles, called upon the concerned parties, the co-sponsors, the entire international community to exert all the necessary efforts and initiatives to bring the peace process back on track. The General Assembly also stressed the need for the realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, primarily the right to self-determination, and the withdrawal of Israel from the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”

In the most substantive data presented to the conference, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali, president of the Islamic Development Bank, distributed a research paper (really a 38-page book) on “Conditions of the Palestinian People in the Occupied Territories and Means of Alleviating Their Suffering.” This document, an economic history of the Palestinian territories to the present, deserves the widest distribution and attention, for the story of systematic deprivation and exploitation which it details (e-mail address: archives@isdb.org.sa).

It was a British delegate who astounded me most. Michael Hindley, now a member of the European Parliament, after saying that Europe had reason to be concerned about Middle East affairs because 70 percent of Middle East trade was with Europe, said, “But do you think that Europe is going to challenge the dominance of the United States in Middle East affairs? Absolutely not!”

I followed him into the hallway and asked, “Why not?” He looked at me (pitying my ignorance, I thought) and said, “MacMillan said it after World War II. ‘The U.S. has the power now!’ The U.S. still has the power.” I thought, but didn’t say it, “Wasn’t it another Englishman who said, ‘Power corrupts.’” For its own health, the United States needs for Europe, the world, and the United Nations to stand up against it. Unchallenged empires fall, sooner or later.

Brussels made me skeptical about the slogan: “Land for Peace.” It has begun to sound like, “We will return some of your land we have occupied if you will behave.” I now think that 13 percent return of land may lead to a 13 percent peace.

Brussels has also made me eager to participate in the U.N. North American NGO Symposium on Palestine at U.N. headquarters June 15-17, 1998. You can learn how you could participate by calling John Ihnat at (202) 319-1757.

—David M. Graybeal