Newspaper
Los Andes
Mendoza
– Tuesday, November 25, 1997
Palestine Ambassador’s visit
Israel cannot hold Jerusalem captive (view)
“UN resolutions have two weights and measures, as French people indicate. They are put into practice for some ones, but not for others”, the Ambassador stated.
Firmly stating that “it is possible to achieve peace in Palestine when both sides have wills of their own, we expect that Israel has the will to achieve it”, the Ambassador of the Palestine National Authority in Argentina, Suhail Hani Daher Akel, arrived in Mendoza yesterday.
With regard to the present situation in Middle East, later the diplomat expressed that “at this moment, we are definitely going through the difficult peace process. We attentively observe the reactions of the new Israeli administration. We consider that the United States should take a stronger stance because it is the country which warranted the accords. We definitely expect to put this process on the right way in the next few months. Until now, Israel has not fulfilled what it had agreed with my government. They still keep a territorial occupation on my country. Today they continue creating new settlements in our capital Eastern Jerusalem and in a great part of our country. Of course, all this complicates this peace process. We expect that the Israeli government reflects right on time and that this new administration be really brave enough to follow the steps of the previews government”.
Akel emphasized that what it is going on between Palestinians and Israelis "is not an aggression between the people. The people want to live in peace, but we really need a fair and decent peace. A peace in harmony with the necessities and rights each country requires. In the same way that there is a State of Israel which rose, grow and developed on our country, due to a UN resolution, and a State of Israel which occupied the country which should have developed there: the millenary and historical Palestine, we believe that these situations only benefit those sectors which are opposed to peace, both from one side and the other one."
Later on, before a question related with the Iraq situation and the attacks which took place in Southern Lebanon in the last few hours, Suhail Hani Daher Akel severely criticized the United Nations: “Israel attacks Lebanon and kills Lebanese people with total impunity. Israel is the one which occupies 1,000 square kilometers in Southern Lebanon and the one which does not obey UN resolutions 425 of 1982. This resolution urges Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. The observation you have made about Iraq allows me to introduce the following: UN resolutions have two weights and measures, as French people indicate. They are eager to please some countries such as Israel; but they are conclusive with countries such as Iraq, Cuba, Panama, Libya or other Latin American countries. These are decisions which have to be taken from an objective point of view, as well as, they have to be taken in the same way. You cannot be so strict when 200,000 Iraq people are killed, as in the 1991 war. To permit that famine become the cause of death of a million people in order to conclusively fulfill resolution 660, while other resolutions such as the resolution 181/2 of the Palestine partition, which is going to reach its 5th anniversary this year, and the resolution 242 or 338 which urge Israel to the retirement, are not fulfilled".
Photo:Suhail Hani Daher Akel:"I bring the greeting of my government and the Palestinian town, the peace message".