'Recognise Palestine' call on anniversary of Zionist expulsion of 700,000 to create state of Israel

THE Ambassador of the State of Palestine to Ireland has called for formal recognition of the state of Palestine to “send a clear message to Israel” that a two-state solution is the only way forward to lasting peace.

The call came today, the 67th anniversary of the Nakba ('Catstrophe' in Arabic) It remembers when some 700,000 Palestinians were killed or expelled by Zionist paramilitaries from their homes and lands and were forced into exile to become refugees in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan so that Israel could be established in the historic land of Palestine in 1948.

Ambassador Ahmad Abdelrazek (who was himself born in exile in Lebanon and educated at a United Nations school in the Chatila refugee camp) notes in a special news bulletin to mark 'Nakba':

“Israeli historians now admit that this massive transfer of populations was mainly the result of a terror campaign which reached its peak with the massacre of 254 Palestinian men, women and children in the village of Deir Yassin on the 9th of April 1948. Deir Yassin was wiped off the map, as were 418 other Palestinian villages.”

In the Chatila refugee camp, the Ambassador says:

“I saw first-hand the human misery, suffering and humiliation of my people who, despite their hardships, maintained the hope of returning to Palestine one day.” At the end of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War in 1967, Israel occupied the rest of Palestine, forcing another 440,000 Palestinians into exile.

Detailing Palestinian efforts down the years to achieve a solution through negotiations and diplomacy, Ambassador Abdelrazek says that the new Israeli government is building an increasingly apartheid system and what remains of the potential of a peace process is at risk.

“‘The international community must move urgently to save the two-state solution – passivity is complicity,” the Ambassador says.

”The formal recognition of the State of Palestine would be a clear message to the Israeli Government that a two-state solution is the only way forward to lasting peace.

“Ireland recognised the State of Israel in 1963 (de jure); it is time to complete the logic of two states and recognise (de jure) the State of Palestine.”

● (Below) Sinn Féin Dáil Parliamentary Group takes a stand with Ambassador Ahmad Abdelrazek for Palestine