Palestinian U.N. ambassador calls for Mideast resolution
By Harold Gwin
His visit marks the anniversary of the day of catastrophe for the Palestinian people.
YOUNGSTOWN — Dr. Riyad H. Mansour believes that now is the time to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
It’s a historic moment, the Palestinian Ambassador and Permanent Observer to the United Nations said Friday, pointing out that Palestinian leaders are committed to peace, Arab countries are willing to accept Israel, President George Bush has indicated he would like to see the issue resolved this year and there is “almost global consensus” on a two-state solution that would see the creation of a separate Palestinian state.
Mansour, who has family in the Youngstown area and is a Youngstown State University graduate, is a Palestinian refugee, born in 1947 in a village in Palestine. His family fled its home to the city of Ramallah, now part of the occupied West Bank.
He came to the United States in 1967 to pursue a college education and was interested initially in the field of medicine, but switched to social and political philosophy.
He began his Palestinian diplomatic career in 1983 by joining the Permanent Observer Mission of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the U.N. He received his current appointment in 2005.
His visit to Youngstown is in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Al-Naqba, the day of catastrophe for the Palestinian people. The anniversary marks the birth of Israel, but also the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land following their rejection of a United Nations plan to carve Palestine into two countries, one Jewish and one Arab.
The result was war that ended with Israel seizing land that had been designated for the Palestinians.
Mansour will address the issue at 8 p.m. today at the Arab American Community Center, 15 Belgrade Ave. The program is open to the public.
After 60 years of tragedy and 41 years of Israeli occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem following the 1967 war, it is time to bring it all to an end so everyone can live in peace and harmony, Mansour said.
That end should result in the creation of formal boundaries for the Palestinian state that would include the pre-1967 boundaries of Gaza and the West Bank and set up East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, he said. A fair and just solution to the Palestinian refugee question of return or compensation must also be addressed, he said.
Such a peace treaty would be satisfactory to the majority of Palestinians, Mansour predicted.
There is a need for a true political will to really implement a collective understanding of how to resolve it, he said, adding, “If there is a will, there will be an agreement.”
Negotiations have resulted in sets of obligations from both sides, Mansour said.
The Palestinians have two: reforming their security apparatus to bring law and order to Palestinian towns and dismantling of the network of those who would engage in violence against the Israelis. Mansour said progress is being made on both.
The Israelis have five obligations, he said.
They include freezing all settlements and dismantling outposts, lifting the siege against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, removing forces from two specific areas in the West Bank, freeing 11,000 Palestinian prisoners and allowing the reopening of Palestinian national offices in Jerusalem.
The Israelis need to move on those things to show the Palestinian people that peace is possible, Mansour said.
If the current peace process fails, extremists on both sides will have the upper hand, Mansour said, warning that more suffering and hatred would result.
In response to Osama bin Laden’s new message dealing with Israel and the Palestinians, Mansour said it is in the interest of everyone to move as quickly as possible to resolution, so those taking advantage of the situation to promote their own agendas would be out of business.
gwin@vindy.com