Statement by UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman to Tenth Emergency Special
Session - Illegal Israeli actions in "occupied East Jerusalem and the rest
of the occupied territories"
Israel Government Press Office Tuesday, 09 December, 2003

Tenth Emergency Special Session - Illegal Israeli actions in occupied East
Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories;

Statement by Ambassador Dan Gillerman
(8 December 2003 58th UN General Assembly)

Mr. President,

I should stress at the outset that my comments are without prejudice
to our clear position of principle that that the convening of this emergency
special session, at the behest of Syria and other delegations, is in
violation of fundamental conditions of the Uniting for Peace procedure and
the United Nations Charter. As you know, Mr. President, we have raised this
concern with you and with other delegations.

The Palestinian side has expressly claimed, both orally and in
writing, that this meeting takes place under the Uniting for Peace
procedure. But one of the fundamental preconditions for that procedure,
namely the failure of the Council to meet its responsibilities, is patently
unfulfilled. This requirement was not met last month when the Assembly
convened after the Security Council rejected a resolution on the security
fence, not due to a lack of unanimity amongst permanent members, but due to
the refusal of the sponsors of the draft resolution to engage in any genuine
negotiations on their blatantly one-sided text. And this same requirement is
not met today, barely a week after the Council unanimously adopted
resolution 1515 on the road map.

This is far from the only defect with this meeting. Let us leave aside
for the moment the obvious legal and political abuse involved in this
never-ending 10th emergency session, the procedural invalidity of which is
clear. Among other failings, this so-called emergency session has taken
place despite the fact that the issue of requesting an advisory opinion from
the ICJ was not even raised before the Council, despite the fact that the
Assembly is presently in regular session and despite the fact that a
majority of members have not requested that an emergency session be
convened.

Let me be clear. We consider the resolutions adopted by this so-called
10th emergency session to be ultra vires and an abuse of the powers of the
General Assembly under the Charter.

Mr. President,

We need not repeat in detail our arguments regarding the legality and
necessity of the security fence. Our position has been set forth both in the
Council and in the Assembly, as well as in correspondence with the Secretary
General and in a variety of other official documents and statements. As we
have stated before, Israel does not deny that in exercising its inherent
right to self-defense against terrorism of the most brutal kind, it must act
within the limits of international law. But we do reject attempts to
incorrectly and selectively apply that law, to misrepresent the nature and
purpose of the security fence, and to ignore the context in which Israel's
actions are taken.

Let me be perfectly clear. This is the Arafat Fence. This is the fence
that Arafat built. His terrorism initiated it, and made its construction
inevitable. If there were no Arafat, there would be no fence!
My comments in regard to the fence will be brief and non-exhaustive.
The security fence is a temporary, proven, necessary and non-violent measure
adopted, in accordance with international and local law, to defend the
people of Israel from a continuing and vicious campaign of terrorism that
has killed hundred of innocent civilians and will kill thousands more, if
not prevented. As long as the Palestinian leadership continues to flout its
most basic obligations to fight terrorism, there is simply no alternative to
it. Indeed, the only reason for the construction of the fence is the
Palestinian strategy of terrorism - as soon as the terror ends, the fence
will no longer be necessary.

The fence is not a border, and has no political significance. It does
not change the legal status of the territory in any way. Israel remains
committed to determining the final status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
including the issue of borders, through negotiations as has been agreed by
the parties. As we have proven before, we will be ready to dismantle or
alter the route of the fence in accordance with any political settlement
reached.

If built along the 1949 Armistice Line (the so-called Green line),
which was never intended to, nor ever has, enjoyed legal status as an
international boundary, the fence would constitute an arbitrary and
artificial line that simply would not adequately fulfill its sole function -
the prevention of terrorist attacks against civilians. The route of the
fence is determined not by politics, but by a difficult and painful balance
between security, humanitarian and topographical considerations.

Israel is working to ensure that the fence does not cause undue
hardship to local Palestinian residents, both through extensive
consultations with the local population over the route of the fence, and
through an active process of appeals and judicial review. And we will
continue to engage in this process and to seek individual solutions to
problems that arise. At the same time, we reiterate that the fence will
allow a significant reduction in the presence of Israeli forces in the West
Bank, thus improving overall humanitarian conditions for the majority of
Palestinian residents. And we stress that while the rights of local
residents are legitimate and important, we should not forget that the right
not to be murdered by terrorists is a right which is certainly no less
important and, if violated, is impossible to redress.

Some have argued that the fence is counterproductive to the peace
process and to future negotiations. We believe this assessment to be
mistaken and unjustified. If anything, by reducing the capacity of
Palestinian terrorists to infiltrate and carry out acts of terror, the fence
will help take terrorism out of the equation, restore calm, and encourage an
environment in which negotiations and the implementation of the Road Map can
take place. In those areas in which it has been erected, the fence has
already significantly reduced the terrorist threat, and it has aided in
preventing multiple suicide attacks just in the last few weeks. If, because
of the fence, terrorism ceases to be a tool readily available to the enemies
of peace so as to derail the process, the chances of making progress at the
negotiation table can only be enhanced.

In fact, in spite of what some may perceive as a recent calm, the
terrorists have not stopped for one minute to try and carry out their
barbaric acts. Since the horrific bombing in Haifa on October 4th, until
December 4th, the Israeli security forces have foiled 27 attempts to bring
death and destruction to Israel's cities. Fourteen of them were suicide
attempts stopped just before being carried out.

To give but one example, just last Wednesday Israeli forces arrested
two suicide bombers, who were members of the Palestinian Authority's own
security services and at the same time affiliated with the terrorist
organization Islamic Jihad, headquartered in Damascus, Syria. The two
terrorists, Munir Rabiah and Murad Zietun, were on their way to perpetrate a
suicide attack against Israeli schoolchildren at a school in Yoknea'm near
Haifa. If this is not shocking enough, the terrorists are reported to have
told investigators that in order to infiltrate into Israel they had sought
out an area where the security fence had not yet been constructed. Had they
succeeded in their horrific plan, innocent school children would have been
murdered in cold blood and attempts to restart the peace process would have
been seriously harmed. In this reality, where PA employees seek to murder
schoolchildren, how can it be seriously argued that the fence is
counterproductive to the peace process, when it is crucial to stopping the
terror that seeks to destroy that very process.

The fence, Mr. President, is neither an obstacle to a two-state
solution, nor to the creation of a contiguous, viable and democratic
Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security with Israel. It
will help create a terror-free environment in which a peace can be agreed
through negotiations. And when the terrorism has ended and negotiations bear
fruit, the fence can make way to any territorial solution agreed upon by the
parties.

Mr. President,

Prompted as it was, by a clearly one-sided resolution, it is hardly
surprising but very unfortunate that the Secretary-General's report issued
last Friday should lack fairness, balance and perspective, even in its
presentation of Israel's own legal position. The Report makes virtually no
reference whatsoever to the brutal and calculated campaign of terrorism
being waged against Israel, which the fence is specifically designed to
counter.

Since the outbreak of the latest wave of Palestinian violence in
September 2000 there have been literally thousands of separate terrorist
attacks - bombings, rocket attacks, stabbings and shootings - directed
against both Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel by Palestinian terrorist
groups. The planning and preparation of such terrorist attacks, including
mega-terror attacks against targets such as skyscrapers, fuel depots and
chemical plants, continues unabated, and unrestrained by the Palestinian
leadership and its security personnel. The silence of the Report on the
threat posed by Palestinian terrorism, and the complicity of the Palestinian
leadership, is incomprehensible given that the construction of the fence is
a response to that threat.

The question whether Israel's defensive measures are permissible,
depends on whether they are proportionate to the threat faced by Israel and
its citizens. As numerous leading scholars and judicial bodies, including
the Yugoslavia Tribunal, have found, the determination that a defensive
measure is disproportionate in any given circumstance is a particularly
complex and delicate one, to be measured against the amount of force, or
other defensive action, necessary to remove the threat that is posed. It
requires legal, operational and security expertise and a close familiarity
with the extent and the nature of the threat.

And yet this fundamental principle of proportionality, accepted in the
PLO legal position attached to the Report, sadly is quite absent from the
Report itself. To the contrary, the Report's conclusion seems to rewrite the
international law of self-defense in a quite alarming manner. "I acknowledge
and recognize Israel's right and duty to protect its people against
terrorist attacks", the Report concludes. But it then goes on to qualify
this principle, saying that not only must this duty be carried out in a way
that is accordance with international law, but also it must not "mak[e] the
creation of an independent, viable and contiguous Palestinian state more
difficult, or increase suffering among the Palestinian people". In other
words, any Israeli measure, however many innocent lives it may save, however
much it may serve to release the stranglehold of terrorists on Palestinian
society - if it has any impact, even temporary, on the lives of
Palestinians, it is unacceptable.

This is not just bad law, it is bad morality. Let us be quite frank.
There is no way of protecting the lives of the innocent from terrorists who
hide in the heart of civilian areas, without having some impact on the lives
of those they have chosen to hide amongst and those that have chosen to
offer them shelter. At a time when every Israeli, and every Jew, is a
declared target for Palestinian terrorist organizations, the question is how
to allocate, humanely and effectively, the balance of hardships, between
those who are blown up on buses and those who are held up at checkpoints or
are otherwise disadvantaged. This is not an easy balance, and the painful
dilemma it poses is one Israel struggles with every day. But it is one with
which this Report seems not to have struggled with for one moment.

The approach of this Report, like that of this emergency session -
ignoring the brutality of Palestinian terror, and which does not even
mention the fundamental Palestinian obligation - restated in every
Israeli-Palestinian agreement, and at the very outset of the Road Map - to
fight terrorism and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, is profoundly
troubling. Not only will we not call on the Palestinian side to stop the
terror, it tells us, but we will not allow you to do it yourselves.

Mr. President,

Given the abundant energy and resources devoted to examining Israeli
defensive counter-terrorist measures, it may be instructive in this regard
to consider the Assembly's response to other actions embarked upon by states
in fighting terrorism. In past decades, literally thousands of civilians,
including Palestinian civilians, have been killed by certain Arab states in
the Middle East, often in the name of fighting terrorism - and yet, the
Assembly has been silent. In 1982, one state in the Middle East, claiming to
be fighting terrorist insurgents, murdered some 20,000 of its own civilians
in the towns of Homs and Hama - and yet, the Assembly was silent.

Since that time and to this day, countless counter-terrorist
operations have been embarked upon, with a greater or lesser degree of
legitimacy. Whole cities have been razed to the ground, thousands have been
killed, maimed or tortured by various countries around the globe - and yet,
the Assembly has been silent.

This sacred silence has been broken only in the case of Israel. And
each time the Assembly has been galvanized into action not to condemn the
brutal acts of terrorism but to condemn Israel's response to it. After a two
state solution was rejected by the Palestinian side at Camp David; and after
3 years unending terrorism; Israel has reluctantly adopted a non-violent
defensive measure to protect its citizens from death. It has done so while
seeking to balance security and humanitarian considerations and exhibiting
infinitely more concern for the welfare of innocent civilians than either
the terrorists or other States that have been spared the scrutiny of this
Assembly.

The double standard is astounding. Just last week in the Third
Committee, Israel was denied the opportunity to present to a vote a
resolution on Israeli children, even after a resolution on Palestinian
children was adopted. We were told then that Israeli children deliberately
targeted by terrorists would not receive the protection of the Assembly.
Today we are being told that we cannot protect them ourselves.

How dare the people who would not even consider protecting Israeli
children by words, tell Israel that it cannot protect them by deeds. How
low, how deep and how callous can the duplicity, hypocrisy and double
standard of this body deteriorate to?

Mr. President,

These are the children we are talking about. This is Tomer Almog, aged
9, who was brutally murdered by a double suicide bomber at a restaurant in
Haifa on October 4th. He was slain together with his grandparents, his
father and his cousins while his family was peacefully sitting down to lunch
in a beachfront restaurant. And this is his brother, Oran Almog, who lost
his eyesight in the same attack. One of his eyes was shattered, and while we
were all sitting here in this hall last month having the same cynical debate
in yet another Emergency Special Session, a world-renowned surgeon in
Birmingham, Alabama was operating on his second eye, trying to save it.

Oran can now barely distinguish, with one eye, between light and dark.
But he is watching us all today, to see whether we can distinguish between
the forces of light that seek to protect our children, and the forces of
dark, that try to extinguish them.

But the double standard does not end there. If the professed concern
of the Assembly for the welfare of Palestinian civilians were genuine we
would have seen by now a plethora of resolutions condemning Palestinian
terrorism, and requesting the Secretary General to submit detailed reports
on such things as the misuse of funds by the Palestinian leadership, the
incitement of children to suicide terrorism, Palestinian human rights
violations, and the policy of encouraging and funding terrorist groups
adopted by regimes in the region.

Let us take corruption as an example. The Palestinian economy has been
plundered for years by its own leadership, to the grave detriment of the
Palestinian people, without the General Assembly so much as raising the
issue for discussion. About one month ago, an International Monetary Fund
audit uncovered the fact that between 1995 and 2000 Yasser Arafat diverted
fully $900 million from the PA budget into a special bank account under his
personal and unmonitored control. Recent reports indicate that Arafat's
office receives some 9 million dollars a month, a full 2 million more than
the entire amount allocated per month to the Palestinian health system.
European Union audits have disclosed that $20 million in Egyptian funds
meant to build low-income housing was instead turned into a luxury apartment
complex that was given over to top PA officials and Arafat cronies. Money
designed to feed, house, clothe, and educate Palestinian civilians has been
diverted not just for personal gain but to fund terrorist groups, including,
as recently revealed, the direct payment by the PA of $50,000 dollars a
month to members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, responsible for scores of
suicide attacks in the past three years.

The majority of the Palestinian people who suffer greatly as a result
of this unprecedented corruption are denied full knowledge of these facts
because of the lack of free press, and free access to information in
Palestinian society. But these facts are known to the world and to this
Assembly. And yet, where is the indignation? Much of this stolen money that
perpetuates and greatly exacerbates the humanitarian suffering of innocent
Palestinians is donor money. It is your money. And yet, where are the
resolutions, the Secretary-General reports the demands that this policy be,
to use a familiar phrase, ceased and reversed? Donor money flows into the
pockets of Arafat and his wealthy accomplices; terrorism and incitement
continue unabated; and all the while anti-Israeli initiatives led by states
that treat the UN as their private property take up hugely disproportionate
amounts of the organization's time and resources, while poor and developing
countries must scramble and plead for the attention of the Assembly and the
assistance of the international community.

Israel is not immune, Mr. President, from legitimate and balanced
criticism. But we have the audacity to demand that some of the repressive
regimes in our neighborhood that sponsor terrorism and systematically
violate human rights should be of equal, let alone greater, concern to the
international community. At the very least the representatives of these
regimes should not be allowed to dictate the conduct of this Assembly. This
is not justice or fair criticism - it is hypocrisy and double standard. It
is self-righteous, self-serving and deeply counterproductive. It is the UN
at its worst. And it rewards terrorism.

Mr. President,

The resolution presented for adoption at this meeting yet again
hopelessly fails to reflect the reality on the ground or to help the Israeli
and Palestinian peoples move closer to peaceful settlement. In the
resolution we are presented, yet again, with the harmful, divisive, illegal
and diversionary tactic of a request for an advisory opinion. Instead of
rejecting this destructive idea out of hand, delegations are yet again
expected to plead, barter and compromise on principle in the hope that it
will be removed from the table. Surely by now delegates must be aware that
unless and until we stop playing this game, the exploitation and extortion
will only continue. Israel will vote against this resolution and we strongly
urge delegations that care about peace, about the International Court of
Justice, and about restoring the credibility and reputation of the United
Nations, to do the same.

The ridiculous nature of the resolution presented today is highlighted
by the fact that the draft resolution pretends to seek guidance from the ICJ
on the very issues on which the General Assembly has already determined its
response. If this initiative was reckless and irresponsible when introduced
a month ago, it is patently absurd today. What guidance is sought here? How
exactly is it relevant to the work of the Assembly? And how is it fair or
just to purport to seek legal advice on a non-violent defensive measure
adopted by Israel to protect against terrorism, while ignoring the terrorism
itself that destroys lives in cold blood and without discrimination?

This is an abuse of the ICJ, and of the Advisory Opinion procedure of
the highest order, and it constitutes a dangerous precedent for all states.
The politically biased text, rife with supposed legal conclusions, makes a
mockery of the Court and threatens to undermine its status. Moreover it
raises a question that directly relates to matters fundamentally in dispute
between various parties in the region, when the parties have already agreed,
and the Road Map itself affirms, that these issues can only be resolved by
negotiations.

At a time when there is hope for renewing the negotiating process
through the Road Map this proposal and the attempt to involve a new actor in
the conflict, is especially counterproductive. It will severely complicate,
undermine and delay, if not halt altogether, current efforts to restart the
implementation of the Road Map. Indeed, it contradicts the very letter and
spirit of the Road Map, and the UN's role as one of its main sponsors.

Either the Palestinian side can finally get serious about complying
with their obligations, or they can continue to abuse multilateral fora to
try to score political and propaganda points. They cannot keep doing both.
It is our genuine hope that, after seeing the misery and despair, on all
sides, that their current strategy has created, the Palestinian side will
finally act to confront terrorism and end incitement. The moment they do so,
they will find in Israel a willing partner. Until then, the Arafat Fence -
the fence that Arafat's actions necessitated - will stand to protect our
children from further terrorism.

Mr. President,

Today, Mr. President, the delegates in this room must ask themselves
one more question. The 58th General Assembly is coming to an end. Looking
back on it, we must ask ourselves, are we proud of it? Have we accomplished
anything? Have we made the world a better place? Have we lived up to the
high standard and noble aims you, Mr. President, set for us in September?

And today, especially, we must ask one more question - do we lead, or
are we being misled? Do we do right or are we being manipulated? Do we stand
for what is right and just, or do we side with evil?

I raise these issues only to emphasize a point we have made repeatedly
in this Assembly. Peace, prosperity and security for both Palestinian and
Israeli people will not be found in this Hall or in any other organ of the
United Nations. It is only the end of the morally bankrupt strategy of
terror, that glorifies murder as martyrdom, which would obviate the need for
Israeli security measures, including the security fence, pave the way for
peaceful negotiations and concessions, and end the suffering of both
peoples.

No amount of UN debate, distorted texts, or abusive diplomatic
maneuvers can alter that basic reality. No one-sided resolution, no
ill-conceived and harmful attempt to request an advisory opinion, and no
report can substitute for it, unless, miraculously, we find the courage to
change. We all have the opportunity to start doing so, today, by rejecting
this cynical resolution!

Thank you, Mr. President