OIC calls for UN force in Palestine
UAE condemns growing disrespect for international law in Middle East
istanbul — Muslim leaders called on Friday for an international force to be deployed to protect Palestinians after dozens of protesters were shot dead by Israeli forces on the Gaza border this week.
At a special summit in Turkey convened by President Tayyip Erdogan, they also pledged to take “appropriate political (and) economic measures” against countries that followed the United States in moving their Israel embassies to contested Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Erdogan used the summit to verbally attack Israel, comparing the actions of its forces to Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews in World War Two, when millions were killed in concentration camps.
He also castigated the United States, saying its decision to move its embassy had emboldened Israel to put down the protests with excessive force. Most countries say the status of occupied Jerusalem should be determined in a final peace settlement between Israel and Palestinians and that moving their embassies now would prejudge any such deal.
The final declaration of the meeting of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation described the killing of 60 Palestinians as “savage crimes committed by the Israeli forces with the backing of the US administration”.
It said the violence should be put on the agenda of the UN Security Council and General Assembly, and called on the United Nations to investigate the killings.
The summit was attended by Jordan’s King Abdullah, whose Hashemite dynasty is custodian of Muslim sites in Jerusalem.
Abdullah said the US decision to recognise occupied Jerusalem as Israel’s capital had “weakened the pillars of peace ... and deepened the despair that leads to violence”.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani called on Muslim countries “to totally cut their relations with the Zionist regime (Israel) and also to revise their trade and economic ties with America”.
Erdogan has described Israel as “terrorist state”. “The children of those being subject to all sorts of torture in concentration camps during World War Two are now attacking Palestinians with methods that would put Nazis to shame,” Erdogan said on Friday after addressing a rally in support of Palestinians.
The United Nations must send “an international peace force to the people of Palestine, who are losing their young children to Israeli terror every day,” Erdogan said, comparing the proposed deployment to peacekeeping forces sent to Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. — Reu- new york — In a strong statement to the UN Security Council, the UAE expressed concern over growing disrespect for the international law around the world, and particularly in the Middle East, at an open debate on upholding the international law and the maintenance of international peace and security.
The debate was hosted by Andrzej Duda, the President of Poland, which holds the presidency of the Security Council for May.
“A world without a rules-based international order is one filled with chaos and instability — one where rogue actors disregard international norms with impunity, the system of trusted relationships between countries is broken, and the most vulnerable across societies are left to suffer without recourse to justice,” emphasized Lana Nusseibeh, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the UAE to the UN in New York.
A world without a rules-based international order is one filled with chaos and instability — one where rogue actors disregard international norms with impunity Lana Nusseibeh, UAE’s Permanent Representative to the UN
Ambassador Nusseibeh recalled the tragedy in Gaza on 14 May that resulted in the abhorrent murder of over 60 innocent Palestinian civilians perpetrated by a UN member state.
“The lives of the victims — men, women, and children — are no less human than any other in this council, or any member state in this United Nations, but have been treated by the inaction of this body as if somehow they were less human than the rest of us, and suffer less, and grieve their losses differently,” she stressed.
Ambassador Nusseibeh stated that the latest acts on the Gaza border violate multiple rules of international law and cannot be condoned or ignored by the international community.
She stressed that although the UAE believes that Palestinian and Israeli people both have the right to secure statehood, when the council’s resolutions on this matter are repeatedly ignored, and innocent human life is taken recklessly and violently, it weakens international law and the frameworks to make this aspiration possible.
Ambassador Nusseibeh also called out Iran’s disregard for international law and the council’s sanctions regime in pursuit of its agenda of regional hegemony. She underscored that Iran’s behaviour defies the fundamental international legal principle of non-intervention and noted that their support for terrorist groups in the region was in violation of several Security Council resolutions.
Furthermore, ambassador Nusseibeh reminded the council that the US recently recognised this fact by withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and called on other member states to also hold Iran to the same standards.
Ambassador Nusseibeh further reiterated that all countries engaged in financing and supporting extremism and terrorism should be held accountable through the council’s resolutions and the monitoring of financial flows.
She asserted that if these countries were not held accountable by the international community, member states have the sovereign right to act independently to defend their own security, as the UAE and others have done in the region. — Wam