GA 69th session general debate – Statements by Heads of State/Government – Verbatim record (excerpts)

Official Records

General Assembly 

Sixty-ninth session 

9th plenary meeting 

Thursday, 25 September 2014, 9 a.m. 

New York 

The meeting was called to order at 9.05 a.m.

Address by Mr. Mahamadou Issoufou, President of the Republic of the Niger

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In addition, a just settlement of the Palestinian issue could certainly contribute to the fight against this scourge.

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Address by Mr. John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana

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Ghana also calls for a halt to the establishment of settlements in the Palestinian territories. We have consistently expressed our support for a two-State solution to the Israeli-Palestinian question, with the two nations coexisting peacefully.

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Address by Mr. Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

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Had we had greater cooperation and coordination in the Middle East, thousands of innocent Palestinians in Gaza would not have fallen victim to the aggressions of the Zionist regime.

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Address by Mr. Mohamed Moncef Marzouki, President of the Republic of Tunisia

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We therefore strongly call for the blockade of Gaza to be lifted in order to enable it to build a port and airport, and not just to open the border crossings but also to fulfil the political right of the Palestinian people to a geographically contiguous, secure, independent State, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The Gazans who are living without shelter are pleading to our consciences for the reconstruction of Gaza and return children to their destroyed schools' classrooms and playgrounds. We pray to God to end the nightmare engulfing the people of Syria through the banishment of its dictator and the formation of a Government of national unity.

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Address by Mr. Ivo Josipovie, President of the Republic of Croatia

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Also, although it is a difficult task, achieving a stable and sustainable peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is an imperative. We hope that honest and serious efforts will be resumed to negotiate a comprehensive and sustainable peace agreement that will establish the grounds for a two-State solution, living in peace and security, mutually recognizing and respecting each other, and gradually transforming the entire Middle East into a region of peace and cooperation.

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Address by Mr. Robert Mugabe, President of the Republic of Zimbabwe

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We continue to witness the suffering and persecution of the people of Palestine at the hands of Israel. We have witnessed the callous murder of women and children in shelters, where they seek refuge from Israel's bombs. We have witnessed the brutal and random destruction of infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. While those heinous acts were being perpetrated by Israel, the so-called civilized world maintained a deafening silence. And we ask, why?

Lasting peace in the Middle East can be achieved only through a two-State solution based on the 1967 borders. Any other manoeuvres to change demographic realities through settlements or the use of force will only prolong the suffering of the Palestinians.

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Address by Mr. Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan

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Moreover, I wish to state and to pledge, first of all, that Japan is a nation that has worked to eliminate the war culture from people's hearts, and it will spare no effort in continuing to do so. As early as the mid-1980s, Japan launched cooperation in Gaza to foster human resources. A total of more than 400 administrative officials and technical experts have come to Japan to receive intensive training. One of them is Mr. Najjar Osama, a young man serving as an official with the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority. He said:

"Gaza has no natural resources whatsoever. The only thing we have is people, a situation the same as Japan's. What I learned in Japan is the spirit of never, ever giving up."

After being educated in Japan for a month, Najjar Osama brought solar-power technology back to his hometown, to be attached to the facility in greatest need of a stand-alone power system. The equipment that he and his colleagues introduced to the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip has endured the unrest and kept the lights on in the hospital's emergency room.

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Address by Mr. Matteo Renzi, President of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Italy

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But at the same time, I know, we know, that there will be no peace in the region until what a great prophet of Italian political thought, Giorgio La Pira, called the "peace of the children of Abraham" has brought an end to the unresolved conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.

We will never tire of seeking peace for Jerusalem, and a ceasefire in Gaza will be consolidated and respected only if we all recognize the two-State solution and the right of the Palestinian people to finally have a homeland. As I have said before and I repeat here, it is not only a right but a duty for Israel to exist — for the sake of history, memory, innovation, democracy, freedom, of which the Israeli people give constant proof. The entire international community must support that process. Those words must be clearly heard in this Hall, where someone once dared to call into question the very right of Israel to exist.

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Address by Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al Sabah, Prime Minister of the State of Kuwait

Several countries of the Middle East are facing tremendous security, political and humanitarian challenges and an exceptional situation, due to the inability of the Security Council to carry out its functions, which has led to the aggravation and deterioration of the situation in many States of the region. The recent Israeli military aggression against the Gaza Strip lasted for 50 consecutive days, during which the non-stop killing and machine of destruction continuously targeted everything human, mowing down thousands of unarmed civilians, the majority of them elderly, women and children. That action appears to have been emblematic of the series of Israeli violations of the most basic rules of international law and international humanitarian law, and constitutes yet another addition to its bloody history of rejecting all regional and international initiatives to lay the foundations of a just and lasting peace.

In that regard, the State of Kuwait welcomes the ceasefire agreement signed on 26 August, as well as the international and regional initiatives undertaken to end to that crisis and aggression, primarily those promoted by our sister Arab Republic of Egypt. In that context, we renew our call on the Security Council to assume its responsibility to provide international protection to the Palestinian people and territory, pursuant to the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and to compel Israel, the occupying Power, to halt its unilateral practices aimed at imposing a policy of faits accomplis, such as illegal settlements and the unlawful siege of the Gaza Strip, in addition to attempts to change the demographic nature of Jerusalem by means of Judaization. Israel must be compelled to return to the negotiating table with a view to ending its occupation of all Palestinian and Arab lands, as well to achieve the establishment of a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with the relevant Security Council resolutions, the principle of land for peace, the road map and the Arab Peace Initiative.

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