Middle East situation/Palestine question – 2005 World Summit/UN 60th anniversary/Israeli Prime Minister statement – Press release (excerpts)

Plenary

5^th & 6^th Meetings (AM & PM)

STEPS TO REFORM UN SHOULD UNITE, NOT DIVIDE, INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY,

GENERAL ASSEMBLY SUMMIT TOLD

On Summit’s Second Day, World Leaders Continue Debate on Security

Council Restructuring, Achievement of Millennium Goals, Key Economic Issues

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Background

The General Assembly this morning reconvened the 2005 World Summit, which coincides with the sixtieth anniversary of the United Nations, and which will consider the status of the Millennium Development Goals, the ambitious set of targets aimed, among other things, at easing world poverty, turning back the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and providing improved education and better health care, all by 2015.  The Summit will also consider Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s proposals for sweeping United Nations reform.

Statements

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ARIEL SHARON, Prime Minister of Israel, said that last week, when the last Israeli soldier left the Gaza Strip and military law there was ended, Israel had proved that it was ready to make painful concessions in order to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians. The decision to disengage had been very difficult, involving a heavy personal price.  Israeli society was undergoing a difficult crisis as a result of the disengagement and now needed to heal the rifts.  It was now the Palestinians’ turn to prove their desire for peace, and until that occurred, Israel would know how to defend itself from the horrors of terrorism.

The successful implementation of the disengagement plan had opened up a window of opportunity for advancing towards peace, in accordance with the Road Map, he said.  It was possible to reach a fair compromise and coexistence in good neighbourly relations between Jews and Arabs.  However, there would be no compromise on the right of the State of Israel to exist as a Jewish State, with defensible borders, in full security and without threats and terror.  The Palestinian leadership must show determination and leadership to eliminate terror, violence and the culture of hatred.  It was in the power of the two nations to present their peoples with a new and promising horizon of hope.

He said that while the Jewish people remembered the 1947 vote in the United Nations Assembly that had recognized their right to national revival in their historic homeland, they also remembered dozens of harsh and unjust decisions made by the Organization over the years.  They knew that, even today, there were those who sat as representatives of a country whose leadership called for Israel to be wiped off the face of the earth, and no one spoke out.  Hopefully, the comprehensive reforms that the United Nations was undergoing this year would include a fundamental change and improvement in the approach of the Organization and its institutions towards Israel.  Peace was a supreme value in the Jewish legacy, as well as the desired goal of Israel’s policy.

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For information media • not an official record