Today at the United Nations in New York, day one of the UN High-Level International Conference on “The Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution” took place. The three-hour sessions, morning and afternoon, were billed as a ministerial meeting and wrap-up session. This conforms to the format of pre-conference work that has gone on in roundtables, presented in the Trusteeship Council Chamber. The afternoon session took place in the General Assembly, where the conference continues tomorrow.
France and Saudi Arabia are the two nations designated by the UN as facilitators of the conference and their representatives chair the sessions: Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs of France; and Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia.
The dozens of speeches, most of which support the rights of Palestinians, and many of which denounce Israel’s occupation and destruction, can be described as remaining within a narrow band of declarations of human rights. Very seldom was recognition given to the reality that those rights can be realized only with intervention for economic development as a human right and necessity, and with coordinated action to stop the genocide now.
