Palestine Cannot Be Erased or Ignored, Says UN Envoy Riyad Mansour

NEW YORK: Palestine’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, has said efforts to sideline Palestine on the world stage have failed and that the Palestinian people cannot be denied their rights.
Addressing the 15-member Security Council on Monday at the close of the UN General Assembly’s high-level week, Mansour said Palestine had been present everywhere at the gathering. He said a large majority of 152 member states had intervened to ensure the Palestinian delegation could participate on an equal footing with other sovereign states, effectively overriding visa-denial restrictions imposed by the host country. He said the Palestinian people could not be made invisible, nor their rights extinguished, through genocide, occupation, settlement or annexation.
Mansour warned that annexation of Palestinian territory was no longer a future threat but already a reality, with land seizures and construction in the occupied West Bank proceeding “faster than ever.” He singled out tenders issued for construction in the strategically located E1 corridor near Jerusalem, calling it the final stage of a broader effort to end the Palestinian state and every prospect of peace. He also alleged that Israeli authorities were moving towards dismantling the Palestinian Authority.
Stressing that Security Council Resolution 2334 was never meant to be optional, he said decades of verbal condemnation had failed to halt expansionism. “It is time to move from statements to action, from condemnation to accountability, and from solidarity to implementation,” he said. He urged member states to disarm occupying forces and hold accountable officials, financial institutions and companies that finance illegal expansion. Citing the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion, he said third states were legally obliged not to recognise the occupation or provide it material support, and called for no money, trade or arms to prolong the illegal occupation.
He concluded that world powers must now show whether diplomatic statements would finally translate into concrete action.