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In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful Palestine, the land of the three monotheistic
faiths, is where the Palestinian Arab people was born, on which it grew,
developed and excelled. Thus the Palestinian Arab people ensured for itself
an everlasting union between itself, its land, and its history. Resolute throughout that history, the Palestinian
Arab people forged its national identity, rising even to unimagined levels
in its defense, as invasion, the design of others, and the appeal special
to Palestine's ancient and luminous place on the eminence where powers
and civilizations are joined. All this intervened thereby to deprive the
people of its political independence. Yet the undying connection between
Palestine and its people secured for the land its character, and for the
people its national genius. Nourished by an unfolding series of civilizations
and cultures, inspired by a heritage rich in variety and kind, the Palestinian
Arab people added to its stature by consolidating a union between itself
and its patrimonial Land. The call went out from Temple, Church, and Mosque
that to praise the Creator, to celebrate compassion and peace was indeed
the message of Palestine. And in generation after generation, the Palestinian
Arab people gave of itself unsparingly in the valiant battle for liberation
and homeland. For what has been the unbroken chain of our people's rebellions
but the heroic embodiment of our will for national independence. And so
the people was sustained in the struggle to stay and to prevail. When in the course of modern times a new order
of values was declared with norms and values fair for all, it was the Palestinian
Arab people that had been excluded from the destiny of all other peoples
by a hostile array of local and foreign powers. Yet again had unaided justice
been revealed as insufficient to drive the world's history along its preferred
course. And it was the Palestinian people, already wounded
in its body, that was submitted to yet another type of occupation over
which floated that falsehood that "Palestine was a land without people."
This notion was foisted upon some in the world, whereas in Article 22 of
the Covenant of the League of Nations (1919) and in the Treaty of Lausanne
(1923), the community of nations had recognized that all the Arab territories,
including Palestine, of the formerly Ottoman provinces, were to have granted
to them their freedom as provisionally independent nations. Despite the historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian Arab people resulting in their dispersion and depriving them of their right to self-determination, following upon U.N. General 3676 2: w ZWx289 |