First of all I would like to extend my great thanks to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, particularly it's President and all the organisers of this seminar. I'd like to thank you for inviting me to participate in this seminar and I would also like to thank you for your choice of this subject and for giving me the opportunity to express myself on such an important issue, the prospect for peace between Palestine and Israel and in the Middle East. This issue is of such great significance since it is linked to an important region in the world, be itgeographically or strategically, which explains why the evolution of the current situation in that region constitutes a threat to international peace and security, and why the issue of a just peace is so significant for the parties working for peace. If peace goes together with justice it is because a peace that is based on injustice cannot be a peace at all. It is rather a surrender of the weak to the strong who acquires his strength from his oppressive power.

When talking about peace in Palestine and in the Middle East, we always insist on a just peace otherwise there won't be any peace in the region at all. I say so simply because the concept of peace that the parties to the conflict have, for example the Palestinians on one hand and the Israelis on the other, is different. That's important. The Palestinians who have been subjected to the oppression of the Israeli occupation and who still see their children killed daily by Israeli occupation army's bullets, missiles, helicopter's gun-ships and attacks by the Jewish settlers, believe that only a just peace can guarantee the total withdrawal of Israeli from the Palestinian territory that I occupied through war in 1967, including Jerusalem. Also the dismantling of all the Israeli settlements established by Israel thereon after the war in flagrant violation of the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 in order to establish their independent their independent and sovereign Palestinian state on Palestinian soil.

Here the Palestinians are not asking for more than their right to return to their homes from which they have been expelled in 1948 and in 1967 according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and United Nations pertinent resolutions, their right to a free self determination, same as any other people of the world based on the right to self-determination which is a jus cogens of international law , as it is an international principle for all the people of the world without distinction according to Article 1 and 55 of the United Nations Charter and common article 1 of the two international covenants on social, economic and cultural rights and civil and political rights.

The pertinent United Nations resolutions since 1947 and other subsequent resolutions which came to affirm this right, including the right to the Palestinian people to establish its independent sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. In other words, the Palestinians are in total conformity with international legitimacy and law, and international humanitarian law. As for the Israeli's, peace means a peace which guarantees their security by controlling all the occupied Palestinian territory as part of the state of Israel and forcing the Palestinians to live within their state, the state of Israel, as a minority, destitute of any national rights if they do not succeed in driving them out of the borders of the state, a fact which is clearly illustrated by the Judaisation of every aspect of the life in Palestine, including occupied Jerusalem, using all racist means to achieve that end. These two different concepts of peace between Palestinians and Israelis are the core of the current problem.

The conflict currently taking place is nothing but the result of what I said before. Naturally in front of such a situation, the parties resort to international law and international legitimacy to settle the conflict following the modalities used by international law to deal with the foreign military occupation on the one hand and with the right of self determination as a universal right and as a jus cogen of international law on the other hand. In this respect, the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly have both affirmed over many years that the Palestinian territories that have been invaded by Israel during the 1967 war, including East Jerusalem, are occupied territories. These same international organs in addition to the UN Commission on Human Rights, have affirmed over many years, the illegality of the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories, emphasising that any attempt to alter the demographic, geographic or institutional character of the city of Jerusalem, constitutes an illegal act, and have repeatedly called on Israel immediately put an end to such acts.

According to the International Law, military occupation constitutes an aggression, and a crime against the security of mankind that should be brought to an end with an unconditional withdrawal. The settlements established by the occupying power constitute war crimes, the responsibility of which are to be legally judged according to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the first additional protocol of 1977. Therefore they should be dismantled if a just lasting and comprehensive peace is what the parties are really trying to achieve.

But if we consider the current situation, there is no need for further debate. The whole world is witnessing on television screens the daily crimes at the hands of the Israeli occupying forces and settlers against the Palestinian people. In addition to the fact that military occupation in itself constitutes an aggression and a crime against peace of mankind, the daily practices such as killing Palestinians, which have caused the death of over 500 martyrs and over 25,000 injured, 30% are children, crimes are assassinations and extra-judicial killings, closures of Palestinian territories, isolation of towns and villages from each other, tight military siege all over the Palestinian territories, policies of house demolition causing so far the destruction of hundreds of houses, leveling agricultural land, uprooting trees, confiscating Palestinian lands, persistent on establishing an expanding settlements in the Pal territory, imposing collective punishment, together with the non-conformity of Israel neither to international legitimacy nor to the agreements signed by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and the former Israeli governments, all these practices affirms that Sharon's government, the one responsible for multiple crimes against the Palestinian people only has plans for war and nothing for peace.

These acts of aggression resulting from and linked to Israeli military occupation in addition to the act of occupation, are causing the destruction of the peace process and hindering any possibility to achieve stability and security in the region. International legitimacy represented by the provision of the United Nations Charter and resolutions, the Palestinian peoples exercise its legitimate right in combating the Israeli military occupation with all available means, including the armed struggle in order to liberate its territory, and exercise its right to self determination without any foreign interference as a basic condition for achieving a permanent and just peace in the region of the Middle East and establish its sovereign and independent Palestinian state, on its national soil.

The peace which guarantees security and stability and spare the region of the bloodshed is the peace based on international legitimacy. Starting from the General Assembly resolution 181 of 29 November, 1947, which affirms the right of the Palestinian people in establishing its independent Palestinian state on the side to the Jewish state in addition to repeated resolutions in that respect, including resolution 242 of 1967. Other resolutions related to the illegality of the Israeli settlements the authority of the peace process as the basis of the Madrid Conference conducive of the implementation of Security Council Resolution 242 which provides for the withdrawal of Israel from the territories it has occupied by force since 1967, the principle of land for peace and General Assembly resolution 194 which affirms the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes and properties from which they have been expelled in 1948.

I thank you.