Chief of the Arab States league, Amr Mousa, asserted on Sunday that the Palestinian people’s ‘legitimate rights’ can not be divided or abolished, either by ignorance or compensation.
In a press briefing, Mousa stressed that the Israeli occupation exists; therefore, the Palestinian question should be resolved, first and foremost, on basis of ending such an occupation, which the US president George W. Bush recognizes.
Mousa’s remarks came in response to Bush’s statement that previous Palestinian question-related resolutions are ‘no longer valid’.
The high-ranking Arab official maintained that such resolutions should constitute the basis for any solution, particularly with respect to the occupied east Jerusalem, in accordance with the Arab states’ initiative of 2002.
‘The Palestinian rights cannot be ignored or dealt with financially, as negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis should come out with a just solution that is consistent with the relevant international resolutions’, Mousa believed.
President Bush began last week a visit to the region, in a bid to push peace between Palestinians and Israelis on the basis of a two-state solution, Bush envisioned some years ago.
In November of 2007, Washington hosted a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, United States, relaunching a seven-year-long stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace process
United Nations General Assembly resolution 194 of 1949, stipulates that Palestinians who were displaced by Israel from historical Palestine in 1948, should be granted the right of return and compensation.
In 1967, the United Nations’ Security Council issued an abiding resolution known as 242, which demands Israel to withdraw ‘immediately’ from Arab lands it occupied in June 4, 1967, including the occupied East Jerusalem, West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Israel has preempted recent renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks by demanding that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, which would mean a derogation of the Palestinian rights to historical Palestine and east Jerusalem, which Palestinians consider the capital of future Palestinian state.
