Israel’s occupation is root cause of Mideast Conflict: Pakistan 
By Sonita Taylor 'Pakistan Times' UN Special Correspondent

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan told the U.N. Security Council Tuesday that Israel’s 38 year occupation of the Palestinian and Arab territories is the root cause of the conflicts in the Middle East, and made a strong plea for a peaceful settlement.

“The visible and often brutal suppression of the Palestinian people is also a principal root cause of the rise of extremism across the Arab and Muslim world and of the resort to terrorism,” Imtiaz Hussain, Minister at the Pakistan U.N. Mission, said.

“This political reality however unpalatable can no longer be ignored”, he said while speaking in a debate on the Middle East situation.

“Clearly, the root cause of the Israeli-Lebanon conflict; the root cause of the Palestinian resistance; the root cause of suicide bombings and rocket attacks, is Israel’s 38 year occupation of the Palestinian and Arab territories,” the Pakistan representative added.

Imtiaz Hussain said that, whatever one’s political perspective, the Middle East “was a region in flames and on the edge of chaos.”

Dealing with the Israel-Hizbollah war in Lebanon, he said the world had just witnessed a month-long cruel and unjust war, which had been characterized by a series of violations of basic Charter principles, including the disproportionate use of force.

Indeed, no military provocation by irregular forces could justify a full-scale attack and destruction of a country whose national forces or authorities had had no role in that provocation.

The Pakistan representative said there had also been “gross and consistent” violations of international humanitarian law, the apparent targeting of United Nations peacekeepers, and most seriously, the Council’s failure to discharge its primary responsibility, forcing the world to watch helplessly as the bombs and rockets continued to rain down and kill innocent people.

And, while the “labouriously negotiated” resolution 1701 had been a better outcome than earlier proposals to end the violence, it had not been the Council’s finest hour, he said. Indeed, the text had only managed to call for “cessation of hostilities” that was “unequal and incomplete.” The peace that followed had proved fragile, and one party taking advantage of the resolution’s ambiguity had already violated the truce. Similar ambiguity also plagued the plan to reinforce and redeploy UNIFIL.

“One thing is certain”, he said, “the United Nations should not be expected to accomplish what could not be imposed by the resort to war. It is the responsibility of the Government of Lebanon, and its Armed Forces, to establish its sovereignty over its own territory.”

Elaborating on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, he said the structure of a durable peace in the Holy Land was well-known: the vision of two States, Israel and Palestine, living side by side with secure and recognized borders.

To realize that vision, the Council must secure the non-selective implementation of its own resolutions, as well as the provisions of the Arab peace initiative and the Quartet-backed Road Map.

“It is Pakistan’s hope that the peaceful solution of the Middle East’s disputes will not be further exacerbated by arbitrary deadlines and precipitate actions on their problems in the area,” he said. “This could throw further fuel into the fire in this already inflamed region”.●