(Abstract of the Verbatim Note of the Parliamentary Assembly)

Statement by

Ziad ABU ZAYYAD, Palestinian Legislative Council member

Mr Ziad ABU ZAYADD (Minister for Jerusalem Affairs for the Palestinian Legislative Council). – I thank the Council of Europe and the Political Affairs Committee for the efforts that they have made to enable me to come here. I had thought that I would not be able to come. I also thank Haim Ramon, because he was involved in trying to convince his government to allow me to come. Haim Ramon and I have been friends for fifteen or twenty years. I have heard him speak many times, and perhaps this is not the best speech I have heard him make. Mr Ramon supports peace, but he has defended the policy of a government that is by no means interested in peace. I understand how difficult it is to try to defend that government when he holds such a position.

The Sharon government declared war against terror. Sharon and his government believe that the purpose of terror is to destroy everything that came out of the Oslo agreement. However, they want to return us to the pre-1991 situation and to continue the campaign of building Jewish settlements in the Palestinian-occupied territories. To achieve that aim, Sharon was very intelligent in involving the Labour Party in his government, and using it as a vehicle to declare war against the Palestinians. He put the Labour Party in a position in which it could not leave the government and continued his plans by adding fanatical right-wing parties to his government. There are now ministers in his government who call officially for the transfer of the Palestinians and ethnic cleansing. They say that the Palestinians should be made to live outside Israel and be transferred to Jordan and surrounding Arab countries. For example, Efraim Eitam, a new minister in the government, suggested renting the Sinai Desert in Egypt so that they could send all the Palestinians there.

We have witnessed a war against our civil institutions, ministries and data infrastructure. Taking the hard discs from computers in the Ministries of Transportation, Education, Health, Economics and Industry has nothing to do with the war on terror. Destroying our infrastructure – our roads, sewage system and electricity – is not a war against terror. Stealing money from the safes in the ministries and trying to break the Palestinian International Bank, which is a private sector bank, is not a war against terror.

We have always been against suicide attacks in Israel. We condemn them whether they are on the leadership or take place on a personal level. I have always condemned such attacks and asked for them to stop. Between 1995-96 and 2000, we succeeded in stopping suicide attacks, but the Sharon government adopted a new policy – we call it an assassination policy – and it has started assassinating all kinds of political activists and activists in organisations. Each time it assassinates someone, it invites a reaction of revenge from our side. We tell the Israeli Government to stop the assassinations because they only invite suicide attacks. We are ready to stop suicide attacks and any violence, so we ask the government to help us to do that.

The Israeli Government has carried out such policies and targeted Palestinian institutions and our security system. Now all our security system, including the blue-uniformed civil police, has been destroyed. Police stations and headquarters have been destroyed and Israelis have killed many of our policemen and security people. They have also arrested many of them, and others have left their places and returned to their families. That has left us with almost nothing with which we can fight terrorism or maintain security in our community.

We have witnessed disturbing acts of lynching in Hebron in the past few days. There is now a vacuum and we cannot even maintain internal security. Although we do not have many means and resources, we sent hundreds of our blue-uniformed civil police on to the streets in an attempt to maintain security, to provide traffic services, to protect property and to try to rebuild civil society.

The Israelis have kept Arafat isolated and under siege in Ramallah, after destroying all his security people, police and civil administration. However, at the same time, they ask him to fight terrorism, and such a request is ridiculous. If one wants Arafat to do that job, give him the opportunity to do it. However, fighting him, describing him as a terrorist and carrying out a campaign of character assassination against him do not help. Arafat is the only Palestinian leader who can sign a peace agreement with Israel.

Haim Ramon spoke about generosity and said that Israelis had been generous with us. We do not want their generosity. We are under occupation and we want it to end. People speak of the infrastructure of terror, but the real infrastructure of terror is the occupation and Jewish settlements in Palestinian-occupied territories. Stop confiscating land and stop building Jewish settlements; stop oppressing us and let us return to the path of peace. We are ready to return to that path.

The immediate removal of the siege of Arafat and the immediate withdrawal from Palestinian territories would enable the Palestinian Authority to rebuild its institutions and its security service. International guarantees that Israel will not again do what it has done against us are essential in the process of returning to political solutions and resuming peace negotiations.