Peace and security · 6 mentions in this passage
Your excellencies, we see the cost of that neglect every day in my region, from Lebanon to Yemen to Sudan, protracted conflict is deepening humanitarian suffering. And if anyone had any doubt that a crisis in our part of the world stays there, just look at the energy and grocery bills of ordinary families, from Mumbai to Madrid to Minnesota. The Iran war has shown how quickly instability can disrupt trade, investment and lives beyond the region. And then there is Raza. For decades, I've stood before this assembly and warned of the dangers of leaving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict unresolved. But the international community chose to manage the conflict, not confront it. And every new Israeli violation was treated as temporary, diverting attention from the reality being created on the ground until temporary became permanent and permanent became policy. Of course, this is not the world's only injustice, but one of the world's longest running occupations forces a basic question if international law can be ignored for decades, then what exactly is that law worth and how can we enforce it if we won't even call out its violations? In Gaza? The evidence is overwhelming, and the first 300 days of the so-called cease fire, at least 300 Palestinian children were killed. Jordan's field hospitals have also been targeted. President Trump has pushed hard for peace and a path to end this war. But this Israeli government keeps moving the goalposts, continuing its attacks and destruction of civilian infrastructure, refusing to withdraw and squeezing Palestinians into barely a third of Gaza. This can no longer be dismissed as temporary military measures or a consequence of war. Accountability begins when we call things for what they are, an attempt to erase Palestinian life and impose a new territorial reality in Gaza. And while the world has been focused on Gaza, something extraordinarily dangerous is unfolding in the West Bank. Some may think we have seen this before settlements, violence, displacement, more of the same, but it is not. Nor is it simply an escalation. This is a fundamental shift. What was once a creeping process has exploded into something far more aggressive. Settler violence is rampant. Palestinians are being beaten, shot and terrorized, homes torched, property destroyed, families driven from their land and Israel is tightening its grip on more of the West Bank, seizing land, expanding settlements and pushing the Palestinians out. It is time to see what is happening for what it really is, because when the language is sanitized, the actions become normalized. Demolishing Palestinian homes to expand illegal settlements is not law enforcement. It is forcible transfer. Appropriating occupied land is not land registration. It is de facto annexation, a choking network of checkpoints and barriers is not security infrastructure. It is a system of subjugation. Systematic attacks on Palestinian communities are not settler unrest. The Israeli government criticizes the violence before the international audiences. They call those responsible a handful of rioters. They assure us that Israel is a country governed by law. Yet what's happening on the ground says otherwise. Israeli soldiers stand by as settlers attacked Palestinians, often protecting the attackers or joining them. They have blocked ambulances from reaching the injured. They have targeted international journalists who are trying to say the truth. And when soldiers watch, enable and sometimes even participate in violence against civilians, this is no longer about a handful of rioters. And the question is no longer whether a few extremists are breaking the law. The question is, is this the behavior of a democratic state governed by law? What is unfolding across the West Bank is not a series of isolated acts. It is elements of a single policy to compel an entire population to leave their land. And there is a name for that forced displacement, and that is a war crime. Your excellencies, if we are to resolve the Palestinian Israeli conflict, the world must abandon some illusions. The first is that Gaza and the West Bank are separate stories. They are not. There are two fronts of the same Israeli strategy in both. Palestinians are being killed in both. The reality on the ground is being remade as death through destruction. The West Bank through de facto annexation. The objective is the same to make a viable Palestinian state impossible. Another illusion is that this Israeli leadership's rejection of Palestinian statehood is a position that might yet change. It is not. It is cemented on the ground. This government has been accelerating settlements and land seizures, but it began long before. Since Oslo, the map has changed piece by piece, settlement by settlement, and the most dangerous illusion that the Arab world never sought peace. The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 offered Israel normalization with 57 Arab and Muslim states, including Iran and Iraq at the time, in exchange for peace and Palestinian statehood. For over 20 years, that offer has stood. The obstacle hasn't been the absence of a partner for peace, but the absence of an Israeli government willing to accept it. This Israeli government. This Israeli government, understands the power of attention, and lately it has not liked the attention it's been getting when confronted with evidence of wrongdoing. Rather than change the course, it opts for distraction, discrediting its critics. It is also tried to cast this conflict as a war of religions Islam on one side, Judaism and Christianity on the other. It is not. This is about whether Palestinians, Muslims and Christians are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Distractions will not fly anymore. People across the world are paying attention. The question now is, will we act because the world's political inaction is not for lack of options. So let's call it for what it is a choice. We have tools, sanctions, asset freezes, embargoes, diplomatic isolation, and we have a record of using them elsewhere. Yet with Israel, resolutions end where they began on paper. This result is a state without restraint. This government's sense of impunity has reached terrifying levels. It no longer feels compelled to ask, can we get away with this? It already knows the answer, and that is precisely why no one in this assembly should assume its ambitions stop at Palestine. This Israeli government's expansionist appetite is now a regional threat. And today Syria is the warning. The international community is choosing not to see repeated incursions, creeping territorial expansion, new facts imposed on the ground, including around vital water resources, step by calculated step, Israel is testing how far it can go, and every time the international community looks away, Israel learns that it can go even further across borderlines and legal limits. For Jordan, there is no ambiguity, any threat to our northern border or our water security is a threat to our national security. Jordan will not look away. We will protect our security, our water and the interests of our people And the question here is, if Israel continues its antagonistic approach in southern Syria, will the international community stand by and let that happen?