AN APPEAL BY INTELLECTUALS AND WRITERS TO THE SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIS EXCELLENCY KOFI ANNAN April 21, 2002 Your Excellency, As you have observed several times in recent declarations – most recently on the occasion of the meeting of the Commission for Human Rights of the United Nations in Geneva on April 12, 2002 – the murderous conflict in Palestine and Israel has reached tragic dimensions. International Conventions on Human Rights are being violated and possibly war crimes and crimes against Humanity are being committed day after day. The Palestinian population has been subjected to conditions of absolute distress with incalculable consequences. The Israeli society has been subjected to increasing militarization, without its security being guaranteed or improved. NGOs, UN agencies are prevented from fulfilling their humanitarian function. Access to the devastated cities and refugee camps remains forbidden to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in spite of repeated demands. Several compulsory resolutions of the Security Council (including the unanimous resolution of April 4, 2002) have been ignored. Tensions are obviously growing which threaten peace in the whole region. Now that several proposals for negotiations and tentative mediations have proved ineffective, the United Nations Organization must take the initiative again. Only the U.N. can provide the appropriate framework for an international intervent ion which would end the fighting and the repressive operations, grant a full protection to the civil populations on both sides, lift the obstacles to the talks, and open new perspectives for a just settlement, on the basis of its own past Resolutions. First and foremost, the U.N. should reassert that it is necessary to set up without delay two fully sovereign States with equal rights and equal dignity for the two peoples which have to live together in the land of historic Palestine. Practically, this now implies the recognition of Palestinian sovereignty within the borders existing before June 4, 1967 (including East-Jerusalem), which should be respected and enforced by the International Community. This recognition, for which there are no longer juridical obstacles, was planned in advance by the Oslo agreements, as a common task of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The circumstances that have destroyed this possibility and installed a logic of violence in its stead are well-known. There is now only one way of stopping the bloodshed and recreating a possibility of peace: to change the approach and start again on a clear and indisputable legal basis. The creation of the Palestinian State can no longer appear as a reward, to be granted by the occupying power, for marks of “good will” which are always likely to be declared insufficient. On the contrary, that creation is the first step, a minimum prerequisite which will then make it possible to engage in bilateral negotiations and offer mutual guarantees. The Palestinians have now acknowledged the legitimate existence of the State of Israel. They have already agreed to renounce 78% of the historical territory where their parents had lived, or they were born themselves. They have an absolute right to be totally liberated from occupation and immediately enjoy their own internationally recognized sovereign State of Palestine. Only a sovereign State can be held responsible for the actions of its citizens, within and across its borders. Only a sovereign Palestinian State, therefore, can guarantee the security of the Israeli people, which is itself their absolute right. Only such a State can develop democratic institutions, which would allow itself and its citizens to take a new historic path, and overcome the grievances and traumas of the past. Only such a sovereign State can legitimately enter into negotiations with its neighbours – Israel first of all – to settle the lasting problems of populations, natural resources, mutual safety, compensations, administration of the Holy Places. A solution for the difficulties which prevent these two peoples from living together peacefully – peoples separated today by deep hatred and distrust, although they are necessary to each other and to the future of our civilization – cannot remain suspended while awaiting a “peace process” which is constantly interrupted by the imbalance of forces, internal political calculations, the abuse of suffering and fear, double talk, and foreign pressure. It must proceed from a declared equality of rights which is binding for everybody. And it is exactly now, when any possibility of reaching this solution may seem most out of reach, that justice and right must be reasserted and implemented. But in order to achieve this result, a political initiative is needed. Your Excellency, this is an emergency. We know that you are fully aware of the situation. In the name of Humanity and in the vital interest of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, we call on you to start the process of official recognition of Palestinian Statehood in actuality – if necessary by recommending an exceptional session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. We call our Governments in each of our Countries, and the Alliances and Treatises to which they adhere, to fully support your initiative.