��������

The UN General Assembly assembles all members of the organization in an open forum with equal voting power. It was the UNGA that adopted the initial UN Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947, thereafter playing a constructive role in the promotion and adoption of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. Multiple landmark UN Security Council resolutions and every American president since have backed the two-state solution.

��������’s Beirut peace initiative of 2002 comprehensively spelled out the opportunities and responsibilities of all parties in achieving regional peace, stability and prosperity in the context of a two-state solution. This September, nations must come together at the UNGA to define clear steps to end the war and massacre in Gaza, as well as toward achieving a two-state solution.

At the close of the Second World War, Germany accepted responsibility for its crimes and the attendant financial and moral reparations owed to the families of victims, particularly the victims of the Holocaust and the Jewish people in general. Israel has now committed multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the crime of genocide. It is currently implementing this through indiscriminate killing, starvation and the forced removal of Palestinians, “making life so miserable for them that they will leave the area entirely,” in the words of Thomas Friedman.

Israel must be held responsible for the deaths, damage and crimes committed, as well as for reparations

Hassan bin Youssef Yassin

This Israeli government is responsible for the daily suffering of 2 million Gazans, the willful destruction or bulldozing of their homes, for policies leading to starvation, and for the intentional and indiscriminate killing of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, health workers and journalists. Israel must be held responsible for the deaths, damage and crimes committed, as well as for reparations.

As the mother of the state of Israel, the UNGA must demonstrate that it is also the mother of Palestinians and indeed of all humanity. A precise resolution addressing Israel’s crimes as outlined above, as well as the need for compensation and for a clear path toward a two-state solution, must be issued — the voice of the conscience of the world.

With Israeli ministers now officially admitting that they have no intention of ever permitting a Palestinian state, the UNGA and also the UNSC must be all the firmer in their insistence on reparations and the roadmap toward peace and a two-state solution. It is time for humanity to unite against this massacre and bloodshed that is tearing our world apart.

In an Aug. 25 New York Times op-ed entitled “Israel’s Gaza campaign is making it a pariah state,” Friedman wrote that “this Israeli government is committing suicide, homicide and fratricide,” noting that “it appears to many around the world that Palestinian civilians are being killed by the dozen almost daily as the inevitable spillover … from an effort to ensure that Israel has no Palestinian partner in Gaza.” Faced with the slaughter and devastation we are all witnessing in Gaza, the international force of empathy must stand with the Palestinians and extend its hand also to the many Jews and Israelis who equally condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza.

International public opinion and the community of nations all share our desire for peace and a two-state solution

Hassan bin Youssef Yassin

As Arabs, we must remind Israelis and all Jews that they are an integral part of the Middle East, of the message of God and of the shared heritage of the three great monotheistic religions. For centuries, Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together in peace in the Middle East. As Friedman has intimated before, the policies of this Israeli government have nothing to do with Judaism, but rather with an angry and extremist form of Zionism that has accompanied the Israeli state ever since the right-wing Zionist militias and ideology that preceded its creation. It must be made clear by all, including the US, that these policies and ideologies have no place in the stable and peaceful Middle East that we all envisage and are working toward.

At the upcoming UNGA meeting, we Arabs have an added responsibility and role to play, as we stand for the dignity and rights of the Palestinian people and for the state that they deserve, but also for telling all Israelis and Jews who share our desire for peace and positive neighborly relations that they are an integral component of the Middle East, which we have shared peacefully for centuries. International public opinion and the community of nations all share our desire for peace and a two-state solution. We must also understand that we need to talk to the Israeli and the Jewish people more than ever if we want to replace the guns of hatred with the healing of acceptance.

• Hassan bin Youssef Yassin worked closely with Saudi petroleum ministers Abdullah Tariki and Ahmed Zaki Yamani from 1959 to 1967. He headed the Saudi Information Office in Washington from 1972 to 1981 and served with the Arab League observer delegation to the UN from 1981 to 1983.