Assad Shoman Addresses ICJ on Israel/Palestine Conflict

Ambassador Assad Shoman, Belize’s former foreign minister, appeared before the International Court of Justice earlier today where he presented on the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine and the atrocities being committed by Israel against the Palestinians in Gaza.  Here’s an excerpt from his presentation at The Hague.

 

Assad Shoman, Former Foreign Minister

“President, members of the court.  The Palestinian people have an inalienable right to self-determination and complete independence which has always been systematically denied to them.  The League of Nations Mandate to territories had a right to independence which was realized to all of them, except for Palestine.  The UN Charter enshrined the right to self-determination for protection of all peoples, except in practice for the Palestinians.  More than half of whom were massacred or driven off their land in the 1948 Nakba.  The land was partitioned and half of it allocated to a new state that promptly extended it to seventy-eight percent by brute force.  In 1967, just seven years after Resolution 1415, Israel commenced its still continuing occupation of the entirety of the remaining Palestinian territory.  Since then, Israel has through systematic manipulation of negotiations to undermine the presumed objectives to ensure that the Palestinian people are prevented from ever exercising that right.  Israel cannot be permitted to continue flouting one of the most fundamental principles of international law with impunity.  Impunity breeds inhumanity.  The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination is violated in many ways, I will focus on three.  First, the exclusion of Palestinians from any part of Palestinian territory denies their right to territorial integrity which is an essential part of the right to self-determination.”