Palestinian official hopes UN chief will see ‘effects of Israel’s illegal settlements’ during visit

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

AMMAN: Palestinian officials at the UN have expressed their satisfaction at the Palestinian leg of the upcoming visit of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will be traveling to Israel and Palestine at the end of August.
Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer of Palestine to the UN, told Arab News that the visit of the secretary-general will include meetings with Palestinians from all walks of life.
“We hope that this visit will allow the secretary-general to see first-hand the effects of Israel’s illegal settlements which the Security Council have opposed. UNSC 2334, which deals extensively with the illegal Israeli settlements, mandates the secretary to regularly report to the Security Council on steps taken to implement the resolution,” Mansour said, referencing the latest resolution passed by the Security Council.
To date, since the resolution was passed in December 2016, the mandated three-month reports have been presented by Guterres’ deputy.
“We have publicly called on the secretary to make these reports in writing so that they can become part of the official UN record,” said Mansour.
He told Arab News that Guterres will arrive in Ramallah on the morning of Aug. 28. He will meet with Palestinian tech entrepreneurs before laying a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat and visiting the Palestinian Museum. He will then have an official meeting with the Palestinian leadership to be followed by a joint press conference.
In addition, Mansour said, a meeting is also being arranged with independent Palestinian leaders and social activists in order to introduce Guterres to a wide spectrum of Palestinian thinking.
Guterres will also visit the besieged Gaza Strip to meet with Palestinians there, as well as members of the UN Relief and Works Agency which runs a lot of humanitarian programs in Gaza.
He will review attempts to rebuild Gaza, which — Mansour said — have been progressing “at an extremely slow rate.”
Mansour added that he hopes the secretary-general will reiterate his stated position that there is no Plan B to the two-state solution.
“If there is no Plan B, then the suspension of settlement activities throughout the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, is essential,” he explained.
Guterres is making his first visit to the region since taking the UN helm, and will also meet Israeli officials and opposition leaders, as well as visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
A Palestinian Foreign Ministry official, who spoke to Arab News on condition of anonymity, said that the new secretary-general has a number of issues on his desk on which he has yet to state his position, even though they are clearly in sync with binding UN resolutions.
One of the obstacles to the work of the new secretary-general has been the pro-Israeli stance of US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. In March, Haley blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad from taking on a senior position as a peace envoy to Libya, adding that the UN was “unfairly biased in favor of the Palestinian Authority to the detriment of our allies in Israel.”
Haley later told a congressman from her state that she is against any Palestinian holding a senior position at the UN, because Palestine is not a recognized state.
American pressure on the UN secretary-general was also evident on March 17 when Guterres insisted that Jordanian diplomat Rima Khalaf withdraw a report which accused Israel of establishing “an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole.”
Despite these issues, Palestinians in Ramallah and New York told Arab News that they are certain the secretary-general’s “heart is in the right place,” but that he has to always appear “balanced,” even if an issue is clear-cut.
Sources in New York also told Arab News that the UN chief’s biggest problem is not just that the US — under its current leadership — is pro-Israeli, but that it is also anti-UN.
Haley, they said, reflects the views of US President Donald Trump’s administration and other right-wing ideologues whom, the sources claimed, wish to see US contributions to the UN budget decrease and to see the UN’s power diminished.