I would like to start by reading the remarks I started with yesterday as my as I presented my fifth report um as a special reporter to the third Committee of the general assembly in a year in which I was turned into a reluctant chronicler of genocide I feel compelled to start by paying my respects to the victims and survivors of all genocides past and present in including the Native Americans like the lenapi people who are the regional stewards of the land on which is this institution stands certainly the ongoing struggle of Native Americans and Indigenous
peoples everywhere to regain and maintain their rights on their ancestral land like the Palestinians would be less challenging if institutions like this one premised upon equality and freedom of all and self-determination for all were actually committed to addressing and unraveling the colonial past Beginning by confronting the prevailing Colonial Amnesia that affects many of them and as Italian Holocaust Survivor Primo Levi reminds us it is the amesia of the past and the rasure of its victims that allows history to repeat itself and why did I start by reading this again and again it's because his history
is repeating itself yesterday I presented my second report on genocide why so why do I insist in calling a genocide because it's so difficult to prove intent why don't you go with war crimes and crimes against humanity because it's genocide because if you go to a doctor and do and and you have uh cancer and you are diagnosed with with FIV you have a problem a big problem and it's the same with a people who's being genocided because it's not about a collection of war crimes and crimes against humanity that the Palestinians are experiencing they
have experienced through their entire life as a people war crimes and crimes against humanity but nowadays the situation is different and it's very important that we understand what is genocide and why this is to be recognized as a genocide because in the same way as the International Community has failed to protect the victims of genocide in the G in the case of the Jewish people in Europe and then the bosnians in former Yugoslavia and then the uh the tosti in uh in Rwanda this in the same way we are failing the Palestinians and I want
to express all my respect and solidarity with the Palestinian people because it's it's a torment to be here as a Palestinian and having to tell all of us about the genocide that their their people are experiencing because a people is like a body you chop one arm you chop one limb the entire body suffer and this is what a people is it's something organic and the same thing is the relation between the people and the land for indigenous people the land is not the place where they live the land is who they are and this
is why we need to understand the bigger design behind what's happening in Palestine today on the 14th of October when together with other special repur we started to denounce to raise the alarm that what Israel had started to do might be genocide and there was a serious risk of genocide and then as of no November 30 of us have said a genocide is unfolding I also said on on the 14th of October under the fog of War Israel accelerate the force displacement of the Palestinians and I do say that out of the scholarship that have
produced because the way I know the question of Palestine is through the force displacement of its people since even before the state of Israel was was created is Palestinians have been kicked out of their land amid the destruction of their Villages and everything they had from 1947 49 and in 1967 and it continues and what's happening today it's much more severe because of the technology because of the Weaponry but also because of the impunity that has been granted to the state of Israel Over 76 years the uis that has led Israel to attack not just
the Palestinian people or the Lebanese to also to and to the Lebanese also goes my solidarity in this moment but the United Nations this year has also marked an attack against the United Nations physically symbolically in terms of functions Israel has damaged or in any way bombed and targeted and hit 70% of Andra infrastructure in Gaza it has launched a campaign a smear campaign against against anra since since which intensified a pattern that was already established and it has killed 230 un staff members called colleagues of many of those who work in this in this
institution and it has targeted the humanitarian capacity of anra and it has even targeted un peacekeepers and it has targeted the the UN Secretary General and independent experts and it's very lusterous assembly no one has been spared not just among the Palestinians and the Lebanese even in the United Nations and it's because of that on top of the genocide and on top of the 57 years of unlawful occupation that I say it's time to consider suspending the credential of Israel as a member State I understand the sensitivity because none of you is really has really
clean ends when it comes to Human Rights that's okay but no one else has maintained an unlawful occupation violating Decades of un Security Council General Assembly human rights Council International court of justice decision and resolutions as Israel has done enough enough and the last Point genocide why this is genocide genocide is a very Insidious crime it's a process it's not an act and there is a significant Juris Prudence but still incipient Juris Prudence thankfully and the the critical element to the terine genocide is the intent behind acts of killing and infliction harm and um creating
conditions of Life leading to the destruction of a group as such there is the intent and the discussion I hear including from Scholars well it's difficult to prove the intent the intent is not a motive it's a different thing it's intent is the determination to destroy through CRI acts motives can vary one can commit genocide because of what can can develop the will the determination to commit genocide to stay in power or to liberate the hostages or to commit other crimes but the the moment there is the determination to destroy then the intent of genocide
is formed and you don't even need to have genocide unfolding to intervene we have already failed the Palestinians genocide has already been committed but we need to first of all intervene stop and punish the perpetrators and then to stop it because it's expanding to God to the West Bank and is Jerusalem no one no no Palestinians is is safe under Israeli Rule and the other element and with this I will conclude uh the what is critical is the responsibility of the state we cannot apply the same threshold for um alleged perpetrators so criminal responsibility to
a state otherwise if we have to guar look at the Paradox preventing genocide would be an impossible mission if if we have to wait until the guarantees that fair trial afford to per alleged perpet perpetrators are satisfied we would never prevent genocide but here the responsibility of a state is evident especially especially in a self claimed the rule of law system which has checks and balances it's not just the executive it's the Parliament and the Judiciary what has what have these bodies done in in Israel to prevent genocide nothing not only this is not the
uh the result of action of some members of the government this is a collective responsibility of the state of Israel and and because of that I say this is the first settler Colonial genocide to be litigated in human history The Cry For Justice behind this case will resonate across the globe and will make a difference also for other indigenous people that have never seen a day of Justice thank you very much
