Iran has been steadfast
in support of Palestinians

The former UN Special Rapporteur describes the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain deal with Israel to normalise their relations as a political and moral betrayals of the Palestinian struggle.
 

Tehran- Qods News Agency (Qodna): In an exclusive interview with Qodsna, Richard Falk, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and American Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University said: “These normalization agreements are certainly political and moral betrayals of the Palestinian struggle, although their legal status of these agreements is more controversial as many other states have long established normal relations with Israel and the Arab pledge to defer normalization until a peace agreement was reached seems to be a voluntary arrangement rather than an international obligation.

He reiterates that the political betrayal here centers on the abandonment of the Arab consensus agreed upon in 2002 that pledged Arab states to postpone normalization until after an international agreement had been reached assuring the establishment of a Palestinian sovereign state with Jerusalem (Al-Quds) as its capital along the 1967 borders.

“The moral betrayal involves breaking the pledge and according a measure of legitimation and material benefits to Israeli despite its subjugation and abuse of the Palestinian people as a whole, and even more, by its deliberate creation of conditions that make it almost inconceivable to envision peace coming about by fulfilling the expectation of a sovereign Palestine existing with 1967 borders”.

Former UN investigator also noted that it is worth observing that both UAE and Bahrain leaders in recent UN speeches confirmed their commitment to a political outcome in accord with the 2002 pledge, that is, a Palestinian state and Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They also stated unequivocally their opposition to any formalization of West Bank annexation by Israel.

Pointing to the role of Islamic Republic of Iran in the Palestinian issue, he said: “From what I know, the Islamic Republic of Iran has consistently supported a just outcome of the Palestinian struggle, which has been interpreted by the government in Tehran to require the abandonment of the Zionist insistence on the establishment of an exclusivist Jewish ethnic state in the non-Jewish society of Palestine.

Falk also said: Iran has also supported the Palestinian right of resistance, especially in Gaza, both diplomatically and materially.

“Iran has been steadfast in its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for basic rights despite paying a high price by being made the target of unlawful and aggressive behavior by Israel and its backers, including threats, sanctions, and an array of covert operations causing destabilization, and even regime change”, he added.

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