UN General Assembly
1998

At this juncture, I should like to remind the Assembly that since 1973 our question has been subjected to 21 vetoes in the Security Council by one of the permanent members of the Council, the most recent of which occurred in a period of less than two weeks. In short, it is necessary to secure for all Members of the United Nations the ability to contribute effectively on the basis of mutual respect. 14 Last May, the Palestinian people commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Al-Nakba, the dispossession and the suffering of the Palestinian people. Despite all of these bitter years, the oldest and largest refugee question in our contemporary world remains unresolved, and our land still suffers under occupation and colonial settlement. Its natural resources are subjected to exploitation, and the city of Al-Quds al-Sharif is still being subjected to Judaization, land confiscation, the demolition of homes, the confiscation of identity cards from its inhabitants, the imposition of a certain demographic composition and artificial administrative measures. There is also the isolation of the