UN General Assembly
2011

conflict. The international community has invested far too much effort and resources over the past decades not to do all it can now to assist a return to direct talks by the two sides. In the words of Martin Luther King, we cannot ignore the fierce urgency of now. I again urge the Government of Israel to halt all settlement expansion. I also call on it to end the unjust blockade of Gaza by opening up land crossings to normal commercial, human and humanitarian traffic. The search for freedom and equality drives the enormously important work being done by the United Nations and by its individual Member States in the area of development. The Millennium Development Goals provide the essential framework for international development efforts up to 2015. As we look beyond 2015, the United Nations must remain central to the fight to end poverty and hunger in the world. A century and a half ago, the streets around this building where we now meet, and throughout this great city, were thronged with tens of thousands of Irish