Checked Against Delivery
Thank you, James, and good morning, everyone.
Denmark is pleased to co-host this Arria-formula meeting alongside with the UK, France, Greece and Latvia.
We extend our gratitude to our briefers for giving us a rare and I’ll also say deeply sobering insight into the often-overlooked and painful reality of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
I think it has become clear from what we heard this morning that the situation in the West Bank is increasingly precarious, bordering the risk of a collapse, whether we talk economically, socially or politically. And that prospect should concern us all.
As we heard from our briefers, developments on the ground include record levels of Israeli settlement expansion, settler violence, demolitions, land seizures, movement restrictions and policies that weaken the Palestinian Authority.
Individually, each of these developments are alarming. Taken together they have catastrophic consequences.
They are not only altering the physical and political reality. They are changing the very horizon of what remains possible.
Piece by piece, they are reshaping the map on which the two-state solution was intended to be built.
These developments have two troubling indications:
First, the human cost – as we heard from Mr. Basel Adra.
The reality of daily life that he called in the West Bank. For example, demolitions mean that families are losing their homes. Settlements cause loss of property, farmland and livelihood.
Checkpoints constraint daily life as we heard also from Max Rodenbeck about the road blocks and settler violence creates victims and traumatised communities.
Second, is the political cost.
The cumulative efforts of these developments obviously undermine the viability of a contiguous Palestinian state. As the geographic and institutional foundations of such a state are weakened, so is the prospect of a two-state solution.
And this reality should concern us all.
Denmark’s position is clear: Israel’s legitimate security concerns must be ensured. But lasting security cannot be separated from the two-state solution as charted in the New York Declaration, which remains the only credible pathway to achieving peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians.
We believe that the current trajectory must be reversed.
This requires a halt to the Israeli settlement expansions, the demolitions and the land seizures, it requires accountability for settler violence. It requires UNRWA’s ability to deliver essential services and humanitarian assistance to Palestinians as well as steps to stabilize and strengthen the Palestinian Authority.
In this regard, we welcome the reform efforts by the Palestinian Authority and encourage further efforts in this regard. We also welcome the organisation of the Palestinian local elections on April 25th in these certainly very challenging circumstances.
These measures are necessary to preserve the two-state solution and a future where Palestinians and Israelis live side by side in peace and dignity.
Because if these conditions for a two-state solution disappear, we are not solving the conflict – we are accepting its permanence.
And we will not accept that.
The Security Council should act with the urgency required to preserve a future where Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side in peace, security, and dignity.
I thank you.
