Palestine has historical and strong relations with Pakistan, the hearts of the people of Pakistan beat with the Palestinians
War of 1948 ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine
Ambassador of Palestine Husam Zomlot’s exclusive interview with “Aims International”
Interview / Wajahat Ali Khan
Dr Husam Zomlot is the ambassador of Palestine to the UK, but professionally he is an economist, professor, PhD doctor, writer, and politician as well as diplomat, he has been doing diplomacy for Palestine for many years. “Aims International” we had the opportunity to interviewed this omnipresent person in detail at his London office, summary of the interview mentioned below Before posting to London, Husam Zomlot was appointed by the Palestinian envoy to the US in March 2017. This action caused a period of intense bilateral contacts when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and US President Donald Trump met four times in the period between May and September 2017. But efforts came to a halt when the White House in November 2017 informed Zomlot of its intention to close the PLO mission in Washington DC and in December announced its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and plans to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. The move undermines a significant Palestinian policy that the eastern part of the city, occupied by Israel in 1967, should eventually serve as the capital of Palestine.
The announcement sparked protests in the occupied Palestinian areas and led the Palestinian leadership to reject US mediation. Said Zomlot at the time: “You didn’t take Jerusalem off the table. You took the table altogether. No one, no Palestinian, would ever be able to sit on that table. Good luck!” In September 2018, the PLO’s representative mission in Washington, D.C., was closed but by then Zomlot had already been recalled to Ramallah. As a result, what would eventually become the Trump Peace to Prosperity plan for peace between Israelis and Palestinians was developed only with input from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government.
Mr Zomlot was appointed Head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom in October 2018. While talking to “Aims” Zomlot has said that he is senior member of Fatah (the main Palestinian political movement) and a strategic advisor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and he also previously served as director of Fatah’s commission for foreign relations as well. Before entering politics, he said he was a professor of public policy at Birzeit University and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University in the US and an instructor at the University of London. He also worked as an economist with United Nations Special Coordinator’s Office in Palestine.
Answering the questions, he said; that Palestine has historical and strong relations with Pakistan and I believe, whatever government comes in Pakistan, it is with us in the cause of Palestine and more than that, the hearts of the people of Pakistan are also beat with the Palestinians. He said, it is western propaganda that the Palestinians sell their land to the Jews of their own free will, while the facts are that since 1948, their properties have been seized from the Palestinians by force. Continuing his conversation he said, for example, if people from other countries buy a property in Britain, then they cannot claim ownership of that country? Husam said that if Israel accepts international resolutions for a Palestinian State on the 1967 borders and right of return to Palestinian refugees, so then the Palestinians will not have any conflict or issue with Israel.
Historically, 1967 territorial changes during the Six-Day War, Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, together with the Sinai Peninsula (later traded for peace after the Yom Kippur War). In 1980–81 Israel annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Nearly, 55 years ago, the state of Israel shocked the world when it seized the remaining Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
In a war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria, known as the 1967 War, or the June War, Israel delivered what came to be known as the “Naksa”, meaning setback or defeat, to the armies of the neighbouring Arab countries, and to the Palestinians who lost all what remained of their homeland. The Naksa was a continuation of a prior central event that paved the way for the 1967 war. Nineteen years earlier, in 1948, the state of Israel came into being in a violent process that entailed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Forces of Israel, in their mission to create a “Jewish state”, expelled some 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland and destroyed their villages in the process. Shortly after Israel declared statehood, units of the neighbouring Arab country armies came in to fight for the Palestinian nation. The war of 1948 ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan.
In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria. By the end of the war, Israel had expelled another 300,000 Palestinians from their homes, including 130,000 who were displaced in 1948, and gained territory that was three and a half times its size. But the reality is that the Palestine today is limited to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, even the residents of these areas cannot go to Israeli areas or even the Al-Aqsa Mosque without a special permit.
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Husam spent his childhood and youth in very difficult and bleak conditions, despite this, he also obtained higher education through his hard work, curiosity and today he is serving his country at the international level. He was born in Shaburah refugee camp, a United Nations Relief and Works Agency camp in Rafah in the occupied Gaza Strip in 1973. His parents were originally from the village of Simsim but left in the 1948 Palestinian exodus. He became politically active while taking his undergraduate degree at Birzeit University outside Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. There he became a representative of Fatah’s student movement at the university during the First Intifada, then in 1999, while studying in London he was elected as president of the General Union of Palestinian Students in the UK. According to some news stories, just before taking up his present post as an Ambassador in London, Zomlot was forced to defend himself against accusations that he was a Holocaust denier. A few British tabloid newspapers made the allegation. Zomlot strongly denied this allegation and answered, “I do not deny the Holocaust, which was a heinous crime, I know very well what happened to European Jews. I have sat next to the family members of survivors and listened to the horrifying details of what their loved ones experienced.”
Zomlot’s diplomatic career is also very impressive, he said while talking to” Aims” that I was appointed Palestinian envoy to the US in March 2017. There followed a period of intense bilateral contacts, when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and US President Donald Trump met four times in the period between May and September 2017, But efforts came to a halt when the White House in November 2017 informed me of its intention to close the PLO mission in Washington DC and in December announced its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and plans to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. The move undermines a significant Palestinian policy that the eastern part of the city, occupied by Israel in 1967, should eventually serve as the capital of Palestine. The announcement sparked protests in the occupied Palestinian areas and led the Palestinian leadership to reject US mediation. In that context said Zomlot this historical phrase at the time: “You didn’t take Jerusalem off the table. You took the table altogether. No one, no Palestinian, would ever be able to sit on that table. Good luck!”
In September 2018, the PLO’s representative mission in Washington, D.C., was closed but by then Zomlot had already been recalled to Ramallah. As a result, what would eventually become the Trump Peace to Prosperity plan for peace between Israel Continuing the conversation, he said that “Hamas” and “Fatah” do not have much difference and anyway this is our internal matter. He said that we have no quarrel with Israel if they return the land seized from the Palestinians according to the resolution of the international community and the Security Council. He said that we use Palestinian passports for international travel, but many Palestinian Muslims also have Jordanian travel passports. Route to Egypt from Gaza.
Talking about international relations, he said that many Islamic countries, including Pakistan, do not recognize Israel, which supports the right of self-determination of the Palestinians. Which is a bit satisfying for us. Britain and all its political parties also speak for the people of Palestine regarding the political and human rights of or country. In addition, Saudi Arabia also provides a lot of financial and political support to Palestine.
Continuing the conversation, he said that “Hamas” and “Fatah” do not have much difference and anyway this is our internal matter, but at the international level, “Fatah” represents the Palestinians politically and the diplomatically. He said, we have no quarrel with Israel if they return the land seized from the Palestinians according to the resolution of the international community and the Security Council. He said that we use Palestinian passports for international travel, but many Palestinian Muslims also have Jordanian travel passports. Route to Egypt from Gaza.
