The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry slammed the US State Department’s annual human rights report dropping any reference to Syria’s Golan Heights and the Palestinian territories as “Israeli-occupied” as a damning evidence of the US administration’s hostility towards the Palestinian people. RNA - The US State Department changed its usual description of Syria’s Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from “Israeli-occupied” to “Israeli-controlled” in the annual global human rights report released on Wednesday, WAFA reported.
In response, the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said in a statement, “The so-called human rights report issued by the US State Department is damning evidence of the [Donald] Trump administration's hostility towards the Palestinian people, their national identity and rights, as well as the universal values of human rights.”
“The "report" was devoid of proper political and legal context, namely the willful omission of the legal qualification of occupation in relation to the territory of the State of Palestine and the Syrian Golan Heights.
Additionally, the "report" reasserted the US administration's complicity with the Israeli agenda of colonial occupation and oppression by attempting to whitewash Israeli crimes and excuse human rights violations against the Palestinian people, it pointed out.
It voiced Palestine’s rejection of the report for negating the Palestinian people’s national identity and deep historic roots in their own homeland.
“The State of Palestine also rejects as reprehensible the US administration's negation of the national identity of the Palestinian people and their deep historic roots by describing them as so-called 'residents' in their own homeland," it added.
“This racist and hostile position reaffirms the fact that the US administration is now an accomplice in the violations of the Palestinian people's human and national rights. This makes them part of the problem, not the solution,” it stressed.
The foreign ministry urged the international community to defend the universality of and ensure respect of human rights.
“The international community has a responsibility and vested interest in ensuring that the doctrine of universal human rights is not further undermined by this administration. We must defend the universality of human rights and uphold the standing obligations of all states to respect and ensure respect of international law,” it concluded.
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