Speaker, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is observed by the United Nations on 29 November this year. This date was chosen in an attempt by this world body to highlight the plight of over eight million people confined to living out their lives in bondage, in what are commonly called Bantustans. Their painful experience of detention without trial, of displacement and dispossession, of daily suffering indignities, of dehumanisation and of the denial of basic human and fundamental rights is a story black South Africans know too well.
This, today and for the past 63 years, has been the story of the Palestinian people. The observance of this day of solidarity has traditionally given the international community the opportunity to focus its attention on the fact that the Palestinian question remains unresolved and that these people are yet to obtain their inalienable rights to self- determination without external interference, the right to national independence and sovereignty, and the right to return to their homes and properties from which they were displaced.
The ANC remains committed to the cause of the Palestinian people and reiterates our organisation's firm belief that the two-state solution, with a viable, sovereign and independent Palestine, together with Israel, living side by side and in peace, is indeed the only viable solution and, as such, calls on the Israeli state to stop its settlement expansion into Palestinian territory, as this constitutes a major obstacle to peace and the peace process. It indeed undermines the realistic potential for the existence of a Palestinian state. Thank you very much. [Applause.]