United Nations – Hundreds of UN officials and members of international delegations gathered on Wednesday afternoon to witness the raising of the Palestinian flag at the United Nations Headquarters for the first time in history.
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“This is a day of pride for Palestinians around the world,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said at the ceremony, “It is a day of hope.”
The flag was raised moments after Mahmoud Abbas’ controversial speech in front of the General Assembly in which he declared the Palestinian Authority was no longer bound by the Oslo Accords with Israel.
People in the cheering crowd held their cellphones as high as possible to catch a picture of Abbas, Ban Ki-Moon and General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft.
Wednesday’s ceremony was the result of a vote held at the UN earlier this month in which 119 states voted in favor of raising the flag and only 8, including Israel and the United States, voted against it.
Just after the vote, Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour had called the decision a “reaffirmation of the legitimacy of the national aspirations of the Palestinian people, of their existence among the nations of the world and their right to self-determination, to be a free people in control of their lives and destiny in their own independent State.”
The ceremony only carried symbolic meaning however, as the United Nations has not yet recognized Palestine as a member state.
“Symbols are important,” Ban Ki-Moon noted, “a symbol can lead to action in the right direction.” The secretary general also added that raising the Palestinian flag is also a symbol of the “longstanding commitment of the United Nations to support Palestinian aspirations.”
As the flag reached the top of the pole, which had been placed in the UN’s rose garden especially for the occasion, humanitarian activist and “proud palestinian” Hazami Barmada held her arms in the air in joy.
For her, seeing the Palestinian flag raised at the UN is a step towards “restoring the dignity of the Palestinian people.”
“I think beyond the conflict we are forgetting the very human elements of what the toll of 60 plus years of conflict has done on the pride of the palestinian people,” she told the Jerusalem Post.
Barmada said she hopes the UN works towards giving the Palestinians a state and have a state “not only in which they have free rights and restored rights and dignity but also equality both on global level and locally.”
“I also hope the palestinian diaspora, of which I am one, will be able to return to the region to visit the region freely without interrogation,” she added, “I face immense challenges entering into my own home country.
You raise a rebellion in israel against the Torah with chillul shabbos and gay parades and so an enemy flag is raised at the UN in New York.
As long as the palestinian nation is only a flag on a pole who cares we all know who the un members are
Flag of terrorism and evil
They should enjoy it all they can; this flag is the furthest they’re going to get to having a pali terror state!