Ashraf AboArafe
The Seventh Conference of the Arab Parliament and the Presidents of Arab Councils and Parliaments, which was held today at the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States in Cairo, affirmed its full support for the efforts of the State of Qatar and the Arab Republic of Egypt to consolidate the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, prisoner exchange operations, and the delivery of aid, and denounced any attempt to obstruct this agreement by the occupying entity.
This came within the framework of an Arab parliamentary action plan included in the final statement issued by the conference, which was held jointly organized by the Arab Parliament and the Arab Parliamentary Union, as the plan included a 15-item roadmap for the movements and steps that Arab parliamentarians will take during the coming period, in support of the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land, and in rejection of all plans for displacement, annexation, and liquidation of the Palestinian cause.
The Arab parliamentary action plan included requesting the Inter-Parliamentary Union and regional parliaments to form parliamentary committees to visit the Gaza Strip, and to stand on the war crimes committed by the occupation entity against Palestinian civilians, and to reject any attempts to displace them, in addition to the unified Arab parliamentary action during the next meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, in order to issue an international parliamentary resolution rejecting all displacement plans and all attempts aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause.
According to qna, the Arab parliamentary action plan also included intensifying communication with the parliaments of countries that suspended their funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and with the parliaments of countries that recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the occupation entity or transferred their embassies to it, to urge the governments of these countries to back down from these decisions, in addition to calling on the heads of Arab councils and parliaments to hold bilateral and multilateral meetings with delegations of various parliaments on the sidelines of regional and international parliamentary conferences, to warn against any plans to displace the Palestinian people from their land and any attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause.
The Arab parliamentary action plan also included assigning the conference administration to prepare a unified Arab parliamentary letter, signed by the conference presidency and the heads of Arab councils and parliaments, and sending it to regional and international parliaments and parliaments of countries around the world, to confirm the Arab popular position rejecting any proposals to displace the Palestinian people from their land, in addition to calling on Arab parliaments to coordinate efforts to freeze the membership of the occupying entity’s parliament in the Inter-Parliamentary Union and regional parliamentary organizations, especially the Parliament of the Mediterranean and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean.
The parliamentary action plan also included a mechanism to facilitate the implementation of the recommendations included in the action plan, which is the formation of a joint parliamentary committee from the Arab Parliament and the Arab Parliamentary Union under the name “The Arab Parliamentary Committee to Support the Steadfastness of the Palestinian People on Their Land”, so that it will facilitate the implementation of the recommendations contained in this action plan.
In a related context, the Seventh Conference of the Arab Parliament and the heads of Arab councils and parliaments affirmed, in the closing statement, the complete and total rejection of all forms of displacement of the Palestinian people from their historical land, including the statements of US President Donald Trump regarding the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land in the Gaza Strip.
The conference also adopted an “Arab parliamentary document to support the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land, reject displacement and annexation plans, and confront plans to liquidate the Palestinian cause,” which included an emphasis on ten constants of the Arab position towards the Palestinian cause, foremost of which is full support for the fixed, legitimate, and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, most notably the right to self-determination, end the occupation of their lands, and establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
The document and parliamentary action plan are scheduled to be submitted to the emergency Arab summit, which will be hosted by the Arab Republic of Egypt on March 4, in the context of integration between official diplomacy and parliamentary diplomacy in supporting the steadfastness of the Palestinian people.
