Ramallah-United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the international community on Monday to make efforts to build peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Speaking at Tel Aviv University, Ban Ki-moon said those uselessly repetitive pronouncements undercut Israel’s contributions to innovation and technology.
“Leaders need to move beyond repeating the same phrases and expecting a different result. It is maddening and it is not worthy of the future you are seeking to build. Indeed, it is making a mockery of all the technology and innovation that you are nurturing here each and every day.”
Ban also called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to show “responsibility” by seeing each other’s points of view, and to end the cycle of repeating the same platitudes and expecting a different result.
“I strongly believe that members of the international community must exercise their collective and individual influence to help reach a common destination — an end to the occupation which will soon enter its fiftieth year, and the establishment of two states for two peoples, living side by side in peace, security and mutual recognition,” he said.
Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to visit Ramallah on Tuesday and meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and he is set to pay a special visit to the Gaza Strip in order to inspect U.N. agencies’ aid work in the coastal territory.
On the other hand, Palestinians are taking advantage of Ban Ki-moon’s visit to hand him the document over, which states that the State of Palestine has ratified the Kampala amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine at the United Nations, according to Riyad Mansour.
Mansour told reporters that he had sent a document of approval to the Kampala amendments on behalf of the State of Palestine to the legal department of the United Nations on Monday.
A hard copy of the approval will be handed to the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday during his visit to Palestine, Mansour added.