The Palestinain Mission to the UK has today welcomed the vote to recognise the State of Palestine by Dundee City Council in Scotland.
Ambassador Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian Mission, thanked the city council members and Dundee Trade Union Movement for their support by filing the motion.
He said: “Recognition of Palestinian statehood by you here today would, I hope, mark the beginning of the end of one of the world’s longest-lasting and most egregious injustices.”
Dr. Zomlot added that the vote is a significant step in supporting Palestinian rights in the UK.
“So what you can do here today is an enormously important step, not only for the Palestinian people, not only in order to hold Israel to account, but, much more generally, for the international order, for law, for everyone’s human rights.”
He said the Dundee Council vote showed that “[the Palestinian people] are supported everywhere, by grassroots movements, rights groups, unions, ordinary citizens, more than 70 percent of the world’s countries, who have already recognised the State of Palestine on 1967 borders.”
The Dundee city council motion agreed to recognise the State of Palestine saying this symbolic step will seek to put pressure on the UK government to implement a 2014 UK House of Commons resolution that called for the recognition of Palestine.
Dundee was the first UK city to ‘twin’ with a Palestinian city, Nablus in 1980. The vote comes on the 40th anniversary of this twinning partnership.
