Palestine & the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: Implications of Ratification APPENDIX (2) Palestine’s Declaration of Independence 15 November 1988 In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, Palestine, the land of the three monotheistic faiths, is where the Palestinian Arab people was born, on which it grew, developed and excelled. The Palestinian people was never separated from or diminished in its integral bonds with Palestine. Thus the Palestinian Arab people ensured for itself an everlasting union between itself, its land and its history. Resolute throughout that history, the Palestinian Arab people forged its national identity, rising even to imagined levels in its defense, as invasion, the design of others, and the appeal special to Palestine’s ancient and luminous place on that eminence where powers and civilisations are joined ... All this intervened thereby to deprive the people of its political independence. Yet the undying connection between Palestine and its people secured for the land its character, and for the people its national genius. Nourished by an unfolding series of civilisations and cultures, inspired by a heritage rich in variety and kind, the Palestinian Arab people added to its stature by consolidating a union between itself and its patrimonial Land. The call went out from Temple, Church and Mosque that to praise the Creator, to celebrate compassion and peace was indeed the message of Palestine. And in generation after generation, the Palestinian Arab people gave of itself unsparingly in the valiant battle for liberation and homeland. For what has been the unbroken chain of our people’s rebellions but the heroic embodiment of our will for national independence? And so the people was sustained in the struggle to stay and lo prevail. When in the course of modern times a new order of values was declared with norms and values fair for all, it was the Palestinian Arab people that had been excluded from the destiny of all other peoples by a hostile array of local and foreign powers. Yet again had unaided justice been revealed 51