Only two states have observer status at the UN
Posted by Michel Morvan on
Observer status at the UN (United Nations) allows non-member states to attend most meetings and consult their documentation. Several states have had this status before becoming full members, such as Austria, Finland, Italy, Japan and, more recently, Switzerland.
Today, only two countries have this status: the Vatican and Palestine . The reasons for this are of course different. If the Vatican does not wish to become a full member today, this is not the case for Palestine, which would like to become one but is unable to do so.
Anwar Abu Eisheh does not start from geopolitical considerations in his book Palestinian Memories - The Land in the Head . On the contrary, he is only interested in individual experiences , in the human reality that the conflict covers - seen from the Palestinian side.
For many of us, the Palestinian question is just a UN file or an irritating "brief" on the 1 p.m. news. But what about the living reality ? This daily reality of the 1980s, Anwar Abu Eisheh succeeds, through this puzzle of testimonies , in making it tangible for us. Whether they come to us from Palestinian land or from exile, these voices teach us a lot about what happened before the Naqba (catastrophe) of 1948 and after. They enlighten us on a conflict that has lasted for almost a century. These testimonies are precious to us because they make us share this strange feeling of absence , when everything that distinguished you has disappeared from history, from the name of your village to that of your family . Landless, homeless, almost without identity, betrayed by their Arab brothers and occupied by the Israelis, these vanquished or exiled people deliver to us, more than any slogan, their insatiable thirst for their country .
