Pakistan has called on the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member states to demand an immediate end to Israel’s attacks in Palestine, Pakistan Today reported. Pakistan ambassador at the UN Munir Akram issued the appeal when NAM members met in New York on Monday to discuss the “horrendous” situation in the occupied region.

Founded in 1961, the NAM is a forum of 120 developing world states that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide, the report said.

Warning the NAM not to fall for Israeli propaganda that was drawing a moral or a military equivalence between the Jewish nation and Palestine, Akram said one cannot equate beleaguered and unarmed Palestinian nation and arguably the strongest army in the Middle East region.

“Our the response has to be based on the principles, which we espouse — the principle of self-determination of peoples, the principle of struggle against foreign occupation and aggression,” the ambassador said, while voicing solidarity with the Palestinians.

“It is very disturbing to hear attempts to draw an equivalence between the aggression of the Israelis and the defense of the Palestinians,” he added.

“The solidarity which is required by our Palestinian brothers today is one that is based on the principle — that Israel has no business to be in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; it has no business to be in East Jerusalem; it has no business to attack Gaza,” he said.

The NAM, Akram said, must work for the restoration of international legality and for seeking a two-state solution to promote peace and stability in the region.

(SAM)