Ramallah, West Bank, Sept 20: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat today thanked all the United Nations member states which voted in favour of a resolution urging Israel to drop its threat to "remove" him. "This resolution was very important and I thank all the states who voted for it," the veteran leader told reporters outside his battered compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"It shows that the position of the international community is to support Palestinian rights and stress that the Palestinians are under occupation, an occupation which does not respect any resolution, any law or humanity."

The UN General Assembly yesterday overwhelmingly passed a resolution by 133-4 votes calling on Israel not to go ahead with its threat to "remove" Arafat from the West Bank.
It was presented to the assembly after the United States vetoed a similar measure at the UN Security Council, saying that it did not take into account Palestinian militant groups which have attacked Israel.

Unlike Security Council resolutions, those passed by the assembly cannot be vetoed but are not legally binding.

Israel dismissed yesterday's resolution as "meaningless".
Bureau Report