[News] End the Ongoing Palestinian Nakba?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

End the Ongoing Palestinian Nakba?

By 
<http://palestinethinktank.com/author/kawther-salam/>Kawther 
Salam • May 15th, 2010
http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/05/15/end-the-ongoing-palestinian-nakba/

Statement of 15 May 2010 by 
<http://www.badil.org/>BADIL – Resource Center 
for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights Bethlehem, Palestine

The Nakba is Not Just an Event to Remember. The 
Nakba is Ongoing, and the Time has come for it to end.

What is needed on the 62nd Anniversary of the 1948 Nakba?
    * Achieve national unity, Strengthen 
<http://bdsmovement.net/>BDS campaign.
    * Activate Popular Resistance in all of its Forms.
    * Organize Efforts Internationally.
    * End Public Relations Negotiations.

At their core, the circumstances surrounding the 
Palestinian struggle today do not differ from 
those circumstances that led to the 1948 Nakba 
and the colonization of Palestine. Today, on the 
sixty-second anniversary of the Nakba, the nature 
of the western-backed Zionist-Israeli colonial 
enterprise appears all the clearer. The 
indigenous Palestinian people have been denied 
their most fundamental and inalienable rights of 
self-determination, including their rights to 
return to the land from which they were 
displaced, and continue to suffer from Israel's 
grave violations of basic human rights and 
freedoms. As Israel cruelly blockades the 
Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and denies 7.1 
million displaced Palestinians around the globe 
their rights to return, restitution and 
compensation, the international community 
provides a protective shield forged through 
diplomatic, economic, cultural and security 
cooperation which perpetuate Israel's impunity.

In a time when Israel's true face as a regime of 
colonization, apartheid and military occupation 
has been exposed for the world to see, 
governments and their organizations, have chosen 
to look the other way. The protective shield 
preventing effective redress and accountability 
for Israel's crimes is no more provided by 
western states alone, as international 
organizations have joined the chorus that calls 
for a “balanced position” and have allowed 
Israel's membership and integration into global 
and regional, civil and official organizations. 
Israel thus enjoys not only the unlimited support 
of the United States, but also enjoys 
preferential status with the European Union under 
the 1995 Barcelona Declaration and the 
E.U.-Israel Association Agreement, which have 
entrenched European relations with Israel in 
political, military, financial, economic, social 
and cultural terms, and even in the field of humanitarian aid.

Only recently, on 10 May, no OECD member state 
felt obliged by international law or found the 
moral strength to block Israel's accession to 
that club of the world's powerful economies. 
Israel's protective shield is no longer composed 
merely of U.S. veto powers in the Security 
Council of the United Nations. It has spread to 
other UN fora, such as the General Assembly and 
the Human Rights Council where global powers 
exert coercive pressure on member states, and 
even to domestic judicial systems and 
international courts, in order to enable Israel 
to escape accountability for its grave violations of international law.

It has become painfully clear that Israel and the 
so-called Quartet view Palestinian demands for 
the implementation of international law as an 
obstacle to the peace process, at best, and as a 
form of unacceptable radical extremism, at worst. 
This explains why the U.S. has resumed pressure 
on the Palestinian and Arab representatives to 
return to the negotiating table despite Israel's 
refusal to cease construction and expansion of 
its settlements in the occupied Palestinian West 
Bank, and irrespective of the personal commitment 
given in this regard by President Obama. Thus, 
so-called proximity talks and indirect 
negotiations are being relaunched while Israel's 
prime minister reassures his coalition government 
that there will be no limitation on settlement 
construction and expansion, the forced 
displacement of Palestinians from Jerusalem and 
the expansion of the network of apartheid roads 
and the Wall in the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to draft and adopt 
more racist legislation, including law proposals 
to outlaw Nakba commemoration, the 2009 Israel 
Lands Authority Law and a 2010 amendment of the 
Land Acquisition Law, which allow privatization 
and confiscation of more land of Palestinian 
refugees and citizens, as well as new military 
orders, such as Order No. 1650 arbitrarily 
defining a large portion of the Palestinian 
population of the occupied West Bank and 
foreigners as “infiltrators” subject to arrest and deportation.

In light of the above and the division and 
weakness which has characterized the performance 
of the Palestinian leadership, BADIL re-iterates 
the call of the National Committee for the 
Commemoration of the Nakba issued this 15 May:

For the Palestinian leadership to:
    * Adopt a coherent strategy towards a just 
and permanent solution for Palestinian refugees 
and IDPs, based on their right to return and in 
accordance with international law, universal 
principles of justice and UN resolutions 194 (1948) and 237 (1967);
    * Halt all negotiations, whether direct or 
indirect, until Israel completely halts 
settlement expansion, population transfer 
(“Judaization”), and construction of the Wall and 
other infrastructure of colonization and 
apartheid, such as roads and the light train 
connecting Jewish settlements to West Jerusalem;
    * Ensure national reconciliation and unity as 
a matter of urgency, and rebuild the PLO as a 
legitimate and credible platform representing the 
entire Palestinian people and its political organizations;
    * Support and activate popular resistance in 
all forms permitted under international law.
    * Establish a consultative mechanism with 
professional civil society organizations to 
support the efforts of the PLO in international fora.

To the public in Palestine and abroad to:

Build and expand the civil society-led movement 
for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) 
against Israel until it complies with 
international law and exert stronger pressure on 
states to implement sanctions and adopt decisions 
and resolutions which support the global BDS Campaign;

Redouble efforts for investigation of Israeli war 
crimes and crimes against humanity and 
prosecution and punishment of those responsible, 
as well as efforts to prevent Israel's accession 
and integration into international and regional organizations.




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