[News] End the Ongoing Palestinian Nakba?
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon May 17 14:01:01 EDT 2010
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.
Freedom Archives
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