[News] Address the Root Cause of Violence: End the prolonged Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinians

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Address the Root Cause of Violence: End the prolonged Israeli
  occupation and oppression of Palestinians

<http://www.addameer.org/printpdf/2098>
22 October 2015
*http://www.addameer.org/news/address-root-cause-violence-end-prolonged-israeli-occupation-and-oppression-palestinians*

The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC) and the Civic 
Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCPRJ) deplore and 
condemn all forms of attacks on civilians, and emphasize that the 
current escalation in violence cannot be explained, addressed or 
remedied in a vacuum. There is a root cause for this violence – Israel’s 
continued violations of international law, including its brutal and 
illegal military occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) 
that has lasted 48 years and its racist policies against Palestinian 
citizens of Israel - and this root cause cannot be ignored. The 
undersigned human rights organization stress that all Palestinians, 
regardless of where they live, are fighting a common struggle to 
exercise their right of self-determination.

During the last three weeks, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have 
killed 46 Palestinians, including 10 children, and injured over 5,000 
Palestinians. Eight Jewish Israelis have been killed. The upsurge in 
violence is the result of the growing frustration of generations of 
Palestinians who have lived under military occupation with no promise of 
change in the future. Instead of hope, Palestinians have grown 
accustomed to Israel's continued confiscation of their land and the 
displacement of its inhabitants; the demolition of their homes; the 
aggressive expansion of Israeli settler colonies (settlements); settler 
violence against Palestinians and their property facilitated by the 
state; torture and ill-treatment; and increasing numbers of arbitrary 
arrests and administrative detentions, amongst other manifestations of 
Israel's violent occupation. Therefore, the only way to address this 
rise in violence is to end to the occupation.

Frustrations have been increasingly mounting due to Israel's latest 
intensification of attacks against East Jerusalem and its residents. The 
attacks come in various forms, including restricting and denying 
Palestinian access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound while continuing to 
back incursions by settler groups into the Compound. This has led 
Palestinians across the OPT, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, to 
take to the streets and exercise their right to demonstrate against and 
resist the Israeli occupation. In response, Israel has accelerated 
measures that further entrench the occupation and suppress Palestinian 
resistance. These measure include the use of excessive, and often 
lethal, force against Palestinian protesters in both the OPT and Israel, 
the use of punitive home demolitions, and an increase in the number of 
arrests and detentions. In Gaza, as the unlawful closure policy 
continues, the IOF killed 15 protestors (5 children) and injured 
approximately 680, since 9 October 2015. The protestors posed no 
apparent threat to the life of fortified Israeli soldiers in the border 
areas.

The undersigned human rights organizations strongly condemn the extreme 
measures that Israel has taken in recent weeks and calls on the 
international community to take action. Of specific concern is Israel's 
arbitrary and expansive use of live fire, in part due to the recent 
relaxation of live-fire regulations for stone-throwers, and the 
excessive use of force against Palestinian demonstrators both by the IOF 
in the OPT and Israeli police in Israel. Our organizations are also 
deeply troubled by Israel's apparent practice of shoot to kill in cases 
where Palestinians carry out or are merely suspected of carrying out 
attacks against Israelis. Palestinian deaths under these circumstances 
may amount to wilful killings and/or extrajudicial killings. As the 
number of Palestinian deaths rise, Israel has not questioned whether the 
use of force in any circumstance was necessary or proportional. No 
credible and transparent investigations have taken place, even with 
increasing video evidence that puts into question the actions of the 
IOF. Instead, Israeli leaders have justified and encouraged increased 
use of force. For example, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barakat urged Israeli 
civilians to carry their weapons, and Member of Knesset Yair Lapid 
stated, “you have to shoot to kill anyone who pulls out a knife or 
screwdriver.”

PHROC and CCPRJ also call specific attention to Israel's use of the 
current escalation in violence and security as a pretext to expedite the 
implementation of longstanding policies aimed at erasing Palestinian 
presence from occupied East Jerusalem. This is clear given the Israeli 
security cabinet’s recent authorizations to impose closures on 
Palestinian neighborhoods, demolish the homes of alleged attackers and 
their families without the ability to rebuild, revoke Jerusalem 
permanent residency for all alleged attackers, and the confiscation of 
their property, among other measures. Many of these measures constitute 
unlawful collective punishment under international law. These measures 
also undermine the fundamental rights of East Jerusalemites, including 
freedom of movement, freedom to choose one’s residence, and right to an 
adequate standard of living. Palestinians' right to life and right to 
health is also compromised, as shown by the death of an elderly woman 
after being delayed from reaching a nearby hospital because of an 
Israeli checkpoint recently erected in the Al-Issawiya neighborhood of 
East Jerusalem.

We have long called on the international community to hold Israel, as 
the Occupying Power, accountable for its violations of international 
law. Lack of action by the international community and third state 
parties encourages Israel to continue these violations. The United 
Nations and members states, therefore, share responsibility for the 
renewed surge of violence across the OPT and Israel because of their 
failure to recognize and address the systematic violence inherent to the 
Israeli system of occupation, settler colonialism, and apartheid that 
has oppressed Palestinians for decades.

We, therefore, call on the international community to:

• Condemn Israel for the current escalation of violence and recall that 
Israel’s occupation, including its illegal annexation of East Jerusalem, 
is the root cause of the ongoing situation;
• Condemn Israel’s violations of international law, foremost those that 
rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity; and 
accordingly;
• Insist that Israel put an end to the institutionalized impunity and 
call on Israel to carry prompt, thorough and transparent investigations 
into the killings of Palestinians, and bring perpetrators to justice 
while providing reparations to families of victims;
• Ensure that persons responsible for war crimes and crimes against 
humanity are brought to justice, including those Israeli officials 
involved in the recent escalation in violence, by supporting efforts of 
Palestine to hold Israel accountable via international fora such as the 
International Criminal Court;
• Call for sanctions against Israel at the UN Security Council;
• Condemn the intensification of unlawful arrest, imprisonment and 
torture of Palestinians, especially children;
• Prevent further escalation of violence by immediately halting all 
military trade and cooperation with Israel and Israeli security 
companies, divestment from Israel, and take measures to ensure a ban on 
the trade of Israeli colony (settlement) goods.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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