[News] The Ongoing Nakba Must End: The Time has Come for the International Community to Act

Anti-Imperialist News news at freedomarchives.org
Mon May 14 11:33:22 EDT 2018


http://www.addameer.org/news/phroc-nakba-statement-ongoing-nakba-must-end-time-has-come-international-community-act 



  PHROC Nakba Statement: The Ongoing Nakba Must End: The Time has Come
  for the International Community to Act

15 May 2018
------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the Palestinian people, 70 years of Nakba means seven decades of 
subjugation by Israel, characterized by occupation, apartheid and 
colonial policies and practices. It also attests to the chronic inaction 
and failure of the international community to fulfill its obligations 
and responsibilities under international law, to a lack of 
accountability and protection, and to the continued support of a shallow 
and biased peace process incapable of bringing about peace or justice. 
Nevertheless, after 70 years of Nakba, the Palestinian people remain 
resolute in demanding their most fundamental rights to return and 
self-determination.

Today, at least 8.26 million of 12.7 million Palestinians are forcibly 
displaced worldwide as a result of Israel’s ongoing policies of 
population transfer, annexation, and colonization.^^[1] <#_ftn1> Israel 
has persisted in its denial of reparations, refusing forcibly displaced 
Palestinians the right to return, restitution, compensation, and 
guarantees of non-repetition as articulated in numerous UN 
resolutions.[2] <#_ftn2> The remaining one-third of non-displaced 
Palestinians, spread across Mandatory Palestine, is subject to ongoing 
policies of forcible displacement by Israel.

In recent years there has been a growing campaign led by Israel and the 
United States (U.S.) to terminate the UN Relief and Works Agency for 
Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the international body mandated to provide 
humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees. This is not the first 
attempt by Israel to delegitimize UNRWA, nor is it the first time a U.S. 
administration has withheld or threatened to withhold, funding to UNRWA 
as a form of political blackmail. The voluntary nature of UNRWA’s 
funding, however, has made the provision of its services dependent on 
the will of donors and, consequently, has rendered it vulnerable to 
political pressure and interference. In fact, a historical analysis of 
Israel’s demands and U.S. conduct from the outset of the Oslo ‘peace 
process’ reveals an organized and targeted strategy designed to 
eradicate the fundamental rights of Palestinians in general, and the 
rights of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons in 
particular. This strategy is intricately linked to the demise of UNRWA, 
which serves as a reminder of the international community’s failure to 
find a viable solution for the world’s largest and longest standing 
displaced population. This situation has resulted in a severe financial 
crisis at UNRWA that has significantly affected the Agency’s capacity to 
provide the most basic services to Palestinian refugees.

On 6 December 2017, U.S. President Trump announced Jerusalem as the 
capital of Israel, becoming the first state in the world to recognize 
Israel’s unlawful annexation of the city. International consensus over 
the past seven decades has rejected claims by Israel to sovereign rights 
over the city of Jerusalem and condemned Israeli measures that have 
sought to alter the character of the city as having no legal validity, 
as reaffirmed by numerous UN resolutions.[3] <#_ftn3> U.S. President 
Trump broke with this international consensus by recognizing Jerusalem 
as the capital of Israel and ordering the relocation of the U.S. Embassy 
from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump’s declaration not only violates 
international law, it also deepens Israel’s unlawful annexation of East 
Jerusalem and illegal colonial and settlement enterprise in and around 
the city. Moreover, the declaration signifies a change in policy 
regarding final status issues which directly affect the conflict. The 
U.S.’s recent policies vis-à-vis Palestinian refugees, UNRWA and 
Jerusalem show a clear bias in favor of Israel, rendering the U.S. unfit 
to play a mediating role in peace efforts.

With the chronic lack of just and durable solutions, Palestinians 
organized marches demanding the right of return in the 1990s. The March 
of Return has been organized by Palestinians in Israel annually since 
1998, each year taking place in a different village forcibly depopulated 
during the Nakba. The march has become the biggest event of the year for 
Palestinian citizens of Israel, with growing participation across the 
political and geographical spectrum, as well as from Palestinian youth. 
More recently in the Gaza Strip, the Great March of Return has seen 
thousands of Palestinians protesting for the realization of their 
fundamental rights and the end of the eleven years closure of the Gaza 
Strip.

Israel has responded to these protests with excessive, lethal force. 
Since the march started on 30 March 2018, Israeli forces have killed 40 
Palestinians at the protests, including five children, two journalists, 
and two people with disabilities. Approximately 4,000 people have also 
been injured, over 2,000 from live ammunition. The willful killing and 
injuring of unarmed protesters represents a flagrant violation of 
international human rights law and constitutes a grave breach of the 
Fourth Geneva Convention. It also constitutes a crime under the Rome 
Statute of the International Criminal Court.[4] <#_ftn4> These practices 
attest to the continued domination and subjugation of the Palestinian 
people. The marches and Israel's excessive use of force and unlawful 
killings demonstrate the urgent need to ensure protection for the 
Palestinian people and to hold Israel to account in accordance with 
international law.

The lack of durable solutions for Palestinian refugees is also of great 
significance in the context of the destructive conflicts within Arab 
countries. These conflicts have resulted in a secondary mass 
displacement of Palestinian refugees. During the war in Syria, of the 
560,000 Palestinian refugees present in the country before the 
commencement of the war, 400,000 have been displaced, 120,000 outside 
the country and 280,000 internally, most of them requiring immediate 
humanitarian assistance.[5] <#_ftn5>

The inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, principally to 
self-determination and reparations for forcible displacement, cannot be 
ensured by the humanitarian and political approaches currently deployed 
by the international community, which are based on an immense imbalance 
of power and lack any foundation in international law. Any just and 
durable solution to the Palestinian Question must begin with the 
adoption of a rights-based approach. Failure to do so will maintain a 
status quo in which international protection is absent, and in which 
Palestinians are condemned to a fate of acute hardship and further 
displacement. The passivity of the international community not only 
impacts those who have already been displaced but also encourages 
further displacement as Israel continues to enjoy impunity for 
systematic and grievous violations of international law.

PHROC believes that a just and durable solution is impossible without 
the adoption of a strategy based upon justice, international law, and 
relevant international resolutions, including UN General Assembly 
Resolution 194 and UN Security Council Resolution 237. It reasserts that 
the international community must:

·        Take all measures to ensure Israel’s compliance with its 
obligations under international humanitarian law and international human 
rights law;

·        Genuinely strive to secure international protection – including 
durable solutions – for Palestinian refugees, primarily their rights of 
return and to self-determination;

·        Ensure regular funding for the UNRWA is secured in order to 
ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance and protection to all 
forcibly displaced Palestinians.


------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] <#_ftnref1>5.87 million registered ‘Palestine refugees’ and 1.66 
million unregistered refugees, in addition to at least 720,000 
internally displaced persons on both sides of the Green Line.

[2] <#_ftnref2>UN General Assembly resolution 194 (III), UN Doc 
A/RES/194(III) (1948); UN Security Council resolution 237, UN Doc 
S/Res/237(1967), paragraph 1; UN General Assembly resolution 3236, UN 
Doc A/RES/3236 (1974); UN General Assembly resolution 3376, UN Doc 
A/RES/3376 (1975).‎

[3] <#_ftnref3>UN Security Council resolution 242 (1967), UN Doc 
S/RES/242 (1967), paragraph 1(i); UN Security Council resolution 478 
(1980), UN Doc S/RES/478 (1980), paragraph 3; UN Security Council 
resolution 2334 (2016), UN Doc S/RES/2334 (2016), paragraphs 1-3; UN 
General Assembly resolution ES-10/L.22 (2017), UN Doc A/ES-10/L.22, 
paragraph 1.

[4] <#_ftnref4> “Statement of the Prosecutor of the International 
Criminal Court, FatouBensouda, regarding the worsening situation in 
Gaza,” /International Criminal Court/, 8 April 2018, available at: 
https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=180408-otp-stat [accessed 8 
May 2018].

[5] <#_ftnref5> UNRWA, “Syria Crisis,” available at: 
https://www.unrwa.org/syria-crisis [accessed 10 May 2018].

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20180514/374986d1/attachment.htm>


More information about the News mailing list