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