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<font size=4><b>Statement on the September 2011<br>
Declaration of Statehood<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Microsoft Sans Serif" size=3>E-mail:
pym@pal-youth.org, Web:
</font><a href="http://www.pal-youth.org/" eudora="autourl">
<font face="Microsoft Sans Serif" size=3 color="#0000FF">
www.pal-youth.org</a> <br><br>
</font><font size=3><b>We, in the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), stand
steadfastly against the proposal for Palestinian statehood recognition
based on 1967 borders that is to be presented to the United Nations this
September by the Palestinian official leadership. We believe and affirm
that the statehood declaration only seeks the completion of the
normalization process, which began with faulty <i>peace</i> agreements.
The initiative does not recognize nor address that our people continue to
live within a settler colonial regime premised on the ethnic cleansing of
our land and subordination and exploitation of our people. <br><br>
</b>This declaration serves as a mechanism for rescuing the faulty
<i>peace</i> framework and depoliticizing the struggle for Palestine by
removing the struggle from its historical colonial context. The attempts
to impose a false peace with the normalizing of the colonial regime has
only led us to surrender increasing amounts of our land, the rights of
our people, and our aspirations by delegitimizing and marginalizing our
people’s struggle and deepening the fragmentation and division of our
people. This declaration jeopardizes the rights and aspirations of over
two-thirds of the Palestinian people who live as refugees in countries of
refuge and in exile, to return to their original homes from which they
were displaced in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) and subsequently since
then. It also jeopardizes the position of the Palestinians residing in
the 1948 occupied territories who continue to resist daily against the
ethnic cleansing and racial practices from inside the colonial regime.
Furthermore, it corroborates and empowers its Palestinian and Arab
partners to act as the gatekeepers to the occupation and the colonization
of the region within a neo-colonial framework.<br><br>
The foundation of this process serves as nothing more than to ensure the
continuity of negotiations, economic and social normalization, and
security cooperation. The state declaration will solidify falsified
borders on only a sliver of historic Palestine and still does not address
the most fundamental issues: Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, political
prisoners, occupation, borders and resource control. We believe such a
state declaration will not ensure nor promote justice and freedom for
Palestinians, which inherently means there will be no sustainable peace
in the region.<br><br>
Additionally, this state declaration initiative is being presented to the
United Nations by a Palestinian leadership that is illegitimate and has
not been elected to be in a position of representation of the Palestinian
people in its totality<b> </b> through any democratic means by its
people. This proposal is a political production designed by them to hide
behind their failure to represent the needs and desires of their people.
By claiming to fulfill the Palestinian will for self-determination, this
leadership is misusing and exploiting the resistance and sacrifices of
the Palestinian people, particularly our brothers and sisters in Gaza,
and even hijacking the grassroots international solidarity work, such as
Boycott Divestment and Sanctions efforts and the flotilla initiatives.
This proposal only serves to squander all efforts made to isolate the
colonial regime and hold it accountable.<br><br>
Whether the proposal for statehood recognition is accepted or not, we
call on Palestinians inside our occupied homeland and in countries of
refuge and exile to remain committed and convicted to the worthiness of
our struggle and inspired by their rights and responsibilities to defend
it. We call on the free people of the world and the Palestinian people’s
allies, to truly practice solidarity with the Palestinian anti-colonial
struggle by not taking a position on the state declaration but
rather continuing to hold Israel accountable by means of Boycott in all
forms economically, academically, and culturally, Divestment and
Sanctions.<br><br>
Until Return and Liberation, <br>
International Central Council <br>
Palestinian Youth Movement <br><br>
<br>
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