PARIS, 13 July -- Civil society organizations committed to ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories and to achieving the Palestinians’ still unrealized rights, including the right of self-determination, today identified the coming year to inaugurate a global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end the occupation and comply with international law and all relevant United Nations resolutions, as the United Nations International Conference in Support of Middle East Peace concluded this evening in Paris.
Through the adoption by acclamation of an Action Plan, civil society participants committed themselves to internationalism and the belief that the United Nations remained central to ending the occupation. As this week marked the first anniversary of the landmark advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the illegality of Israel’s “annexationist apartheid wall”, the settlements and occupation, and the consequences of that illegality, participants joined with their colleagues around the world to rededicate themselves to “bringing down the wall”.
But events on the ground in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritories continued to deteriorate, with land confiscation, house demolitions, escalating violence at checkpoints and on roads, closures, curfews, a renewed Israeli policy of assassination, and plans for new settlement projects, their text said. Participants were especially concerned about the consequences of Israel’s planned “disengagement” from Gaza, which would alter the form but not the essence of occupation and control. Clearly, the “disengagement” from Gaza was not designed to end the occupation, but was a ploy to legitimize Israel’s annexation of wide swathes of territory in the West Bank, it stated.
After participating in the reading aloud of the draft Action Plan, Na’eem Jeenah, Spokesman, Palestine Solidarity Committee of South Africa and President of the Johannesburg-based Muslim Youth Movement,said that, finally, Palestinian groups and the Palestinians, themselves, were calling collectively for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Today’s Action Plan -- like the statement released by 200 Palestinian organizations in the West Bank and Gaza on 9 July to commemorate the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the illegality of the separation wall -- had been inspired by South Africa’s struggle against apartheid, and resistance to injustice and oppression.
Via Free Thoughts.
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