Say NO to dealing with Israel’s Occupation
The Coalition for Jerusalem welcomes the initiatives of All those who call for an end to Israel’s occupation and who work for a just and comprehensive peace. Palestinians are marking forty years of Israel’s brutal occupation of their land, and oppression of their people. The Coalition for Jerusalem views Israel’s expansionist policies of today a continuation of the policies it embarked upon 40 years ago or indeed 59 years ago. It continues in its policies unabated because the International community failed to meet its legal and moral obligation of holding Israel accountable of its crimes and daily violations of the people and land. Since 1947, numerous UN resolutions were adopted to resolve the conflict but none have been implemented. While a lack of political will to bring Israel to comply with UN resolutions and International consensus manifests itself on daily basis, the world community leaders have found the moral justification and grounds to boycott an occupied, oppressed and dispossessed nation.
As a result, and as we gather here today, Israel continues to kill, imprison, torture, terrorize and dispossess a whole nation. The construction of Jewish only colonies continues, as well as the construction of the monstrous Apartheid Wall. This Wall not only meanders deep into Palestinian land swallowing 40% of the West Bank but also confines the Palestinian population in isolated separated ghettos. The status of Jerusalem as a Palestinian city and the capital of the future Palestinian state is diminishing by the day.
We, civil society organizations and activists in Jerusalem, who believe in a peaceful resolution to the Arab Israeli conflict, urge this conference to hold Israel accountable for the crimes that it committed and continues to commit against the Palestinians through:
- Calling for an immediate end to Israel’s occupation.
- Calling for punitive measures in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns against the Israeli Government and all its institutions and all Israeli establishments that do not call for an end to occupations based on UN resolutions 181, 194, 242, 338.
- Actively working towards the establishment and fortification of an independent, democratic and secular Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital and for the return of Palestinian refugees.
The Coalition for Jerusalem joins forces with the growing global campaign that believes in the necessity to make Israel feel the brunt of its occupation and racist policies. Unless Israel pays a deer price for the crimes it commits, the Israeli killing machine will continue to operate. It is up to us ordinary people to stop this machine, synonymous with what we did in South Africa. May this be yet another mass solidarity movement that will Say NO to dealing with Israel’s Occupation.
Jerusalem, 04. June 2007.
