Action Platform Palestine - Political demands

[bbchris]

Action Platform Palestine - Political demands



1. A much more active Middle-East policy of Belgium and the European Union



In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the EU should no longer leave the political and diplomatic field to the United States who have been one-sidedly pro-Israel until now. The EU can and should pursue a more active and balanced policy that urges Israel to finally respect international law. A peace process is only possible when based upon a.o. the UN-resolutions 242 and 338 (withdrawal from the occupied territories), 194 (claim of return and/or compensation of Palestinian refugees) and the fourth Convention of Geneva (Illegality of the Jewish settlements).



Belgium is responsible to ensure that the EU



a. increases the pressure on Israel

b. relies on this international law when taking any diplomatic initiative



2. A climate of negotiation



Negotiation is still the best way to solve the conflict. But balanced negotiations are in order, taking into account the illegal character of the Israeli occupation and the rights of the oppressed Palestinian people. Especially the Israeli government urgently needs to take some important steps to create the necessary climate of negotiation. After all, it's the Israeli policy of discrimination in general and the elaboration of Jewish settlements in particular that have fuelled the conflict into more violence. The steps to be taken by Israel are:



a. An immediate and unconditional suspension of the geographical and demographic elaboration of the Jewish settlements and by-pass roads on the West Bank (including Eastern Jerusalem) and Gaza. The dismantlement should be negotiated

b. Lift of the blockades on Palestinian villages, cities and territories.

c. Suspension of the military aggression towards and executions of Palestinians

d. Implementation of the agreements of Taba (Oslo II) relating to the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian authorities

e. Suspension of all violations of human rights



3. Steps to be taken by Belgium and the EU



As long as Israel does not attempt to create a climate of negotiation, including the implementation of the conditions mentioned above, the European Union needs to act by proclaiming political/diplomatic and economic sanctions. In order to do that, Belgium and the EU dispose of a whole range of instruments. Steps to be taken immediately and certainly by the Belgian government and the European Union:



a. Suspension of the Association agreement between the EU and Israel that accords trade benefits to the import of Israeli products. The association-agreement itself stipulates after all that its implementation is linked to the respect to human rights and the democratic principles (article 2) and that no products from Jewish settlements are to be imported (article 83). Both stipulations are not respected by Israel.

b. * A formal ban on the export of arms:

- from Belgium to Israel, in application of article 4 of the Belgian law.

- from the EU to Israël, in application of several criteria of the European Code of Conduct

* A formal ban on the import of arms from Israel to Belgium and the European Union, including the suspension or destruction of still running or already closed contracts.

c. Within the UN a continued urge to establish a UN-protection force that positions itself along the green demarcation line of 1949.

d. A call upon the Israeli government to account for the violations of the human rights and the use of excessive violence towards the Palestinian people



4. The final goal of the negotiations should be:



a. The total withdrawal of the Israeli army from all occupied territories (West Bank, Gaza and Eastern Jerusalem)

b. The evacuation and dismantlement of the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, and the compensation of the damage Palestinians suffered due to the occupier and the colonists

c. The installation of a sovereign and democratic Palestinian state that is politically and economically liveable

d. Equal rights for the others on each other's territory. For Israel this means the equal treatment of the own Palestinian citizens, which comes down to abolishing discriminating laws and customs, returning stolen land and so on.

e. The claim of return and/or compensation of Palestinian refugees

f. A fair regulation

=======================================



Taken from here

|Blah Blah|Thinking Out Loud|Jane Eliz||Talk Soup |

[bbchris]

I think this is great that's why I posted it.

|Blah Blah|Thinking Out Loud|Jane Eliz||Talk Soup |

[debbie mannas]

about time. Sanctions are definitely warranted - just like against Iraq and N.Korea. I wish they could back date sanctions

[RonOnGuitar]

Hiya Chris, just passing thru this way and caught this!



It's my guess that demands from *Belgium* will serve to generate some snickers from various corners. Their waffles are okay, tho.



Probably the main problem that is conspicious by the failure to even mention it, much less address it head on, is that in this list of demands there is no call for the Palestinians to stop terrorist attacks. The history of Arab states toward Israel is concisely summed up in their oft cited goal to "drive Israel to the sea", i.e. complete annihilation, so it's a very entenched massacre mindset of non-Israelis/non-Jews in that region. I'm afraid the failure to address that all but ensures violence and war will continue.



The populace and leaders of the Arab states see the Palestinians as being sub-human trash - only slightly above Jews/Israelis. No Arab country has ever been interested in taking them into the Arab populace, however they are useful as cannon-fodder in the Arab state's ongoing battle with Israel.



One insightful, but brief, analysis of the history involved was written by Arab-American Joseph Farah, with the provocative title of Palestinian people do not exist.



I'm an optimist for the most part, but I doubt that real peace will ever come to that troubled part of the world because of the long and deep history that serves to divide. Add to that the common tendency for even good people to mistake their anger for conviction and the picture isn't encouraging.



But thinking of the ongoing terrorism/homicide bombers/etc. If that isn't addressed, it is unlikely that people will want to surrender all while under daily seige in their homes, their work, their buses and their childrens' schools. Certainly not all Palestinians are involved, and many likely would even denounce it, but it will have to stop for peace to have just a minimal chance.



Most of do not live lives in such daily - but justified - fear of terrorist massacres. In America we got duct tape and plastic sheets when such worries beset us! But for the Israelis, it's an everyday fact of life. I think that would be a horrible existence, to not know if a loved ones' short trip to the grocery store will instead end in horrible, tragic mayhem.



The recent awful bus accident in Hong Kong where 20 people or so lost their lives could perhaps serve as a comparison on the losses if the numbers were compounded on a regular basis. It somewhat reminded of the below story from a Israeli/Jewish writer. At any the whole situation is, as Oliver Hardy used to say "another fine mess"!



Ron

=======

On Sunday, November 4, twenty girls from the 11th grade of Beit Shulamit, a religious girls' high school in Jerusalem, boarded public bus #25, as usual, to go home. The bus was a double bus: two long buses connected in the middle by what Israelis call an "accordion," so that it can turn corners. The bus was crowded. Most of the Beit Shulamit girls had to stand.



Sixteen-year-old Orah stood in the back of the bus talking to her good friend Shoshi Ben Yeshai. Another friend standing in the middle of the bus called to her. She had something to tell her. Orah made her way forward through the crowded aisle.



At the French Hill intersection the bus stopped for a red light. Suddenly Orah heard gunshots. She looked out the window and saw an Arab man firing an automatic rifle into the back half of the bus. Instantly the bus was full of shattered glass, blood, and screaming.





Orah and the other passengers dove for the floor, body piling atop body in the packed bus.



Orah and the other passengers dove for the floor, body piling atop body in the packed bus. Sure she was going to die, Orah uttered the Shema, the profession of faith which observant Jews recite twice every day and at the moment of death. Suddenly she was seized with fear, not of death itself, but of what comes after death. She realized she would have to stand before the heavenly tribunal and account for her life. There were so many things she would have done differently. Now it was too late.



A chorus of Shema Yisrael rose from all directions, punctuated by the rapid fire of the machine gun. A non-religious girl, screaming hysterically, fell on top of Orah. "Say Shema Yisrael," Orah and her friend pleaded with the girl. She said the words, but her hysteria did not abate.



Orah could hear people around her reciting verses of Psalms. She realized that the sound of shots had ended. Two soldiers stationed on the other side of the intersection had killed the terrorist.



Within a couple minutes the doors opened and police were pulling passengers off the bus, trying desperately to reach the wounded and dead. Orah slowly struggled to her feet. She was alive, unhurt except for a few scratches. She felt like she had been given life anew. She would do things differently this time.



Only later did she discover that her good friend Shoshi had been murdered by the terrorist, who had also killed 14-year-old Meni Regev and wounded 45 people. As of this writing, ten of Orah's schoolmates are still hospitalized, one of them in serious condition: 14-year-old Sharona Rivka (bat Rina Yehudit for those who want to pray for her).



That night Orah and those of her classmates not in the hospital attended Shoshi's funeral. One of their teachers eulogized Shoshi as the "epitome of smiles, good cheer, and desire to help." Orah, standing by her friend's grave, resolved to pattern her life after Shoshi, who had excelled in love for the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. Shoshi, who narrowly escaped two terrorist attacks in the last year, had several times told her friends, during their endless discussions of the war in Israel, that when she died, she hoped it would be "al kiddush Hashem," for the sanctification of God's name.





When they passed the intersection, she and her friends held hands and wept.



"Shoshi was the type of person who would have volunteered to die instead of her friends," Orah avers.



The next morning Orah boarded the #25 bus and went to school. When they passed the French Hill intersection, she and her friends held hands and wept. At the morning prayer service, Orah prayed with greater intention than she ever had in her life.



"Although we all cry a lot," Orah declares, "I feel I have been given a big gift. Now I can better appreciate what I have."



In coping with both loss and fear (every sudden noise makes her jump), Orah is bolstered by her religious faith and by the support of those who love her.



Although Orah was born in Israel, both her parents made aliyah from America. When asked if, in the aftermath of the attack, she ever fantasizes about moving to a safer place like the United States, Orah laughs, "What? After the World Trade Center? Are you serious?"



Orah's classmate Gila, who was also on the attacked bus, says that while they all continue to take the #25 bus, no one wants to go on the bus alone. "We try to be together in as big groups as possible."



"Why is that?" I ask, wondering what even a dozen teenage schoolgirls can do to protect themselves from an armed Arab terrorist.



"We can hold each other and talk to each other," Gila explains.



SECOND HAND



I hang up the phone from talking with Gila and Orah, and go into my living room, where my 7-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter are working on puzzles. Trying to walk the tightrope between scaring them and preparing them, I ask offhandedly, "If you ever hear a bomb or gunshots, what do you do?"



My daughter answers: "Get down."



"Right. And then what do you do?"



My daughter gropes for an answer. Finally she comes up with: "Stay down."



"And then what do you do?" I persist.



My son jumps up proudly with the answer: "Say Shema."



"That's right." This is the second time this year we have discussed how a Jew should die with Shema on his lips, conscious of God with his last breath. The first time was after the Sbarro's bombing, where five members of one family died calling out the Shema. "And God willing," I add, "you'll be fine, and can go about with your life."



I retreat from the living room, enough said. But I keep feeling: "Something is wrong with this picture."





What am I doing, a mother in Israel in the 21st century, teaching my children how to face death at the hands of Jew-haters?



What am I doing, a mother in Israel in the 21st century, teaching my children how to face death at the hands of Jew-haters? That gruesome task was appropriate for Jewish mothers in the Rhineland during the Crusades, in Poland during the Cossack massacres, in Russia during the pogroms, all over Europe during the Holocaust. But the Zionist dream was supposed to end all that!



Herzl's whole goal was to establish a Jewish homeland as a refuge from anti-semitism, where Jewish children would be safe from those who hate them. Yet this year we have seen children maimed when their school bus was blown up, a baby deliberately shot to death in her mother's arms, another baby whose head was crushed in a rock-throwing attack, numerous youngsters killed in drive-by shootings, a disco bombing which murdered 20 teenagers, and and two 14-year-old hikers murdered so brutally that their bodies were almost unidentifiable.



While I agree with the many anguished voices who are demanding that the Israeli government do more to protect its citizens, in my gut I know that neither the government nor the army has the power to save us. After all, two soldiers were permanently posted at the French Hill junction, but in the two minutes it took them to cross the busy intersection, how much carnage was wrought! Nor can we hermetically seal all the areas where Arabs live. I have Arabs living right next door to me!



There is no political solution.

There is no military solution.

There is only a spiritual solution. Tshuva. Changing. Loving our fellow Jew. Helping our fellow Jew.



In the end, Orah and Gila got it right.



from:

http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/israeldiary/Terror_First_Hand.asp

[memphis mike]

Problem is that sanctions often hurt those you want to protect; many palestinians live and many more work in Israel. Just like US sanctions against Iraq, only the innocents were adversly affected; Sadaam contnued to build his mansions....

Edited by: memphis mike at: 7/11/03 7:04 am

[debbie mannas]

"Problem is that sanctions often hurt those you want to protect"



I couldnt agree more. Same with wars. Saddam and Ossama have gotten away and the people who are now ravaged by a war torn land are the innocent. Hurt before, still hurting.



I still strongly feel that Israel needs some decisive action against it - the US must stop funding and supplying arms to Israel, and so too must the world.

[DreamTone7]

"Problem is that sanctions often hurt those you want to protect"



Agreed.



But isn't this apparently accepted fact further evidence that Saddam didn't care one whit about his people? Sanctions only truely work in a country where the government cares.



"Same with wars. Saddam and Ossama have gotten away and the people who are now ravaged by a war torn land are the innocent. Hurt before, still hurting."



Yes......but now that the cancer has been removed, the healing can begin. Not all at once or over night to be sure, but it has begun nonetheless. It's times like this in life where I would wish for a "fast-forward" button.

[debbie mannas]

Does Sharon care about the people of Israel? If he did, then sanctions might work, might they not?



Dont know about healing in Afghanistan and Iraq.



From what we see in the news its not very pretty in Iraq, and the iraqi common person is getting angrier and angrier at the US. I'm not sure what you are hearing on US news.



As for Afghanistan, the taliban is steadily getting stronger and its pretty much a mess. NOT getting better as you'd expect.



There are some pretty pictures for the world though... and its a nice thought that Saddam and the Taliban are no longer there.