Pete Seeger and Jeff Halper of ICAHD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Folk music legend Pete Seeger has come out in support of the growing Palestinian movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel as a program for justice for Palestinians and a route to peace in the Middle East.

Seeger, 92, participated in last November’s online virtual rally “With Earth and Each Other,” sponsored by the Arava Institute, an Israeli environmental organization, and by the Friends of the Arava Institute. The Arava Institute counts among its close partners and major funders the Jewish National Fund, responsible since 1901 for securing land in Palestine for the use of Jews only while dispossessing Palestinians. Although groups in the worldwide BDS movement had requested that he quit the event, Seeger felt that he could make a strong statement for peace and justice during the event.

During a January meeting at his Beacon, NY, home with representatives from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and Adalah-NY, Pete Seeger explained, “I appeared on that virtual rally because for many years I’ve felt that people should talk with people they disagree with. But it ended up looking like I supported the Jewish National Fund. I misunderstood the leaders of the Arava Institute because I didn’t realize to what degree the Jewish National Fund was supporting Arava. Now that I know more, I support the BDS movement as much as I can.”

Jeff Halper, the Coordinator of ICAHD, added, “Pete did extensive research on this. He read historical and current material and spoke to neighbors, friends, and three rabbis before making his decision to support the boycott movement against Israel.” Seeger has for some time given some of the royalties from his famous Bible-based song from the 1960s, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” to ICAHD for their work in rebuilding demolished homes and exposing Israel’s practice of pushing Palestinians in Israel off their land in favor of the development of Jewish villages and cities.

The November virtual rally “With Earth and Each Other” was billed as an apolitical effort to bring Israelis and Palestinians together to work for the environment. Dave Lippman from Adalah-NY noted, “Arava’s online event obfuscated basic facts about Israel’s occupation and systematic seizure of land and water from Palestinians. Arava’s partner and funder, the JNF, is notorious for planting forests to hide Palestinian villages demolished by Israel in order to seize land. Arava was revealed as a sterling practitioner of Israeli government efforts to ‘Rebrand Israel’ through greenwashing and the arts.”

Currently, the JNF is supporting an Israeli government effort to demolish the Bedouin village of Al-Araqib in order to plant trees from the JNF that were paid for by the international evangelical group GOD-TV. The Friends of the Arava Institute’s new board chair recently published an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post that only cautiously questions some activities of the JNF, an organization whose very raison-d’etre is to take over land for Jews at the expense of the Palestinian Arab population.

Pete Seeger’s long-time colleague Theodore Bikel, an Israeli-American known for his life-long involvement with Israeli culture, recently supported the Israeli artists who have refused to perform in a new concert hall in Ariel, a large illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

Seeger joins a growing roster of international performers who have declined to whitewash, greenwash, or in any way enable Israel’s colonial project, including Elvis Costello, Gil Scott-Heron, Roger Waters, Devendra Banhart, and the Pixies.

Jeff Halper, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions

Civil society is a blunt instrument. As “public opinion” we form a vague background to government decision-making and as voters we have a broad – but only broad – effect on who is in power and what policies are pursued. Occasionally sections of us can be mobilized, less focused in the case of Glenn Beck’s “Restore Honor” rally in Washington, more focused as in the BDS campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli Occupation. But we are excluded from actual decision-making; we will not be part of the secret negotiations that began Sept. 2nd between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Still, we have clout, and we will be a crucial element in eventually forcing governments to arrive at a just peace. Indeed, we of the international civil society are the only genuine allies the Palestinians have. What, then, should be our role as actors striving to resolve this interminable conflict? It is two-fold: making the conflict unsustainable and forcing our political leaders to act through mobilizing public opinion; and (2) when they finally do take an action, as in the up-coming negotiations, keeping them honest and preventing them from passing off apartheid as a “two-state solution.”

The first task we are doing pretty well. Better organization is always welcomed, but our grassroots campaigning has raised the Israel-Palestine conflict to one of the three or four major international issues.

Now, on the verge of impending negotiations, is the time for monitoring. Governments prefer to manage conflicts rather than resolve them, so the immediate challenge facing us is to prevent the imposition of an apartheid regime through power-based negotiations that, backed by massive “facts on the ground,” will present the Palestinians yet another “generous offer”: a truncated Bantustan arising on “cantons” between Israel’s massive settlement blocs. We must insert ourselves into the political process. We must be the watchdogs, so that, when the Palestinians reject the inevitable offer of apartheid, they will not be blamed yet again as rejectionists.

So what positions should we take? What solution should we be advocating? In my view, the only solution is a just peace, a win-win solution that meets the requirements of all the parties. It may take many forms; a few years ago the Palestinian think-tank PASSIA published a collection of a dozen solutions. In the end the solution may be one that no one has though of yet. But that is the politicians’ job; ours is to insist on a just peace defined by fundamental parameters – an approach to peace – and not allow any other “arrangement” to prevail.

I would suggest the following seven elements that must configure any just solution. If they are all included, many alternative forms of resolution are possible. But if even one is excluded, then no solution will work, no matter how good it looks on paper.

A just peace must be inclusive. Two peoples reside in Palestine/Israel. That reality must be accepted and built into the resolution of the conflict. Only then can the unavoidable process of reconciliation and historic accounting be undertaken.

National expression must be provided for both Palestinians and Israelis. These two peoples are not merely ethnic groups in a larger national society, or merely a collection of individual voters, but national entities in themselves. This constitutes the strongest argument for a two-state solution, though Israel has likely eliminated that option, but it also argues for a bi-national state, which Israel refuses to even consider. Nevertheless, this is the reality and must be incorporated into any workable solution.

Economic viability. This principle, enshrined in the Road Map, would, if implemented, foreclose an apartheid “solution.”

Conformity to human rights, international law and UN resolutions. Any process based on the two sides negotiating over specific issues (settlements, borders, water, refugees, Jerusalem, sovereignty, etc.) will fail if it is not based on these three foundations. Only they can create parity between the sides. The Oslo process failed primarily because it was based only on power, and if power alone determines the outcome, then Israel wins.

The refugee issue must be addressed squarely. It is negotiable, but it requires two pre-conditions: acceptance of the refugees’ right to return, so that it is not merely a “goodwill” or “humanitarian” gesture on the part of Israel; and acknowledgement by Israel of its responsibility for driving out half the Palestinian people in 1947/48, as well as for the expulsions of 1967. It is Israel’s steadfast refusal to accept the refugees’ rights and to make that symbolic yet crucial acknowledgement of responsibility that makes the resolution of this fundamental issue impossible.

A just peace must address the security concerns of all in the region. Netanyahu wants to begin the negotiations by addressing Israel’s security concerns before the issues of occupation and Palestinian sovereignty. This will not work because no party’s security can be guaranteed before a political settlement; indeed, the very point of a political settlement is to resolve the conflict and thereby bring security to all parties. Security is a critical issue, but it must be applied to all parties (the Palestinians, after all, have had many more civilian casualties and have suffered more from house demolitions and other threats to their security than have the Israelis). It must be embedded, however, in an overall solution.

A just peace must be regional in scope. Israel/Palestine is too small a unit to cram all the elements of peace into. Refugees, water, security, economic development, environmental sustainability – all these are regional issues that can only be addressed by a process that includes, at a minimum, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Such a broadening of the peace process may wait on meaningful movement between Israelis and Palestinians, but it is part-and-parcel of the overall equation. (I have written about the possibility of a Middle Eastern economic confederation as an alternative to the one-state/two-state conundrum.)

Adopting these elements in a comprehensive approach to peace gives us a powerful filter through which to evaluate the course of negotiations or any future peace process. If we cannot be present in the negotiations, we can ensure that the process actually produces a just peace. As weak as their negotiating position may be, the Palestinian people possess one trump card: if they are not convinced that a solution will actually address their needs and grievances, they will not accept it. And their resistance can defeat any attempt by Israel, the United States and their allies to impose apartheid. It will be supported not only by the Muslim world and by growing circles of civil society supporters around the world – us. We have collective clout, and we must organize to use it.

Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at jeff [at] icahd.org.

Dear Pete,

Jeff Halper with legendary singer and ICAHD supporter Pete Seeger.

All the best from your friends in Israel/Palestine. In that spirit, I was surprised to hear of your planned participation in With Earth and Each Other: A Virtual Rally for a Better Middle East. While at first blush it might seem to have something in common with the work of ICAHD and other Israeli and Palestinian peace groups — attempting to build bridges between peoples — it is actually something quite different.

One of the lead partners in the effort is the Jewish National Fund, which is responsible for the allocation of land in Israel. As such, it is a mainstay of the ever-increasing apartheid system there. Among their most recent activities has been the planting of a forest to cover a Bedouin village in the Negev from which the residents have been forcibly removed. They are in fact engaged in various tree-planting exercises that brand them as an environmental organization, when in fact their purpose is to secure the land of Israel, if not all of Palestine, for Jews only. That is their historical role, and so it remains. Efforts to paint Israel as environmentally concerned are mere greenwashing. Israel has repeatedly torn down Palestinian neighborhoods by declaring them green zones.

As you know, Israel has doggedly pursued a policy of settlement expansion, home demolition, and gradual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians throughout Israel proper and its occupied territories. Millions of Palestinians languish in internal and external refugee camps. In the wake of brutal assaults on Gaza and aid flotillas, the world is increasingly outraged.

A broad array of Palestinian civil society groups called in 2005 for a program of boycotts, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to conform to international law and stop blocking justice for Palestinians. This call has received widespread support. But the boycott includes a cultural and academic boycott as well. The purpose of this effort is to deny Israel the ability to brand itself as a normal nation while flouting the law and suppressing an occupied people. Brand Israel is their strategy; ours is to insist on no business as usual with the regime, as was done successfully in the struggle against apartheid South Africa.

In recent months, increasing numbers of artists have decided to forego performing in Israel. Gil Scott-Heron and Elvis Costello have explicitly stated that they will not participate in the whitewashing, greenwashing, or any washing of this rogue regime. Many others have quietly scuttled their planned tours.

I hope that you will decide to join these artists of conscience and once again make a bold stand for justice. The movement is gathering strength, the violators of civilized norms are fearful, and change is in the air.

Thanks for giving me a hearing,

Jeff Halper

ICAHD, like many other Israeli and Jewish organizations in the US and other countries, endorses the call of Palestinian civil society to divest from companies profiting from the Occupation – and especially those like General Electric, United Technologies, Motorola, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Caterpillar who are so heavily invested in the Israeli military. After more than four decades of diplomatic and grassroots efforts aimed at inducing Israel to end its Occupation while watching it grow ever stronger, more permanent and increasingly violent and repressive, we believe the time is overdue for people the world over to tell Israel in no uncertain terms that it cannot be expect to be a part of the international community as long as it violates human rights, international law and dozens of UN resolutions with impunity.

And what we know as Israelis actively struggling alongside Palestinians “on the ground” in the Occupied Territories is that Israeli actions are motivated not by security concerns but by a pro-active intention of expanding into the West Bank and East Jerusalem in order to claim that land as it own and thereby foreclose the establishment of a viable, truly sovereign Palestinian state. The demolition of more than 24,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories since 1967, the expropriation of more than half the land of the West Bank, the building of 150 settlements housing a half-million Israelis, the uprooting of almost two million olive and fruit trees, the devastation of the Palestinian economy and the immiseration of its people and the construction of a wall twice as high as the Berlin Wall through Palestinian communities – all this, together with the bloodshed, cannot be explained by “security.” As Bishop Tutu and others in South Africa who have visited the Occupied Territories – including the Jewish Minister Ronni Kasrils – will testify, Israel is constructing an apartheid regime that in many ways is more oppressive that was the South African regime.

Now as then, governments were moved to action only when civil society raised its voice. Berkeley has always been one of the strongest and principled of those voices, and has often spurred the rest of us into action. Your reaffirmation of the decision to divest in GE and UT will once again lead the way.

In appreciation and solidarity,
Jeff Halper
ICAHD Director

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) was one of the first Israeli organizations to endorse a boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign and to formulate a statement, issued in January 2005, calling on the international community to support it. Over the past decade and a half ICAHD has played a key role in expanding the BDS campaign and working with groups around the world in identifying effective targets. This revised statement reaffirms ICAHD’s support for BDS as an instrument of Palestinian liberation and brings our call into the framework of the Unified Palestinian Civil Society Call of 2005.

After more than four decades of diplomatic and grassroots efforts aimed at inducing Israel to end its Occupation while nevertheless watching it grow ever stronger and more permanent, ICAHD is issuing this statement in support of a campaign of BDS based upon the fundamental principles of the Unified Palestinian Civil Society Call:

• Ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
• Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
• Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Such a formulation addresses the fundamental issues underlying the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians; it targets Israel’s Occupation policy and its structured discrimination against its Arab-Palestinian citizens rather than Israel per se. Without specifying a particular solution to the conflict, a BDS campaign will be in effect either until Israel becomes a truly democratic state of all its citizens living peacefully alongside a Palestinian state or a single state, bi-national or unitary, which encompasses both peoples.

Since sanctions are a powerful, non-violent means of resisting oppression, ICAHD supports the following actions:

• Stopping the purchase of Israeli arms, security products and services by governments, local authorities and corporations, while making the sales or transfer of arms to Israel conditional upon their use in ways that do not perpetuate the Occupation or violate human rights and international humanitarian law;
• Divesting from companies that profit from involvement in the Occupation or help perpetuate it;
• Boycott of settlement products, including annulment of the “Association Agreements” between Israel and the European Union due to Israeli violations of marketing settlements products as “Made in Israel” and the Agreements human right provisions;
• Boycott of Israeli academic institutions, which have not fulfilled their responsibility of upholding the academic freedoms of their Palestinian counterparts. Our call for an academic boycott means refraining from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration, or joint projects with Israeli institutions. It does not call for boycotting individual scholars or researchers in any way;
• Boycott of cultural events, be they performances of Israeli performers or artists abroad or of foreign performers and artists appearing in Israel, of participation in cultural events such as book or trade fairs held in Israel or of Israeli installations abroad, except those of Israelis and internationals who stand in solidarity with the principles listed above and whose performances at least refer to them;
• Boycott of participation in Israeli sports events and of Israeli participation in sports events abroad;
• Endeavoring to get academic, professional and cultural associations to adopt resolutions condemning Israeli policies; and
• Holding individuals, be they policy-makers, military personnel carrying out orders or others, personally accountable for human rights violations, including trial before international courts and bans on travel to other countries.

ICAHD calls on the international community – the UN, governments, political parties, human rights and political groups, trade unions, university communities and faith-based organizations, as well as concerned individuals – to do everything possible to hold Israel accountable for its occupation policies and actions while ensuring the equal rights and security of both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples. We also call on the Palestinian Authority and other Palestinian political organizations to adhere to human rights conventions and support the joint efforts of our civil societies to reach an end to this tragic conflict and usher in a just peace for all the peoples of the region. The urgency of this appeal is of the utmost.

Norwegian Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen

The director general of the Foreign Ministry, Yossi Gal, on Thursday summoned the Norwegian ambassador to Israel, Jakken Bjørn Lian, to protest Norway’s decision to pull all of its investments from the Israeli arms firm Elbit.

Following the meeting, the Foreign Ministry relayed that, “Israel will consider further steps of protest in the future.”

Norway’s finance minister, Kristin Halvorsen, announced at a press conference in Oslo earlier in the day that the divestment was due to Elbit’s involvement in the construction of the West Bank separation fence.

According to a political source in Jerusalem, the Foreign Ministry had planned to issue a harsh statement of condemnation immediately after the announcement, but following the meeting with Lian the ministry decided to tone it down.

The explanations for the divestment provided by the Norwegian envoy at the meeting were apparently the reason for the ministry’s moderation of its response.

At the press conference, Halvorsen said the decision was based on the recommendation of Norway’s Ministry of Finance council on ethics, whose role is to ensure that government investments abroad meet ethical guidelines.

“We do not wish to fund companies that so directly contribute to violations of international humanitarian law,” said the minister. She said the shares were sold secretly ahead of the announcement.

Elbit manufactures a monitoring system installed on several parts of the separation fence.

The recommendation submitted by the Ministry of Finance council on ethics stated that it considered “the fund’s investment in Elbit to constitute an unacceptable risk of complicity in serious violations of fundamental ethical norms.”

The council is thus explicitly referring to a 2004 International Court of Justice ruling, stating that the separation fence represented a breach of international law.

Israel erected the fence following a wave of Palestinian terror attacks at the height of the second intifada; it says the barrier is a necessary measure to stop Palestinian suicide bombers and protect settlers. The Palestinians oppose the fence’s route, saying it is designed to grab land they want for a future state.

Palestinian as well as Israeli anti-occupation groups, aided by Norwegian leftists, have all protested extensively against Norwegian involvement in companies involved in West Bank development and construction over last two years, which have seen an increase in Norway’s investment in Israeli firms.

Norway’s pension fund is invested in 41 different Israeli companies.

A research project by the Coalition of Women for Peace called “Who profits from the occupation” found that almost two thirds of those firms are involved in West Bank construction and development.

The following press release was issued on 18 August 2009 by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel:

Amnesty International has announced today that it will abstain from any involvement in the Leonard Cohen concert in Tel Aviv and will not be party to any fund that benefits from the concert’s proceeds. A number of media accounts had reported that Amnesty International was to manage or otherwise partner in a fund created from the proceeds of Cohen’s concert in Israel that would be used to benefit Israeli and Palestinian groups. Amnesty International’s announcement today followed an international outcry over the human rights organization’s reported involvement in the Leonard Cohen concert fund, and an earlier international call for Cohen to boycott apartheid Israel.

Omar Barghouti from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) commented, “We welcome Amnesty International’s withdrawal from this ill-conceived project which is clearly intended to whitewash Israel’s violations of international law and human rights. By abandoning the Leonard Cohen project in Tel Aviv, Amnesty International has dealt Cohen and his public relations team a severe blow, denying them the cover of the organization’s prestige and respectability.”

A statement confirming Amnesty’s withdrawal has now been posted on the Amnesty International website.

After reports in late July that Amnesty International would manage a fund from the proceeds of Leonard Cohen’s concert in Israel, groups in occupied Palestine and around the world mobilized to pressure Amnesty International not to participate in such a fund. The Palestinian Non-governmental Organizations’ Network (PNGO) called in an 11 August letter on Amnesty International to reject management of a fund that is to be created from the proceeds of Leonard Cohen’s planned September concert in Israel. The West Bank village of Bilin had made a similar appeal to Amnesty International. An international campaign of about 1,000 letters to Amnesty International called for Amnesty’s withdrawal from the Cohen concert initiative. The only Palestinian organization that was claimed to be a recipient of the fund had previously announced that it was not involved in the project. Additionally, a representative of the joint Palestinian-Israeli group Combatants for Peace, another previously announced beneficiary of the Cohen concert fund, had informed the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel in writing that the group had decided not to participate in the Leonard Cohen concert in Tel Aviv and not to accept any funds from its proceeds.

PNGO explained in its letter to Amnesty International that Israel Discount Bank, a major sponsor of Cohen’s concert in Israel, “is involved in the construction and the continuation of the Israeli settlement project in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories] … These settlements built on Palestinian lands are illegal under international law and are considered as war crimes in the Fourth Geneva Convention.” PNGO added that Cohen’s “concert in Israel contributes in normalizing Israeli occupation and colonization policies.” In a 9 August letter to Amnesty International, the West Bank village of Bilin, a leader in the Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement, said that “Israel Discount Bank’s trading room and other computer services are run by an Israeli company called Matrix IT. Matrix IT’s trading room is located on our villages land stolen by the illegal settlement of Modiin Illit.”

Additionally, 19 groups and organizations worldwide explained in an open letter to Amnesty International that “Being one of the world’s strongest proponents of human rights and international law, you shall thus be subverting a nonviolent, effective effort by Palestinian and international civil society to end Israel’s violations of international law and human rights principles.” The groups asserted that “Accepting funds from the proceeds of Cohen’s concert in Israel is the equivalent of Amnesty accepting funds from a concert in Sun City in apartheid South Africa.” They also commented that the Peres Center for Peace, Amnesty International’s announced partner in managing the concert fund, “has been denounced by leading Palestinian civil society organizations for promoting joint Palestinian-Israeli projects that enhance ‘Israeli institutional reputation and legitimacy, without restoring justice to Palestinians.’”

On 5 August, 11 groups launched a letter writing campaign to Amnesty International which has resulted in hundreds of emails sent. Among those urging Amnesty International to reject involvement with the Cohen concert are former Amnesty International USA board member Prof. Naseer Aruri, Amnesty International USA’s former Midwest Regional Director Doris Strieter, peace activist Kathy Kelly, and a number of Amnesty International members.

The announcement of Cohen’s planned concert in Israel was swiftly met by letters from British, Israeli and Palestinian organizations and protests at his concerts in New York, Boston, Ottawa and Belfast, among other cities, calling on Cohen to respect the international call for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. In response to the protests, Cohen had tried to schedule a small concert in Ramallah to “balance” his concert in Israel. However, Palestinians rejected the Ramallah concert, insisting that Cohen should first cancel his Tel Aviv gig to be welcomed in Ramallah.

With the international community failing to take action to stop Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people, and inspired by the international boycott movement that helped bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, Palestinian civil society has launched calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, including an institutional academic and cultural boycott. Ninety-three artists, writers and other cultural workers have signed onto the Palestinian cultural boycott call. Palestinian boycott calls have inspired a growing international boycott movement which gained added momentum following Israel’s assault on Gaza last winter.

After the excitement of the South Hebron Hills, it was nice to return to Beit Arabiya and both of our work sites in Anata. We began the day with a lecture on the economy of the occupation from Shir, of the Alternative Information Center. We talked extensively about the Global BDS campaign (Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions), with plenty of questions and disagreements about its potential. That night, representatives from the Palestinian Nonviolent Resistance Movement came to talk about the demonstrations in Bil’in, as well as demolitions and water inequality in the Jordan Valley.

We devoted the rest of the day to the work sites, and are making excellent progress, working right on schedule, and the group is feeling quite optimistic.

Anxela, form Spain, and the coordinator of this year’s summer camp, says that she feels happy about the camp’s progress. “I think we have a great group, and people are working very hard. We have also encountered a lot of good experiences to help us understand the situation here.”

Cody, from America, and the construction coordinator, agrees. “The camaraderie and the spirit of the camp and the construction site is amazing. It’s a testament to what can happen when we all work hard together.”

Arzu, from Turkey, is “impressed because everyone really is putting a lot of effort into the construction. I didn’t expect this kind of dedication.”

Hara, from Greece, says that the collaboration between the international participants and the Palestinians is her motivation for working hard. “We have a nice mix between the families of the homes and the volunteers. When I see the families sweating alongside me, I want to keep working, instead of stopping for a cigarette.”

Saleem, who has welcomed the participants into the home of him and his wife Arabiya, says that this year’s camp is “…fantastic! Our volunteers are cooperating very well. The languages are not the same, but through signs we can understand each other. The feeling is very good because of our progress on the houses.”

In the presence of all national alliances, an urgent meeting for the Follow up Committee was held today declaring Sunday 28/12/2008 a General strike in protest of the Israeli massacres committed against Palestinians in Gaza. The meeting called for the organization of demonstrations and marches in every Arab town in al Naqab, the Triangle, the Galilee areas and coastal towns as a symbol of the rage and severe grief of the Palestinian nation upon the loss of hundreds of its citizens in Gaza.

It was decided that the High Follow Up Committee remains on alert to hold further meetings to take steps in resistance and to stop the consistent aggression and break the siege on Gaza including the opening of all border crossings especially that of Rafah.

The following political message stemmed from the meeting:

• Considering the Israeli aggression against Palestinians in Gaza an assault against Palestinian People everywhere and our duty is to resist it and break the siege.
• Recognizing Israel and its political and security forces as a ‘criminal’ state committing acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against our people in the Gaza Strip. This with the assurance that the current Israeli parliamentary election campaign is fueled by the Palestinian bloodshed.
• Saluting the determination and will of Palestinian people in the face of the aggressive Israeli scheme to break their steadfastness and human dignity.
• Condemning the international complicity with the official Israeli aggression, and considering its silence and complicity as partnership in the crime. The meeting also stressed the absolute rejection of holding the Palestinian people or the Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas – responsible for the situation and while exempting Israel from its total responsibility.
• Calling upon the international community to take its legal and moral responsibility, to sanction Israel and boycott it as a state that pursues terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity with premeditation.
• Condemning Arab Official complicity used by Israel to cover for its predefined aggression and condemning the general Arab weakness and calling them to shut down their embassies in Israel and boycott it. We call Upon Egypt to open all crossings with Gaza and break its siege.
• Condemning the complying Arab and Official political voices which held the Palestinian leadership in Gaza responsible for the Israeli aggression and calling the head of the Palestinian National Authority to immediately stop the negotiations with Israel used to further fuel the Palestinian Split in the West Bank and in Gaza.
• Assuring the call for national Palestinian unity and its total support of the Palestinian struggle and resistance in the face of Israeli aggression.
• Paying tribute to the heroic steadfastness of our people and supporters in the Arab world and elsewhere and the masses in the homeland that stood in the face of the bloody aggression and supported the steadfastness in Gaza.
• Calling on the masses of our people to exercise the highest degree of readiness to contribute, on individual and collective levels, in the national relief campaign, which includes the donation of medical supplies, food and blood donation in support of Gaza and in contribution to the breaking of the siege.
• Calling on the masses of our people and supporters in the world to share the worry and to have more readiness to escalate the struggle in order to defeat the Israeli aggression and provide protection for our heroic Palestinian nation.

Since sanctions are a powerful, non-violent, popular means of resisting the Occupation, a campaign of sanctions seems to us the next logical step in international efforts to end the Occupation. While it will develop over time, ICAHD-USA supports the following elements at this time:

• Sales or transfer of arms to Israel conditional upon their use in ways that do not perpetuate the Occupation or violate human rights and international humanitarian law, violations that would end if governments enforced existing laws and regulations regarding the use of weapons in contravention of human rights;
• Trade sanctions on Israel due to its violation of the “Association Agreements” it has signed with the European Union that prohibit the sale of settlement products under the “Made in Israel” label, as well as for violations of their human rights provisions;
• Divestment from companies that profit from involvement in the Occupation. In this vein ICAHD-USA supports initiatives like that of the Presbyterian Church of the US which targets companies contributing materially to the Occupation and certainly the campaign against Caterpillar whose bulldozers demolish thousands of Palestinian homes;
• Boycott of settlement products and of companies that provide housing to the settlements or which play a major role in perpetuating the Occupation; and
• Holding individuals, be they policy-makers, military personnel carrying out orders or others, personally accountable for human rights violations, including trial before international courts and bans on travel to other countries.

ICAHD-USA calls on the international community – governments, trade unions, university communities, faith-based organizations as well as the broad civil society – to do all that is possible to hold Israel accountable for its Occupation policies and actions, thereby hastening the end of this tragedy. While we also call on the Palestinian Authority to adhere to human rights conventions, our support for selective sanctions against Israel’s Occupation policies focuses properly on Israel which alone has the power to end the Occupation and is alone the violator of international law regarding the responsibilities of an Occupying Power.