Joint Delegation of Palestinian Civil Society to the World Social Forum

Nairobi, Kenya, January 2007

Political Statement and Call to Action on Palestine

Forty years after Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including
east Jerusalem, and almost 60 years after the Palestinian Nakba
(catastrophe) of 1948, the Palestinian people is at a critical juncture.
Global solidarity and support will be decisive in enabling the Palestinian
people's struggle for freedom, justice and durable peace to prevail.

To date, official diplomacy has failed in enforcing scores of UN
resolutions
and relevant principles of international law aimed at ending Israel's
occupation, colonization, displacement and dispossession of the
Palestinian
people. US-led Middle East diplomacy, favoring military intervention and
unilateralism over respect for international law, is also directly
implicated in wars and occupation in Iraq and Lebanon, complicit with
Israel's colonial regime in Palestine, and actively encouraging
division and
civil war in the region. Rather than being part of the solution, the
US and
the entire Quartet -- including the EU -- have become part of the
problem in
the region.

After intense efforts, transparent and democratic parliamentary elections
were held in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) with the fervent
backing of the US and the EU, both of which rejected the election results
that brought Hamas to "power," an outcome that was not in line with their
plans for the region, particularly their attempt to "convince" the
Palestinians to accept limited self-rule in the OPT under the overall
control of Israeli military authorities. Subsequently, Israel, the US and
most European powers imposed a severe, inhumane regime of sanctions
against
Palestinians under occupation. In the words of the UN Special Rapporteur,
Prof. John Dugard, sanctions were imposed on the occupied rather than the
occupier, the first time an occupied people has been so treated.

Poverty, unemployment, de-development, and destabilization of vital
institutions providing health care, education and social services were
among
the immediate results of this merciless blockade. This, coupled with
direct
foreign intervention, encouraged dispute in the Palestinian political
system, undermining the ability for effective coping and eventually
triggering open conflict between the two leading Palestinian political
parties.

In the meanwhile, Israel has escalated with unprecedented impunity its
colonial siege of Palestinian Bantustans; killing of Palestinian
civilians,
at least a third of whom are children; confiscation of Palestinian
land and
water resources; construction of the apartheid Wall, condemned as
illegal by
the International Court of Justice in 2004; and wanton destruction of
Palestinian agricultural lands, infrastructure and entire civilian
neighborhoods. Furthermore, in 2006, the Israeli government issued four
times more tenders for housing units -- in colonies built on occupied
Palestinian land -- than in 2005. The recent massacre of defenceless
civilians in Beit Hanoun is only the latest episode in this series of war
crimes committed by the Israeli occupation force without accountability or
censure from the world. By preventing Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the UN
investigative commission headed by him from entering the Gaza Strip,
Israel,
with ample complicity from the West, is repeating the cover-up it got away
with after its atrocities in the Jenin refugee camp in 2002. This time,
again, world governments chose to turn their heads elsewhere, giving
Israel
the green light to continue with its criminal policies whose main goal
is to
instigate a slow process of ethnic cleansing of the OPT, which would
achieve
its historic objective of having a "land without a people."

In parallel, Israel's recent, widely acknowledged defeat in Lebanon
has only
pushed it further to the right, to the extent that an openly fascist party
like Avigdor Lieberman's is now part of the government. Political
disenfranchisement of Palestinians inside Israel has deepened, and racial
discrimination against them in all vital domains -- family reunification,
education, health, land ownership and job opportunities -- has increased.
Home demolitions, crop destruction and forced displacement of entire
communities, mainly in the Naqab (Negev), have become the norm in Israel's
treatment of its own Palestinian citizens.

Since the signature of the Oslo accords in 1993, many years of
"peace-making" that ignored the basic requirements of justice have
passed in
vain, only helping the occupying power to literally cement its hold on the
occupied land. Still, Palestinian civil society has not lost hope in
achieving a just peace based on international law and universal human
rights, most primary among them the right to full equality of all humans
regardless of religion or ethnicity. Currently, as in past decades,
the most
fundamental impediments preventing such a comprehensive and lasting peace
from being realized remain Israel's continued occupation and
colonization of
Arab lands; its denial of Palestinian refugee rights; its persistent
expulsion policies; and its system of racial discrimination against
its own
indigenous Palestinian citizens. Palestinian civil society representatives
strongly believe that, without applying direct, effective and consistent
pressure on Israel to end its three-tiered oppression of the Palestinian
people, the international community will not genuinely contribute to
ending
this age-old conflict and to bringing about a just and enduring peace
to the
entire region.

Call to Action

Based on the above, Palestinian civil society overwhelmingly advocates
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (or BDS) against Israel, similar to the
international community's measures against apartheid South Africa in the
past. Consumer boycotts of Israeli products; boycott of Israeli academic,
athletic and cultural events and institutions complicit in human rights
abuses; divestment from Israeli companies, as well as international
corporations involved in perpetuating injustice; and pressuring
governments
to impose sanctions on Israel are all examples of effective, morally
sound,
non-violent measures that ought to be initiated and maintained until
Israel
meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable
right
to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of
international
law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied
in 1967
and dismantling the Wall;

2. Ending its system of racial discrimination and recognizing the
fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, including
their right to full equality; and

3. Recognizing the right of Palestinian refugees, including Internally
Displaced Persons (IDPs), to return to their homes and properties, as
stipulated in UNGA resolution 194.

International civil society, in close coordination with Palestinian
and Arab
civil society, has a critical role to play in bringing about justice and
peace to the Middle East. By adopting diverse, sustainable, and
context-sensitive, yet consistent, forms of BDS actions against Israel in
various fields, conscientious organizations and individuals can shoulder
their moral responsibility to end the Israeli system of colonialism and
racial discrimination, providing a genuine opportunity for reconciliation
and coexistence for everyone in the region, based on equality and mutual
respect for international law and fundamental human rights.

The Palestinian Delegation to the WSF-2007, Nairobi:

- Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO)
- Ittijah – Union of Arab Community Based Organizations
- Palestinian NGO Forum, Lebanon
- Acting Steering Committee, Palestinian BDS Campaign
- OPGAI-Occupied Palestine and Syrian Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative
- The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
- APN-Arab Group for the Protection of Nature