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Progressive Delegation Back From Palestine Boosts Case for Embargo on Israel
"The evidence is clear: The genocide in Gaza and the systematic nature of the abuse of Palestinian detainees recall the worst historical abuses committed by colonial powers against Indigenous populations."
Nov 07, 2024
Progressive International's Palestine Delegation—whose members were attacked earlier this week by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank—on Thursday issued "an urgent call to governments across the globe" to impose "a total energy, economic, and arms embargo against Israel" to punish its ongoing 13-month U.S.-backed assault on Gaza.
The Palestine Delegation—which was co-convened by Progressive International (PI), the National Lawyers Guild of the United States, and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers—released a report containing findings of members Ada Colau, the former mayor of Barcelona and lead delegate; Marc Botenga, a Belgian member of European Parliament (MEP) from the Marxist-socialist Workers' Party; and Jaume Asens, a leftist MEP from Spain.
"The Israeli regime must urgently be subject to total isolation on all fronts."
"The evidence is clear: The genocide in Gaza and the systematic nature of the abuse of Palestinian detainees recall the worst historical abuses committed by colonial powers against Indigenous populations... seeking their liberation, from the concentration camps used by Britain against the national liberation movement in Kenya to the internment of millions of Algerians by France," the report states.
Israel's 398-day assault on Gaza has killed or injured at least 155,000 Palestinians, including those who are missing and feared dead, while forcing nearly the entire population of the coastal enclave from their homes and causing widespread starvation and sickness. The International Court of Justice in The Hague is weighing evidence of genocide presented by South Africa in a case backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs and thousands of experts, advocates, and rights groups around the world.
"Any government providing arms, energy, economic, or diplomatic support to Israel is complicit in these crimes against humanity—and threatens the basic integrity of the international order," PI asserted. "The Israeli regime must urgently be subject to total isolation on all fronts—economic, military, cultural, political, and diplomatic—to lay the groundwork for the end of the genocide and the dismantling of the colonial occupation in Palestine."
The U.S. boosts Israel with tens of billions of dollars worth of armed aid and unwavering diplomatic support. Other nations including Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and India also provide Israel with substantial backing.
The PI delegation said it "arrived in Palestine amid sustained efforts by Israeli authorities to prevent access to the occupied territories and obscure the conditions of deprivation, detention, apartheid, and annexation endured by the Palestinian people."
Delegation members got a small taste of what Palestinians living in the occupied territories endure when they were reportedly attacked with tear gas and stun grenades by armed Israeli settlers and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops Monday while accompanying West Bank farmers in Qusra as they attempted to harvest from the olive trees that are the lifeblood of Palestine's rural economy and a frequent target of land-grabbing settlers trying to drive Arabs away.
Last month, IDF soldiers fatally shot Hanan Abu Salameh, a 59-year-old Palestinian woman who was working with relatives in her family's olive grove in the village of Faqqua, located east of Jenin in the northern West Bank.
"We are dealing with something as simple as harvesting olives," said Colau. "And even this has now been turned into an act of war by the illegal settlers and the army."
Earlier this week, around 50 countries joined in a call for an arms embargo on Israel. All but one of the nations—Norway—are in the Global South. They include: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Palestine, Russia, South Africa, Sudan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
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Barcelona City Council Suspends Ties With Israel Over Gaza Slaughter
"It's not a war, it's a genocide," said Councilmember Ada Colau. "We not only need to denounce it, we must act and not stay on the sidelines."
Nov 24, 2023
The city council of Barcelona, Spain's second-largest city, voted Friday to suspend relations with Israel's far-right government over what the party behind the move called the "genocide" in Gaza.
Introduced by the leftist Barcelona en Comú party—which asserted that "no government can turn a blind eye to a genocide"—the resolution demands the municipal government discontinue "institutional relations with the current government of Israel until there is a definitive cease-fire, and respect for the basic rights of the Palestinian people and compliance with United Nations resolutions are guaranteed."
The resolution also calls for requiring public contracts to ensure that "no operator belongs to or carries out" activities "that go against international humanitarian law" and "rejects and condemns attacks against the population civilian, both Israeli and Palestinian, as well as any action constituting collective punishment, such as the forced displacement of population, the systematic destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, or the blocking of the supply of energy, water, food, medical supplies and medicines to the population of the Gaza Strip."
Barcelona en Comú Councilmember Ada Colau said in a statement that "it's not a war, it's a genocide, and as [Spanish] President Pedro Sánchez has stated, it is unbearable, and if it is unbearable, we not only need to denounce it, we must act and not stay on the sidelines."
"Every 10 minutes, a child dies in the Gaza Strip under the bombs of one of the most powerful armies in the world," she added.
Colau, whose eight-year tenure as Barcelona's mayor ended in June, earlier this year
announced her city was cutting ties with Israel and ending its symbolic 25-year-old "twin cities" relationship with Tel Aviv due to the Israeli government's "crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people."
Barcelona's current mayor, Jaume Collboni of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia, reversed Colau's move in September.
Earlier this month, Barcelona dockworkers also showed solidarity with Palestinians by refusing to load or unload military materials onto any ship bound for Israel or any conflict zone where they could be used against civilians.
The new Barcelona resolution urges Israel and Hamas to make permanent the temporary four-day ceasefire that began Friday morning, as well as an end to Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians in the illegally occupied West Bank and the unconditional and safe release of all hostages taken by Hamas.
On Friday, Hamas freed 24 captives—13 Israeli women and children, 10 Thai nationals, and one Filipino—as part of the cease-fire agreement. Israel released 39 Palestinian women and minors from behind bars to fulfill its end of the deal. Hamas has agreed to free 50 of its hostages in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Israeli forces have arrested thousands of Palestinians on what critics claim are often dubious grounds meant to give Israel leverage and bargaining chips.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, nearly 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 4,000 women and over 6,000 children, have been
killed by Israeli bombs and bullets since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel that left around 1,200 people dead and 240 others kidnapped. The international humanitarian group Oxfam
said Thursday that newborn babies are dying from preventable causes in Gaza's hospitals due to the Israeli siege.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been wounded by Israeli attacks on Gaza, while around 7,000 others—including over 4,700 children—are missing and presumed dead. More than 1.7 million Gazans have been forcibly displaced and around half the homes in the besieged strip have been damaged or destroyed, according to United Nations agencies.
At least 255 Palestinians have also been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In addition to the Barcelona councilmembers who voted Friday for the resolution, other Spanish officials have also called for cutting ties with Israel's government over its Gaza onslaught.
Last month, outgoing Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra, who also leads the leftist Podemos party, urged her country's coalition government to petition the International Criminal Court to open a war crimes investigation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel's indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza and for cutting off food, fuel, and electricity from the besieged strip's 2.3 million residents.
On Thursday, Belarra criticized Sánchez—a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party—for visiting Israel this week, arguing that his trip "only serves to whitewash Netanyahu and to equate the state of Israel, an occupying power that perpetrates a genocide, with the victims of the Palestinian people."
"Such inaction," she added, "is absolutely unbearable."
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Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau Cuts City's Ties With Israel Over 'Crime of Apartheid'
"We cannot be silent," said Colau.
Feb 09, 2023
Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau on Wednesday announced her city is cutting ties with Israel and ending its symbolic 25-year-old "twin cities" relationship with Tel Aviv over the Israeli government's violent anti-Palestinian policies.
Colau said at a press conference that the city council came to its decision in response to campaigning by more than 100 rights groups and 4,000 residents, who urged her to cut ties with Israel.
In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the leftist mayor said her constituents called on her to "condemn the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people, support Palestinian and Israeli organizations working for peace, and break off the twinning agreement between Barcelona and Tel Aviv."
She added that she is "temporarily" suspending Barcelona-Israel relations "until the Israeli authorities put an end to the system of violations of the Palestinian people and fully comply with the obligations imposed on them by international law."
"We cannot be silent," wrote Colau.
\u201cBarcelona\u2019s mayor Ada Colau announced on Wednesday that her city would suspend all ties with the Israeli government, as well as end its twin city agreement with Tel Aviv.\n\nColau cited Israel\u2019s \u201capartheid against the Palestinian people\u201d as the reason for her decision.\u201d— Middle East Eye (@Middle East Eye) 1675953900
The letter and Colau's announcement to the press come two weeks after an Israeli military raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank killed at least nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman.
Colau said groups in Barcelona began urging her to cut ties with Israel after an 11-day air assault on Gaza in May 2021.
Groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israel-based B'Tselem have accused the Israeli government of imposing apartheid policies on Palestinians, including its military occupation of the West Bank and its construction of settlements on Palestinian land.
Michael Lynk, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, also called Israel's treatment of Palestine "apartheid" last year.
The Sanctions National Committee (BNC), one of the groups that helped push the Barcelona city council to hold Israel accountable, applauded Colau's move.
"Barcelona has become the first city council to suspend ties with apartheid Tel Aviv in solidarity with the Palestinian people, a move that is reminiscent of the historic and courageous city councils that pioneered cutting links with apartheid South Africa," BNC said in a statement.Keep ReadingShow Less
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