PSC – Early boycott call, 2002

PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

PRESS STATEMENT

1 December 2002

The international conference – ‘What Future for Palestine?’ – held by Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London yesterday, 30 November, 2002, attended by around 800 people gathered to hear speakers from Palestine, South Africa, USA, Lebanon and throughout Europe, endorsed and launched the following

CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL ACTION IN SUPPORT OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

We, the undersigned

* recognising the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland and dispossession of the indigenous population of 78% of Palestine during al-Naqba – the catastrophe – of 1948 and Israel’s subsequent refusal to obey international law and United Nations resolutions, including those concerning the inalienable and lawful right of refugees to return to their homes

* recognising that the occupation of the remaining 22 per cent of Palestine by Israeli forces in 1967 was a further ethnic ‘cleansing’ and constitutes an illegal act

* appalled by the Israeli government’s ongoing brutality and state terrorism – as demonstrated by its policies of assassination, collective punishment, attacks on civilians, home demolitions, land expropriation, colonial settlement expansion and violence, detention without charge and trial, use of torture, destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure, devastation of the Palestinian economy and denial of human rights including the right to education, employment, health care, access to humanitarian aid & freedom of movement by the imposition of siege upon the population of the Occupied Territories

* anticipating further abuses of human rights including an offensive by Israel to continue the process of Palestinian dispossession, as evidenced in the threat of further expulsion of Palestinians from their land, both inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories

* believing that, given the failure of the international community to act in accordance with their responsibilities in terms of the Geneva Convention and to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in relation to the Palestinian people, it falls upon concerned organizations and individuals comprising civil society to pressurise Israel to cease its crimes against humanity, end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and apartheid policies and comply with all relevant UN resolutions

therefore support, as a non-violent and democratic means by which global civil society may express solidarity with the Palestinians’ quest for justice, freedom and self-determination, a boycott of Israel like the campaign which contributed to the end of apartheid in South Africa, including:

* a consumer boycott of all Israeli products and tourism

* a cultural boycott of artistic, academic, scientific and sporting contacts (excluding those cultural connections directed at ending the occupation)

* a cessation of official contacts with the state of Israel

* suspension of trade agreements with Israel

* divestment of funds from institutions supporting Israel

* an arms trade embargo

* the imposition of economic sanctions upon Israel