Palestinians Demand Sanctions on Israel to Stop Illegal Annexation
Key to Justice
In a statement launched May 21st, tens of Palestinian civil society organizations, professional associations, unions, human rights and advocacy groups, and networks, representing an overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society, called on governments to adopt “effective countermeasures, including sanctions” to “stop Israel’s illegal annexation of the Occupied West Bank and grave violations of human rights.”
Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Effective Measures by all States to Stop Israel’s Illegal Annexation of the Occupied West Bank and Grave Violations of Human Rights
- Ban arms trade and military-security cooperation with Israel.
- Suspend free-trade agreements with Israel.
- Prohibit all trade with the illegal Israeli settlements and ensure that companies refrain from/terminate business with Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.
- Ensure that individuals and corporate actors responsible for war crimes/crimes against humanity in the context of Israel’s regime of illegal occupation and apartheid are brought to justice.
Israel’s new right-wing government is once more set to formally annex large swathes of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). This de jure annexation would culminate years of gradual de facto annexation through the appropriation of land, forcible displacement of Palestinian population and the transfer of Israeli settler population in the OPT.
Indeed, Israel has violated the laws governing belligerent occupation since 1967 by progressing its colonization of the Palestinian territory. This has been facilitated by the imposition of an apartheid regime of racial discrimination, segregation and territorial expansion that is enshrined in Israel’s domestic law.
Institutionalized since 1948, this Israeli regime may constitute “a single regime of domination over the Palestinian people as a whole, including the Palestinian population inside Israel,” as argued by international law scholars John Dugard and John Reynolds. All of this continues to deny the Palestinian people our right to self-determination and other fundamental human rights.