ISDS Case Map
Palestine
Open letter from Hiyam Noir, editor of Palestine Free Voice, to EU-Isral Association Council
We can and must focus on the trading privileges from which Israel benefits within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement, and point out again and again that Israel violates the human rights clause of that Agreement. If nothing else, this clarifies that EU support for Israel violates its own regulations.
Activists from The Peace Cycle will cycle from the International Courts of Justice in the Hague to the European Parliament in Brussels, to hand-deliver this petition to the European Parliament on 31 March 2009.
In South America, serious pressure is building against the Israel-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement (FTA), threatening to derail it entirely. South American social movements, who have years of experience fighting against free trade, have integrated Palestine solidarity into their general work.
In view of the recent three-week premeditated campaign of bombing of the population of Gaza and its infrastructure by the State of Israel which came after a crippling, illegal two-year siege, we, 14 member organizations of SKOP, the Maltese national platform of development non-governmental organizations, call for a suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
The recent war in Gaza has served to highlight the European Union's relations with Israel. Although the genocide in Gaza has embarrassed many EU officials, there are no signs that the European Union is going to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement signed in 2004.
Montrealers are occupying
the ministerial office of Raymond Bachand, Quebec's Economic Development
Minister, in solidarity with Gaza and to call on the Charest government
to immediately rescind the Quebec-Israel economic accord.
"The EU-Israel Association Agreement should be suspended until Israel complies with international law. It was only last week that I personally met with the fishermen whose boats were illegally water-cannoned and fired upon by Israeli gunboats as they peacefully fish in Gaza waters."
It is not merely the depth of suffering or length of exile that makes the Palestinian struggle an imperative of international solidarity in the current period. It is also the central location of the struggle within the broader context of global resistance to imperialism and neoliberalism. At the heart of this regional framework is the intrinsic relationship between the development of neoliberal capitalism in the Middle East and normalization of relations with Israel. All of the efforts of the US and their client regimes in the region are aimed at promoting these.
Sign this petition which calls for an immediate suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and any further trade between Israel and EU Member States in protest against Israel's continued violation of human rights of the Palestinian people.
