LETTER TO URSULA VON DER LEYEN

https://www.eccpalestine.org/letter-to-ursula-von-der-leyen-concerning-the-statement-issued-on-israels-independence-day Posted in Statements | 8 May 2023

LETTER TO URSULA VON DER LEYEN CONCERNING THE STATEMENT ISSUED ON THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL.

ECCP letter to Ursula von der Leyen concerning the statement issued on the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel.

To the attention of Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission

Dear Ms. von der Leyen,

We, a coalition of 42 European organisations, write to express our deep concern and, frankly speaking, our anger, regarding your statement issued on the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel.

Your statement ignored the historical fact that the State of Israel was founded on the ethnic cleansing of two thirds of the indigenous Palestinian people between 1947 and 1949. This fact has been well documented by Palestinian and Israeli historians and researchers. Palestinians commemorate this period as the Nakba (‘catastrophe’ in Arabic) that marks the beginning of the process of planned dispossession and expulsion of the majority of the Palestinian people.

More than 500 towns and villages were systematically destroyed and depopulated by massacre and mass expulsion. As a result more than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly exiled and became refugees. Many of those refugees and their descendants still languish in impoverished refugee camps, denied their inherent and UN-stipulated right of return after 75 years. This dispossession process, what Palestinians call the “ongoing Nakba” has never ended. It continues today, as Israel continues to occupy and annex Palestinian land, steal resources, demolish homes, schools and hospitals, and arbitrarily arrest, injure and kill Palestinians, including women and children.

By omitting facts and by blindly adopting the narrative of Israel, you erase the history, memory and rich culture of the Indigenous Palestinian people, with their diversity, who have inhabited Palestine for centuries. By endorsing the narrative that “Israel made the desert bloom” you replace history with myth, employing a colonial trope that attempts to ‘greenwash’ Israel’s settler colonial and apartheid regime over the Indigenous Palestinian people. Such ignorance is not expected from the president of the European Commission.

Since the beginning of 2023, the world has again witnessed an increase in Israeli attacks on Palestinians, including military raids carried out by the Israeli military in the West Bank cities of Jenin, Jericho and Nablus. These preceded the pogrom in Huwara and its neighbouring villages and the violent raid on worshippers in the Al Aqsa mosque during the month of Ramadan just three weeks before your statement. Is this the country you praise for its “dynamism” and shared “culture and values”?

It is painful to hear you praise “the 75 years of dynamism, ingenuity, and ground-breaking innovations” of a state that imposes a repressive, racist, and brutally violent settler-colonial policy on a population that it subjugates and controls. Israel’s regime of control over the Palestinian people is increasingly recognised as constituting apartheid by major human rights organisations, including Israeli human rights organisations. True, Israel has developed “a dynamic, ingenious and ground-breaking” technology in the field of military, cyber warfare, spyware, disinformation and election rigging by using the captive Palestinians under its control as test objects. Israel is one of the world’s leading exporters of these destructive high-tech products, with its military and “security” exports enabling dictatorships and authoritarian regimes worldwide to perpetrate grave human rights violations.

Your racist statement not only betrays historical facts and reality on the ground, but also directly contradicts internationally accepted principles and norms and the very values on which the EU is based. By ignoring the existence of the Palestinian people who have lived under decades of Israeli oppression or enforced exile, you ignore their right to self-determination, an inalienable right enshrined in the UN charter.

In December 2022 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to commemorate the Palestinian Nakba. This historic resolution, although shamefully only supported by two EU member states, acknowledges the 75 years of injustice inflicted upon Palestinian people. As the president of the European Commission, an institution that claims to uphold international law and the authority of the UN, you cannot sideline the decisions of the UN General Assembly.

On May 9th the EU will celebrate Europe Day, which Palestinians are boycotting this year because of your statement. We sincerely hope that this celebration may be in the spirit of recognising, and repenting for, the past racist and colonial history of EU countries, and that Europe Day will celebrate the UN charter which ensued from this history. That would obviously imply that the EU would stop paying service in words and in deeds to the values and policies of Israel, which itself rejects in words and in deeds the common UN charter.

Palestinian civil society organisations, as well as the Palestinian Authority, have vehemently denounced your statement. Amnesty International has also criticised the statement, and urged you to recognise that Israel is committing the crime against humanity of apartheid. We, in the European civil society, wholeheartedly echo them.

We demand that you retract your statement, and issue an apology to the Palestinian people for publicly erasing their culture, history and civilisation, as well as turning a blind eye to the violations currently being committed against their inalienable rights.

We demand that the EU publicly recognises that Israel is committing the Crime of Apartheid, and that EU institutions act to immediately end all complicity in the commission of this crime. We also kindly request that you answer this letter.

LETTERA A URSULA VON DER LEYEN IN MERITO ALLA DICHIARAZIONE RILASCIATA IN OCCASIONE DEL 75° ANNIVERSARIO DELLA COSTITUZIONE DELLO STATO DI ISRAELE.

Pubblicato /Dichiarazioni | 8 maggio 2023

Lettera dell’ECCP a Ursula von der Leyen in merito alla dichiarazione rilasciata in occasione del 75° anniversario della fondazione dello Stato di Israele.

All’attenzione di: Ursula von der Leyen, Presidente della Commissione Europea

Gentile signora von der Leyen,

Noi, una coalizione di 42 organizzazioni europee, scriviamo per esprimere la nostra profonda preoccupazione e, francamente, la nostra rabbia, in merito alla sua dichiarazione rilasciata in occasione del 75° anniversario della fondazione dello Stato di Israele.

La sua dichiarazione ha ignorato il fatto storico che lo Stato di Israele è stato fondato sulla pulizia etnica di due terzi del popolo palestinese indigeno tra il 1947 e il 1949. Questo fatto è stato ben documentato da storici e ricercatori palestinesi e israeliani. I palestinesi commemorano questo periodo come la Nakba (“catastrofe” in arabo) che segna l’inizio del processo di espropriazione pianificata ed di espulsione della maggioranza del popolo palestinese.

Più di 500 città e villaggi furono allora sistematicamente distrutti e spopolati con massacri ed espulsioni di massa. Di conseguenza più di 750.000 palestinesi furono esiliati con la forza e divennero profughi. Molti di quei rifugiati e dei loro discendenti languono ancora in campi profughi impoveriti, e gli è stato negato il diritto al ritorno un diritto intrinseco e sancito dalle Nazioni Unite dopo 75 anni. Questo processo di spoliazione, quello che i palestinesi chiamano la “Nakba in corso”, non è mai terminato. Continua oggi, mentre Israele continua ad occupare e annettere terra palestinese, rubare risorse, demolire case, scuole e ospedali e arrestare, ferire e uccidere arbitrariamente palestinesi, comprese donne e bambini.

Omettendo i fatti storici e adottando ciecamente la narrazione di Israele, lei cancella la storia, la memoria e la ricca cultura del popolo indigeno palestinese, con la sua diversità, e che ha abitato la Palestina per secoli. Sostenendo la narrazione secondo cui “Israele ha fatto fiorire il deserto”, sostituisci la storia con il mito, impiegando un tropo coloniale che tenta di “rinverdire” il regime coloniale e di apartheid dei coloni israeliani sul popolo indigeno palestinese. Non ci si aspetta una tale ignoranza dal presidente della Commissione europea.

Dall’inizio del 2023, il mondo ha nuovamente assistito a un aumento degli attacchi israeliani contro i palestinesi, compresi i raid militari effettuati dall’esercito israeliano nelle città della Cisgiordania di Jenin, Gerico e Nablus. Questi hanno preceduto e seguito il pogrom a Huwara e nei villaggi vicini e il violento raid contro i fedeli nella moschea di Al Aqsa durante il mese di Ramadan, avvenuto appena tre settimane prima della sua dichiarazione. È questo il Paese che lei loda per il suo “dinamismo” e per la sua “cultura e per valori” condivisi?

È doloroso sentirla elogiare “i 75 anni di dinamismo, ingegnosità e innovazioni pionieristiche” di uno stato che impone una politica coloniale repressiva, razzista e brutalmente violenta su una popolazione che soggioga e controlla. Il regime di controllo di Israele sul popolo palestinese è sempre più riconosciuto come costitutivo dell’esercizio di apartheid da parte delle principali organizzazioni per i diritti umani, comprese le organizzazioni israeliane per i diritti umani. È vero, Israele ha sviluppato una tecnologia “dinamica, ingegnosa e rivoluzionaria” nel campo dell’esercito, della guerra informatica, dello spyware, della disinformazione e dei brogli elettorali usando i palestinesi prigionieri sotto il suo controllo come cavie. Israele è uno dei principali esportatori mondiali di distruttivi prodotti ad alta tecnologia, con le sue esportazioni militari e di “sicurezza” che consentono a dittature e regimi autoritari in tutto il mondo di perpetrare a loro volta gravi violazioni dei diritti umani.

La sua dichiarazione razzista non solo tradisce i fatti storici e la realtà sul campo, ma contraddice anche direttamente i principi e le norme accettate a livello internazionale e gli stessi valori su cui si basa l’UE. Ignorando l’esistenza del popolo palestinese che ha vissuto decenni di oppressione israeliana o di esilio forzato, si ignora il suo diritto all’autodeterminazione, un diritto inalienabile sancito dalla Carta delle Nazioni Unite.

Nel dicembre 2022 l’Assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite ha adottato una risoluzione per commemorare la Nakba palestinese. Questa storica risoluzione, sebbene vergognosamente solo due Stati membri dell’UE la abbiano sostenuta, riconosce i 75 anni di ingiustizia inflitta al popolo palestinese. In qualità di presidente della Commissione europea, un’istituzione che afferma di sostenere il diritto internazionale e l’autorità delle Nazioni Unite, non può certo mettere da parte le decisioni dell’Assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite.

Il 9 maggio l’UE celebrerà la Giornata dell’Europa, che quest’anno i palestinesi stanno boicottando proprio a causa della sua dichiarazione. Ci auguriamo sinceramente che questa celebrazione possa essere nello spirito del riconoscimento e del pentimento per la passata storia razzista e coloniale dei paesi dell’UE e che la Giornata dell’Europa celebri la Carta delle Nazioni Unite che è derivata per superare da questa storia. Ciò implicherebbe ovviamente che l’UE smettesse di servire con parole e fatti i valori e le politiche di Israele, che a sua volta rifiuta a parole e con i fatti la carta comune delle Nazioni Unite.

Le organizzazioni della società civile palestinese, così come l’Autorità palestinese, hanno denunciato con veemenza la sua dichiarazione. Anche Amnesty International ha criticato la dichiarazione e vi ha esortato a riconoscere che Israele sta commettendo il crimine contro l’umanità dell’apartheid. Noi, nella società civile europea, facciamo eco con tutto il cuore.

Le chiediamo di ritirare la sua dichiarazione e di scusarsi con il popolo palestinese per aver pubblicamente cancellato la sua cultura, storia e civiltà, oltre a chiudere un occhio sulle violazioni attualmente commesse contro i suoi diritti inalienabili.

Chiediamo che l’UE riconosca pubblicamente che Israele sta commettendo il crimine di apartheid e che le istituzioni dell’UE agiscano per porre immediatamente fine a ogni complicità nella commissione di questo crimine.

BIP News #256: Francesca Albanese under fire A coordinated defamation campaign against the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine

Two Israeli ministries are coordinating a smear campaign against the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Francesca Albanese. The personal attacks are based on lies aimed at removing her from office.
Israeli “Hasbara” organizations discredit the role of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Hasbara is the Israeli propaganda campaign (see BIP Update #174). The Office of the Special Rapporteur was created by the United Nations to monitor and document human rights violations committed by Israel against Palestinians. The office, which is honorary, was held by Michael Lynk from 2016 to 2022 and is currently held by Francesca Albanese.
Albanese states that the State of Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. Israel, she says, is a settler colonial state that has yet to be held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Albanese, like her predecessors, has faced fierce opposition since taking office in May 2022. In December, the Israeli government’s Hasbara platform, ACT-IL, stepped up the attack on her when it launched a campaign discriminating against Albanese, calling for her removal from office; a similar petition on Change.org followed.
Earlier this month, the campaign escalated into a shitstorm of simultaneously published inflammatory articles and tweets. The recently reopened Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs (source in Hebrew) funds NGOs to indirectly spread Israeli narratives without any apparent Israeli government involvement. So does NGO Monitor, the organization also behind the fabrication of evidence against six Palestinian civil society organizations (see BIP Update #193) as well as the International Legal Forum (ILF).
Several hateful articles accusing Albanese of anti-Semitism were published between April 9 and 12 in the Times of Israel (which amplified the Change.org petition against Albanese), World Israel News, the Washington Free Beacon, Jewish News Syndicate, European Jewish Press, The Jerusalem Post, and The Foreign Desk. The articles coincided with a Twitter campaign pressuring UN Secretary General Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk to fire Albanese.
The articles contained outright lies, accused Albanese of anti-Semitism without any evidence, and claimed she had “incited Hamas to violence” for misrepresenting a conference she had attended as one “sponsored by Hamas.” In addition, she had “endorsed anti-Jewish terrorism” because Albanese had affirmed the Palestinians’ right to self-defense.
Carinne Luck, International Director of the Diaspora Alliance, told BIP:
“The relentless campaign by the Israeli government and its supporters to undermine the application of Universal Human Rights and the mandate of the Special Rapporteur in the name of combating anti-Semitism not only harms Palestinians and Israelis, but also does nothing to protect the rights and security of Jewish people. Conflating anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel in this way only makes it harder to recognize anti-Semitism when it occurs.”
The Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs joined the Ministry of Strategic Affairs on April 14 when Minister Amichai Chikli revealed that the Israeli government is actively involved in the campaign. Chikli is an openly racist politician who voted against his Jamina party under the previous Israeli government after it agreed to form a coalition with an Arab Palestinian party. Because of his racist and anti-democratic views, a large demonstration was organized against Chikli in Berlin, which preempted his attendance at the International Conference on Anti-Semitism. He flew back to Israel without attending the event (source in Hebrew).

Nicola Perugini, associate professor of international relations at the University of Edinburgh, told BIP:
“The attempt to justify the conquest and expropriation of land as an act of self-defense is a recurring feature of settler colonial regimes. Since the 1960 UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonized Countries and Peoples, the international community has agreed that colonialism must be ended and that colonized peoples have a right to resist. How can one defend what must be ended?”

Sid Shniad, founding member of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, told BIP:
“The late Knesset member Shulamit Aloni explained that supporters of Israel often respond to criticism of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians by claiming that those who voice such criticism are engaging in anti-Semitism. The most recent use of this tactic is evident in the current campaign against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Ms. Albanese is in good company, considering that several previous rapporteurs, as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have been subjected to the same smear campaign.”
Francesca Albanese is the first woman to serve as Special Rapporteur on Palestine. Her male predecessors, Richard Falk, John Dugaard, and the aforementioned Michael Lynk, were also sharply attacked by Israeli officials and pro-Israel groups – to that extent, this targeted and forceful attempt against Francesaca Albanese is a continuation of Israel’s previous strategy.
The attack on Albanese cannot be viewed in isolation from the misogyny prevalent in the Israeli far-right government. This is expressed in the low number of female ministers, in the government’s crackdown on women’s rights, which has alarmed feminist groups, and in the appointment of May Golan, a far-right activist who has publicly expressed his desire for leftist women to be “raped by ni***ers” (source in Hebrew).
The current hate campaign against Francesca Albanese coincides with the month of Ramadan, which is holy for Muslims, during which Israeli forces attacked worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, desecrating the mosque and violating Muslims’ religious freedom. Instead of responding to Special Rapporteur Albanese’s legitimate criticisms, the Israeli government is now trying to reframe tensions with Palestinians into a religious conflict and denounce as anti-Semites anyone who advocates for Palestinian rights.

Francesca Albanese told BIP:
“This is neither the first nor the last time that my mandate and my person will be attacked. An apartheid regime, as confirmed by the international legal framework, can persecute those individuals and organizations that oppose it. I must remain focused on my work and the millions of people oppressed or affected by the occupation, as well as the many who are threatened around the world for denouncing it.”

NO MORE ATTACKS ON THOSE WHO DENOUNCE THE TRUTHS OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

The voluntary associations, humanitarian, political, religious and cultural organisations who have signed this document, in respect of the values enshrined in our Constitution and the Charter of International Rights

DENOUNCE AND DEMAND

https://chng.it/8s9WQsB6tS

an end to the denigrating media campaign carried out against those who, holding international institutional roles or being members of non-governmental organisations, have dared to bring to the general attention, the role and repressive policies of the government of Israel towards the Palestinian people.

It is not as of today that the worst right-wing, colonialist and racist Zionism, now firmly in power in Israel, rages against anyone who dares to question the democracy of the State of Israel, which, in reality, has nothing to do with the democratic and anti-Zionist Jewish people living inside and outside those territories.

The infamous accusations of anti-Semitism, used by the leaders and supporters of the Zionist movement against the UN special rapporteur for the occupied territories, the Italian lawyer Francesca Albanese, and against Dr. Tina Marinari, campaigns coordinator for Amnesty International Italy, defender of International and Democratic Law, offend above all the Jewish religious sentiment of that people.

The accusation: having documented and denounced the policies used to impose the military occupation of the land of Palestine. This policy is however confirmed daily by the indiscriminate use of all the coercive means that each army of occupation has always deployed to impose the will of the invaders on the invaded, and by the apartheid regime that oppresses the Palestinian people.

It is from the columns of Il Giornale (italian newspaper) of 18 April 2023 that Fiamma Nirenstein, who has never concealed her right-wing political sympathies, accuses Francesca Albanese of anti-Semitism, explicitly asking the UN for her dismissal, arguing that the Israeli army has been there since 1967 to defend from Arab ‘terrorists’ the sacrosanct ‘right’ of the settlers to take back (after 2000 years…) the land that belongs to them by divine will, because that is how it is written in the Bible.

Fiamma Nirenstein makes the case for censorship made at the UN by the “four thousand lawyers of the International Legal Forum”. An organisation based in Tel Aviv, with branches in many Western countries. A denigrating intervention also reinforced by the statements by the Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Anti-Semitism, Amichai Chikli, who claims that “allowing Ms. Albanese to continue to spread hate, anti-Semitism and incitement to violence, does not fulfil its mandate to protect the fundamental human rights of all and to exercise equal treatment for all member states’. Hence the alleged necessity of the removal of Francesca Albanese, requested in a letter addressed to UN Secretary General António Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk (Jerusalem Post, 19 April 2023).

The instrumental use of the accusation of anti-Semitism, and in particular of the immense tragedy of the Holocaust that involved the entire Jewish people, is not based on any evidence, and has the sole political function of wanting to disguise, by discrediting, the colonial and systematic apartheid that the State of Israel applies to the Palestinian people, with a dangerous escalation, attributable to the current extreme right-wing government, which is risking of seriously endangering Israel’s very existence.

Suffice it to observe the increase in incidents of violence that have occurred in recent days on the occasion of Easter, including against Orthodox Christian minorities and against Christian minorities, violence widely denounced by Mgr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The attack on Francesca Albanese and Tina Marinari is unacceptable to us, especially because of the importance of the organisations to which they belong, aimed at defending International Law – the UN – and active in the humanitarian and democratic field – Amnesty International. All our respect goes to these organisations.

A respect that, conversely, the State of Israel has never shown, as is confirmed not only by Israel’s failure to implement the countless UN resolutions against the policy of colonial expansion, but also by the continuous violation of International Law, also vilified through the systematic preventive bombardment of a sovereign state like Syria, without even the political dignity of declaring war, but with coward and reckless aggression.

The truth is that, after years of research, work, analysis, both the Apartheid Report by Amnesty International, presented by Dr Tina Marinari, and the one produced for the UN by Francesca Albanese, have highlighted that the Israeli authorities must be called to account for the crime of apartheid against the Palestinians.

The massive requisitions of land and property, illegal killings, forced relocations, drastic restrictions on movement and the denial of nationality and citizenship to the Palestinians, highlight Israel’s system of oppression and domination of the Palestinian population. They are acts that fuel a system that, under international law, constitutes apartheid, and which, according to Amnesty International, is based “on human rights violations” and, therefore, is a crime against humanity; so defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Apartheid Convention.

The UN Charter speaks clearly, also stating that any people, including the Palestinian people, has the right to resist a foreign invasion and that it cannot be the invader the one who decides what resistance is legitimate, starting with the non-violent one of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) promoted by civil society.

That is why the time has come for not only the media, but all the democratic society, to open their eyes to the truth and act so that the abuses stop as soon as possible. A stop that can only happen if the rights of the Palestinian people are recognised and practised, including the right of return of refugees, just as those of the Israeli people are recognised.

https://chng.it/8s9WQsB6tS

azione urgente a difesa di Francesca Albanesa e Tina Marinari

Carissimi,

c’è un nuovo impulso  della campagna contro la relatrice speciale delle Nazioni Unite su Palestina Israele, Francesca Albanese.

la nostra opinione è che in questo momento in cui il suo secondo rapporto sarà presto reso noto e mentre il volto nascosto dell’Israele democratico è in mostra per la sua violenza sui palestinesi e la continua espansione sul territorio, questa campagna non deve essere considerata come un lampo transitorio, ma sarà uno sforzo massimo da parte del governo israeliano.

La campagna, pur decollando ora sulla stampa e tra i parlamentari in Italia, si estenderà o si sta già estendendo a tutto il mondo.

Una petizione in change org dell’International legal forum che chiede la rimozione dell’Albanese mira ad aggregare anche professionisti del diritto di tutto il mondo, una strategia spesso intrapresa per demonizzare anche professionalmente il bersaglio.

Come società civile in Italia è stata lanciato una petizione in change org, che trovi  qui

https://chng.it/8s9WQsB6tS

NWRG