Proposition 55K0651

Proposition de résolution prévoyant des sanctions à l'égard de la politique de colonisation d'Israël.

General information ¶

Authors

PVDA | PTB Nabil Boukili, Greet Daems, Raoul Hedebouw, Marco Van Hees

Submission date

Oct. 22, 2019

Official page

Visit

Status

Rejected

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

Israel Palestine foreign policy international sanctions

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V LE DéFI Open Vld N-VA MR

Voted to reject

Groen Ecolo PS | SP LDD PVDA | PTB

Abstained from voting

Vooruit VB

Party dissidents ¶

• John Crombez (Vooruit) voted to reject.
• Nathalie Gilson (MR) voted to reject.
• Florence Reuter (MR) voted to reject.
• Sarah Schlitz (Ecolo) abstained from voting.
• Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open Vld) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

April 23, 2020 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

For more than 70 years, the Palestinian people have suffered from colonization, violence, displacement of populations, repeated bombing, blockades and deprivations of the most fundamental rights. This violence does not spare women, old people, or children. It is the country where children’s rights are most violated. But in the last few weeks, the Palestinian people, like all the peoples of the world, have also faced the COVID-19 pandemic and the major health crisis, but the difference is that the Palestinians face it under the illegal occupation by the Israeli army.

This occupation makes the situation even more catastrophic. Look at us and in other countries of the world, all the difficulties and complications that arise to have basic equipment, masks, tests. Look at the complications of the decisions to be made to control the epidemic, the urgency in which those decisions must be made and implemented, and all the means needed to implement them. So imagine having to do this when you are deprived of your sovereignty, that you are not master of your policy. And you must do so under the conditions imposed by another state that does not care at all about your safety. On the contrary, this state represents a threat. In a context where the Palestinian Authority lacks everything – tests, masks, hydro-alcoholic gels, respirators and so on – colonial policy continues as if there was nothing. Houses are destroyed and hundreds of arrests are carried out.

But cynicism does not stop there. At the request of Israeli employers, the colonial state invites Palestinian workers to work in Israel without any security or protection measures, against the will of the Palestinian Authority. Israel is accused by several observers and the Palestinian Authority of deliberately spreading the virus.

In Zone C, a large part of the Palestinian population is deprived of treatment and testing. There is clearly a policy of discrimination and apartheid towards the Palestinians.

Add to this the issue of political prisoners. In Israeli prisons, because there are already a large number of inmates with chronic diseases, such as respiratory diseases, diabetes, and others, the lives of inmates are in great danger. It is urgent to insist on the Israeli authorities to guarantee conditions that protect prisoners from the virus or otherwise release them, especially the elderly, people with chronic diseases, women and children, so that they can protect themselves at home. A request has been made in this regard by several organizations. I think we must join this call and make it happen.

There is also another great prison: Gaza. The situation of the Palestinians here is equally inhumane and unhealthy. The Israeli government has for a long time blocked the entry of medicines and medical equipment into Gaza. The blockade is already inhuman in itself, but in the situation of a pandemic that has also hit Gaza, it is quite criminal and intolerable. The blockade of Gaza must be lifted immediately.

To the political and social crisis imposed on the Palestinian people due to the colonization, adds the health crisis that evolves into a humanitarian crisis. The most vulnerable populations have increasingly difficult access to food. A solidarity movement has been organized around the world to send foodstuffs.

As if the situation wasn’t dramatic enough, Israeli forces confiscated food packages to be distributed to families in quarantine in Sour Baher, a village south of Jerusalem. Occupying forces broke into a school where the packages were being prepared. They arrested four members of the local emergency committee and seized 300 packages of food from Palestinian citizens.

In the light of Israel’s persistent violations of international law and given that since 1948, numerous UN resolutions have called Israel’s colonial and discriminatory policies illegal, condemned them, and called for immediate, proportionate and effective resolutions, it must be noted that all forms of international intervention and peace process over the past 69 years have so far failed to persuade or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.

We must act! We can no longer accept those who send back Israelis and Palestinians back and forth, or who continue the incantations concerning the hypothetical peace processes of which it has become evident that the current Israeli government, like its predecessors, absolutely does not want. We cannot treat the Israeli State and the Palestinian people on the same level of equality, as some MEPs have expressed during committee debates. We have, on the one hand, a colonial state that uses violence with its army and, on the other hand, an oppressed people deprived of their rights and calling for their freedom and sovereignty.

People of conscience within the international community have historically accepted the moral responsibility of fighting injustice through various forms of boycott, withdrawal of investments and sanctions, as in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa. This is also the meaning of this resolution. Like other countries – Germany, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands to name only some European countries – this proposal for a resolution aims at paving the way for Belgium to take resolute action to contribute to respect for human rights and international law in Palestine.

One of the articles that has been debated is that which aims to prohibit the import and marketing of products from the colonies on the Belgian territory, as required by the Made in illegality campaign, based on the obligations related to compliance with international law and the request recognised in particular in UN Security Council resolution 2334, and which pleads for such a policy to be carried out also at the level of our European partners and the entire European Union.

It is counterproductive to hide behind potential technical problems, as some political groups have done during committee debates, because what we are asking here is to take a political position and then fight to realize it technically. Remember the “white bluses” budget amendment. At first, this was not technically possible, but a political position was taken and then the technique followed.

This health crisis has revealed a lot of things. It revealed the limits of our economic system and its market economy. It revealed the failure of liberalism and its antisocial recipes and of each for himself. It revealed that the real drivers of our society are its workers. And, if it still needs to be demonstrated, it has revealed the barbarism and violence of the Israeli colonization as well as the urgency of providing elements of response.

That is why I invite you, dear colleagues, to vote against the rejection of this resolution.

It is always delicate to talk about Israel. It’s like dancing on a table full of eggs. We are still not recovering from our shame over what we did to the Jews in 1940-1945.

What have we done yet? We have transferred the account of our misconduct in Europe to the Palestinians. I will not repeat the sermon of my colleague, and I already tell you that I agree with the content of the resolution and therefore will vote against its rejection.

This is based on what has happened recently. In the Standards of 30 March 2020, it was ⁇ that: "There were 91 COVID-19 patients counted in the Palestinian territories last Sunday. In Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison, 1.9 million people live in a sand bank of 41 km long and 6 to 13 km wide, hermetically closed from the outside world, under the corrupt regime of Hamas and the terror of Israel. In addition to international food aid, there is a survival economy that is destroyed by the Israelis with the regularity of the clock." “Sometimes the Israelis spray poison on our crops. In other places, they then let wastewater flow over the Palestinian fields.”

Israel is responsible for the supply of the hospitals and has a shortage of them. Matthias Schmale of UNRWA says literally: “There are only 60 beds for intensive care and there is a shortage of gloves, mouth masks and respiratory devices. Electricity is regularly shut down. There is a lack of proper water, a lack of sanitation, a lack of soap.”

I agree that one fights ideas with ideas, but this is a crime and crimes are not compensated.

I will give a second example, one reason why I support the resolution. The human rights organization B’Tselem literally wrote that Jewish organizations recently destroyed 2 field hospitals in Khirbet Ibziq on the West Bank. These field hospitals were there for the coronavirus victims. It has nothing to do with politics, it has to do with crimes against humanity.

Therefore, as a right-wing politician, I support the motion for a resolution. Is this a curse in the church?

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Samyn would give a vote statement on behalf of our group, but I had not registered her for the debate, because that can not be regulated.

Should he subsequently submit a vote on this issue?