[GPCA Updates] GP RELEASE Greens: US must press Israel to end settlements; divestment urged as Israeli outrages continue

[Green Party of California Updates]

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Thursday, April 8, 2010



Greens: President Obama must press Israel to end East Jerusalem settlements

• Green Party urges divestment as Israeli outrages mount

• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Greens available to speak on foreign policy
http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-foreign-policy.php


WASHINGTON, DC -- President Obama must put pressure on Israel immediately to
stop the construction of settlements and displacement of Palestinians in East
Jerusalem, Green Party leaders and candidates said today.

"President Obama should send Prime Minister Netanyahu a message: enough is
enough.  If Israel continues to violate Palestinian human rights, the US must
cancel the $30 million military aid package pledged to Israel for 2009-2018.
The plan to build 1,600 housing units for Israeli Jews in East Jerusalem is
the latest outrage.  Although a rumored US abstension from a possible UN
Security Council resolution against the settlements would be an improvement
over its usual veto on Israel's behalf, this would still be an act of moral
cowardice," said Sanda Everette, co-chair of the Green Party of the United
States.  (News story on the possible UN resolution:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8591714.stm)

"The White House's angry response to the East Jerusalem settlement
announcement was a necessary first step, but it needs to be followed by
concrete action, like support for a UN resolution against the settlements or
actually withdrawing military aid.  President Obama should show the kind of
leadership that led Eisenhower to demand that Israel leave Sinai in 1955,"
said Ms. Everette.

The Green Party has demanded that the US end military assistance to Israel,
which has used such aid to displace Palestinians from their homes and farm
lands, hold them in concentration camp conditions, maintain Bantustans in the
style of apartheid-era South Africa, and launch illegal military assaults such
as last year's bloody invasion of Gaza.

"While the international community has been unable to deal with Israel's
violations after decades of UN resolutions, civil society has increasingly
endorsed BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) as a powerful nonviolent
strategy to pressure Israel into ending the Palestinian occupation and
guaranteeing equality for all in Israel-Palestine.  In 2005, the Green Party
endorsed a BDS resolution (http://www.gp.org/press/pr_2005_11_28.shtml)
comparable to the one passed by the Senate of the Associated Students of UC
Berkeley in March," said Derek Grigsby, Green candidate for State
Representative in Michigan, District 7 (dereknjck at yahoo.com).

The Berkeley students' bill calls on the university to divest its assets from
two General Electric and United Technologies for "materially and militarily
supporting the Israeli government's occupation of the Palestinian territories"
and to advocate that the UC, with about $135 million invested in companies
that profit from Israel's illegal actions in the Occupied Territories
(http://blogs.asuc.org/2010/03/18/announcements/sb-118-amended-passed).

Greens have urged the White House and Congress to reject the influence of
AIPAC and to establish Middle East policy based on recognition that the rights
of Palestinians must be equal to the rights of Israelis, on peaceful
negotiation to resolve the conflict, and complete regional nuclear
disarmament.  Greens have noted the hypocrisy of applying sanctions against
Iran for its alleged nuclear ambitions without insisting that Israel get rid
of its nuclear weapons -- especially since Israel, unlike Iran, has launched
military attacks on other countries.  (See "Arab Leaders Call for Middle East
Free of Nuclear Weapons" Earth Times March 28, 2010,
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/316159,arab-leaders-call-for-middle-east-free-of-nuclear-weapons.html#ixzz0jUbcWzVi)

"We encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders -- and President Obama -- to
follow the lead of human rights activists like Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, organizer
of the Wheels of Justice tour (http://justicewheels.org).  In his embrace of
nonviolent resistance as a tactic for justice, Dr. Qumsiyeh continues an often
unrecognized history of Palestinian non-violent resistance and keeps alive the
tradition of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King.  In response, the Israeli army
has targeted him for arrest," said Tony Affigne, Rhode Island Green and member
of the party's International Committee (http://www.gp.org/committees/intl).

Dr. Qumsiyeh (http://qumsiyeh.org), former associate professor of genetics at
the Yale University School of Medicine and a member of the Green Party of
Connecticut before he moved back to Palestine, wrote about his experiences in
a New Haven Register op-ed published on March 9, 2010 ("Peaceful protest in
Israel can lead to arrest,"
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/03/09/opinion/doc4b95ab40a3642160727871.txt).

"The US's uncritical support for Israel and flow of military and financial aid
endanger US troops in Iraq and  Afghanistan and threaten US security and
global stability.  Even Gen. Petraeus and VP Biden have admitted this," said
Rodger Jennings, Green candidate for US Congress in Illinois, District 12
(http://www.rodgerjennings.org).  (See "The Petraeus briefing: Biden’s
embarrassment is not the whole story," Foreign Policy, March 13, 2010,
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/14/the_petraeus_briefing_biden_s_embarrassment_is_not_the_whole_story).
  "The Gaza assault, which couldn't have happened without US weapons, was a
major turning point for people worldwide, including many American Jews.  Like
the misery that continues for Gazans, the memory of that horrific assault
lingers."

Greens note that, until recently, a campaign to silence critics of Israeli
policies and actions helped maintain unilateral support for Israel, especially
in the US, and that censorship of such criticism has sustained the conflict.
  Many US Greens expressed alarm when the Heinrich Boell Foundation
(http://www.boell.de), a legally independent political foundation affiliated
with the German Green Party, canceled February speaking engagements in Germany
by Dr. Norman Finkelstein, an American Jewish scholar, child of Holocaust
survivors, and author of books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the
politics of the Holocaust (http://www.normanfinkelstein.com).

"There is increasing recognition that the two-state solution is not viable.
Israel-Palestine is already a de facto single state, mainly because of
Israel's illegal settlement policies, with over 500,000 Israeli Jews living in
the Palestinian Occupied Territories.  It's time to consider the one-state
solution -- one homeland for both peoples -- with a secular democracy that
ensures full and equal rights regardless of religion or ethnicity, " said
Farheen Hakeem, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. (See
"Palestinians Increasingly Back 1-State," Jerusalem Post, March 22, 2010,
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=171559 and "Who's Afraid of a
One-State Solution?" by Dmitry Reider, Foreign Policy, March 31,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/03/31/whos_afraid_of_a_one_state_solution)


MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
• Green candidate database and campaign information:
http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Green Party ballot access page http://www.gp.org/2008-elections
• Green Party Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus

"Ensure Israel arms curbs, say MPs"
BBC News, March 30, 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8594402.stm

"Open Letter to Berkeley Students on their Historic Israeli Divestment Bill"
By Naomi Klein, Common Dreams, March 31, 2010
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/31-9

"Palestinians increasingly back 1-state"
Jerusalem Post, March 22, 2010
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=171559

"US Can't Afford Military Aid to Israel"
Josh Ruebner, The Huffington Post, February 26, 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-ruebner/us-cant-afford-military-a_b_478104.html

"Evidence of misuse of US weapons in Gaza"
Amnesty International, February 23, 2009
http://www.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/20277

US Campaign to End the Occupation
http://www.endtheoccupation.org

Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the
United States
Winter 2010 issue now online
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog


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