CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA, March 6, 2017 (WAFA) – In an almost unanimous vote - with the Israeli Labor Party giving the only dissenting vote – representatives of 86 socialist and labor parties from around the world meeting in Cartagena, Colombia for the 25th Congress of the Socialist International (SI) fully endorsed Palestinian right for statehood while denouncing Israeli practices in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Nabil Shaath, Fatah party’s Commissioner for International Relations and Palestine‘s representative at the SI meeting, said SI reaffirmed its support for the right of the Palestinian people for self determination and the establishment of their independent state.
He called on member states which have not yet recognized the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders to do so as a way to support peace and the two-state solution.
SI condemned in its final communiqué Israeli settlement activities while calling for a ban on all settlement products.
While SI supported the two-state solution as a way to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it also condemned “all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of all the territory occupied by Israel since 1967, including inter alia, the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements, a violation of international law, including the illegal Annexation Wall as well as the Israeli policy of home demolitions of Palestinians, as well as all policies of forcible displacement of civilians,” according to the communiqué. “We demand a total cessation of such activities.”
Si also called for the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 2334 of December 23 that reaffirmed the illegality of Israeli settlements “by taking concrete measures against Israel‘s colonial-settlement enterprise in Occupied Palestine, such as banning settlement products, including services, supporting Palestinian communities under threat and supporting the efforts to issue a public list of companies that profit from the Israeli colonial-settlement project in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
This is the first time SI calls for a ban on settlement products and supports the issuance of a list of companies profiting from the Israeli settlements.
SI also condemned discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel and highlighted the persecution conducted by the Israeli government against Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations.
The meeting concluded its statement on Palestine by calling upon “all governments that haven‘t recognized the State of Palestine on the 1967 border, and particularly those led by members of SI, to do so as an investment in peace between Israelis and Palestinians, saving the two-state solution and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”
It also called upon “all its members to present, help and adopt in their national parliaments, resolutions calling to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine that began in June 1967.”
M.K.
