Saturday, January 29, 2005
Statement on Sanctions from ICAHD
January 27, 2005
THE ISRAELI COMMITTEE AGAINST HOUSE DEMOLITIONS (ICAHD)
A STATEMENT ON SANCTIONS
After years of diplomatic and political efforts aimed at inducing Israel to end its Occupation, while watching it grow ever stronger and more permanent, ICAHD supports a multi-tiered campaign of strategic, selective sanctions against Israel until the Occupation ends; i.e. a campaign targeting Israel's Occupation rather than Israel per se. We believe that inmost cases merely enforcing existing laws, international as well as domestic, would render the Occupation untenable and would pull Israel back into compliance with human rights covenants. We also favor selective divestment and boycott as tools of moral and economic pressure.
Since sanctions are a powerful, non-violent, popular means of resisting the Occupation, a campaign of sanctions seems to us the next logical step in international efforts to end the Occupation. While it will develop over time, ICAHD supports the following elements at this time:
· Sales or transfer of arms to Israel conditional upon their use in ways that do not perpetuate the Occupation or violate human rights and international humanitarian law, violations that would end if governments enforced existing laws and regulations regarding the use of weapons in contravention of human rights;
· Trade sanctions on Israel due to its violation of the "Association Agreements" it has signed with the European Union that prohibit the sale of settlement products under the "Made in Israel" label, as well as for violations of their human rights provisions;
· Divestment from companies that profit from involvement in the Occupation. In this vein ICAHD supports initiatives like that of the Presbyterian Church of the US which targets companies contributing materially to the Occupation and certainly the campaign against Caterpillar whose bulldozers demolish thousands of Palestinian homes;
· Boycott of settlement products and of companies that provide housing to the settlements or which play a major role in perpetuating the Occupation; and
· Holding individuals, be they policy-makers, military personnel carrying out orders or others, personally accountable for human rights violations,including trial before international courts and bans on travel to other countries.
ICAHD calls on the international community - governments, trade unions,university communities, faith-based organizations as well as the broad civil society - to do all that is possible to hold Israel accountable for its Occupation policies and actions, thereby hastening the end of this tragedy. While we also call on the Palestinian Authority to adhere to human rights conventions, our support for selective sanctions against Israel's Occupation policies focuses properly on Israel which alone has the power to end the Occupation and is alone the violator of international law regardingthe responsibilities of an Occupying Power.
ICAHD UK website: http://www.icahduk.org Contact ICAHD UK: http://www.icahduk.org/contact/contact.html
THE ISRAELI COMMITTEE AGAINST HOUSE DEMOLITIONS (ICAHD)
A STATEMENT ON SANCTIONS
After years of diplomatic and political efforts aimed at inducing Israel to end its Occupation, while watching it grow ever stronger and more permanent, ICAHD supports a multi-tiered campaign of strategic, selective sanctions against Israel until the Occupation ends; i.e. a campaign targeting Israel's Occupation rather than Israel per se. We believe that inmost cases merely enforcing existing laws, international as well as domestic, would render the Occupation untenable and would pull Israel back into compliance with human rights covenants. We also favor selective divestment and boycott as tools of moral and economic pressure.
Since sanctions are a powerful, non-violent, popular means of resisting the Occupation, a campaign of sanctions seems to us the next logical step in international efforts to end the Occupation. While it will develop over time, ICAHD supports the following elements at this time:
· Sales or transfer of arms to Israel conditional upon their use in ways that do not perpetuate the Occupation or violate human rights and international humanitarian law, violations that would end if governments enforced existing laws and regulations regarding the use of weapons in contravention of human rights;
· Trade sanctions on Israel due to its violation of the "Association Agreements" it has signed with the European Union that prohibit the sale of settlement products under the "Made in Israel" label, as well as for violations of their human rights provisions;
· Divestment from companies that profit from involvement in the Occupation. In this vein ICAHD supports initiatives like that of the Presbyterian Church of the US which targets companies contributing materially to the Occupation and certainly the campaign against Caterpillar whose bulldozers demolish thousands of Palestinian homes;
· Boycott of settlement products and of companies that provide housing to the settlements or which play a major role in perpetuating the Occupation; and
· Holding individuals, be they policy-makers, military personnel carrying out orders or others, personally accountable for human rights violations,including trial before international courts and bans on travel to other countries.
ICAHD calls on the international community - governments, trade unions,university communities, faith-based organizations as well as the broad civil society - to do all that is possible to hold Israel accountable for its Occupation policies and actions, thereby hastening the end of this tragedy. While we also call on the Palestinian Authority to adhere to human rights conventions, our support for selective sanctions against Israel's Occupation policies focuses properly on Israel which alone has the power to end the Occupation and is alone the violator of international law regardingthe responsibilities of an Occupying Power.
ICAHD UK website: http://www.icahduk.org Contact ICAHD UK: http://www.icahduk.org/contact/contact.html
