12) CJPME URGES MPs TO OPPOSE ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS

 

            Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is urging MPs to denounce both the soaring Israeli "settlement" housing starts in the West Bank and the recent extremely belligerent statements by Israel cabinet ministers.

 

            According to Israel's Peace Now group, settlement starts in the first three months of 2013 tripled the number in 2012's first quarter, and were 355 percent higher than in the last quarter of 2012. On June 17, Israel's Economics and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett proposed that Israel confiscate "Area C" ‑ the 62 percent of the Palestinian West Bank under full Israeli control ‑ "as quickly as possible."

 

            Disparaging the idea of a separate Palestinian state, the Israeli minister commented, "Never have so many people invested so much energy in something that is hopeless... The most important thing ... is to build, build, build. It's important that there will be an Israeli presence everywhere."

 

            Israel's deputy foreign minister Zeev Elkin, who lives in a West Bank settlement, agreed with Bennett's remarks. Two weeks earlier, deputydefence minister Danny Danon claimed a majority within the Israeli government staunchly oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.

 

            A CJPME statement notes that neither Canada's Foreign Affairs minister John Baird, nor opposition critics Paul Dewar (NDP) and Dominique Leblanc (Liberal), have deplored the soaring settlement starts or the Israeli cabinet ministers' appalling statements.

 

            "Canadian MPs' silence in the face of such belligerence is unethical and contradicts all Canadian parties' long‑standing support for a `two‑state solution'," notes CJPME President Thomas Woodley. The group calls on government and opposition MPs to be "less passive in the face of statements and actions by Israel that run contrary to Canadian policy and the international consensus on a feasible solution to the Israeli‑Palestinian conflict."

 

            CJPME points out that Israel's "settlement" (colonization) of the West Bank violates Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits occupying powers from transferring their civilian population into the territory occupied. Palestinian leaders have repeatedly offered to negotiate a peace agreement based on the 1967 borders, even though those borders would leave Palestinians with only 22 percent of British Mandatory Palestine.

 

 (The above article is from the July 1-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)