The political message is clear – racism can be tolerated against Palestinians in the name of Israeli ’sovereignty.’ There is no blanket opposition to racism and fascism, clearly some forms of racism are acceptable. The establishment of an ethnically pure state on the basis of expulsion of the indigenous population is a dynamic we have seen repeated throughout history, and one that anti-fascist movements have resisted consistently, but when the doctrine of racial superiority is practised, today, before our eyes, ie the status of Jews in an exclusively Jewish state, ie Israel – we are told we must remain silent. We must look the other way. Palestinian suffering, because Palestinians do not bear any Jewish lineage or identity – for if they did, they would ‘fit in’ to the Israeli state, is negated, denied and deemed irrelevant. How can this be justified?

The campaign of solidarity with Palestinians (Kampania Palestyna) is not anti-Israel or anti-semitic, just as the movement against apartheid South Africa was not anti-white or anti-South Africa. Our demands and our aims were and are, the same – human rights and equality. Our treatment by theŻydowska Ogólnopolska Organizacja Młodzieżowa mirrors the narrative used by racists to justify negation of the other and attain superiority over another. We are ‘othered’, a foreign body, we are labeled as irrational, as haters, naïve, ignorant, dangerous, and must be suppressed.

This is not the politics of an anti-fascist and anti-racist movement. Anti-fascism resists racism and fascism in all its forms, without exception. No human being or ethnic group is better than any other. To claim exceptionalism for a particular ethnic group or identity is to claim superiority. To claim justification of oppression based on ones own experience of suffering, is to claim superiority in suffering and to generate a hierarchy of suffering. There is no heirarchy in suffering. Racism is racism, whether it is practised by politicians in suits or thugs on the street, whether it is embedded in institutional structures and bureaucracies or state policies and ideologies.

We stand up to all of it. The Żydowska Ogólnopolska Organizacja Młodzieżowa has taken the decision to draw the line at standing up for another people – the Palestinian people – because it has bought the doctrine of Israeli exceptionalism, that Israel has the right to be an ethnically pure, expansionist state, and has the right to practise apartheid, all in the name of an identity politics which excludes all those who are not Jewish. How is this just, democratic and an anti-dote to racism? TheŻydowska Ogólnopolska Organizacja Młodzieżowa supports this ideology and normalises this to such an extreme that it will suppress its own political agency in an open organisation dedicated to resisting racism including the ongoing reality of anti-semitism in Poland. ‘This coalition can only be a home for those opposing particular forms of racism and we get to chose what they are’ is the message being communicated here.

This shows us where the priorities are of this group and the narrow self-interest that it is serving. The November 11^th coalition is meant to represent a participatory democratic politics based on universal equality. The global is the local. Poland is not an isolated capsule, government policies influence conflicts and movement of people from all over the world. The argument that ‘This issue does not belong in the coalition because it is marginal or foreign’ echoes the politics that allow for exclusion and denial to develop and betrays a lack of understanding of globalisation.This also undermines the ethos of solidarity with the excluded, the marginalised and the invisible. We want to see a solidarity that will de-other ‘the other’ and de-other ourselves from one another. Identity politics are a reality but when they become exclusive, supremacist, reified in states, border regimes, nationalisms, then we lose each other, we lose our commonality and we lose the commons – an uncommodified human rights and access to land, water, warmth, atmosphere and ecology, that we as a campaign believe in. Racist and fascist politics cannot be divorced from the material economic and political frameworks they evolve through and the interests they serve.

The issue of Israeli apartheid over Palestine cannot be ignored. Poland has an intimate historical and present day link with Israel. Israeli corporations and institutions complicit in the colonisation of Palestine run our buses, build our housing estates and co-produce weapons which are used against civilians on the streets of Palestine and Afghanistan. The occupation of Palestine is not only being reproduced through our government’s material and political support, but also by organisations which enforce a silence on the issue, thereby normalising it, denying there is a problem, denying there is responsibility here in Poland and denying activism around it. We will not be silent. Not over anti-antisemitism, Islamophobia, white supremacy, anti-gypsy and traveller racism, border regimes locking up migrants, and not over Palestine.

Polish Palestine Solidarity Campaign

In Warsaw protesters marched from the Israeli Embassy to the House of Parliament. There they met with MP Ryszard Kalisz, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Justice and Human Rights, and delivered a draft interpellation to be submitted to the Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski, requesting a disclosure of the Polish government’s position on the GA vote regarding the acceptance of Palestine as a full member of the UN.

The September vote will be held as the international community’s response to Israel’s brutal policy of occupation, colonization and illegal annexation of Palestinian territories, including ethnic cleansings, evictions and house demolitions on a mass scale, as well as Israel’s refusal to recognize the Palestinians’ right of self-determination.

Around 6 weeks ago activists from the campaign hung a kuffeya around the top of the palm tree in protest at the Polish govt meeting the Israeli govt in Jerusalem and the growing normalisation and alibi for apartheid that Poland is providing for Israel. The tree is now associated as a symbol of solidarity with the oppressed and in now particular, Palestine.

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians…”
Nelson Mandela, former South African President

“We stand united in our belief that divesting from companies that provide significant support for the Israeli military provides moral and strategic stewardship of tuition and taxpayer-funded public education money. We are all peace makers, and we believe that no amount of dialogue without economic pressure can motivate Israel to change its policy of using overwhelming force against Palestinian civilians.”

Shirin Ebadi, Iran, 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate
Mairead Maguire, Ireland, 1976 Nobel Peace Laureate
Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Guatemala, 1992 Nobel Peace Laureate
Jody Williams, USA, 1997 Nobel Peace Laureate

For decades, Palestinians have been denied their basic rights. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live under a brutal Israeli occupation and are subjected to daily violations of their basic human freedoms and lack basic rights as workers. Palestinian citizens are institutionally discriminated against. Refugees are denied their right to go home.

In response to a call from Palestinian civil society, including the entirety of the trade union movement, for a campaign of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law,1 the Polish Campaign of Solidarity with Palestine is today launching a campaign against Egged-Mobilis, a company that attacks workers’ rights in Poland and is directly involved in gross violations of international law in Palestine.

Egged, the Israeli owner of Polish bus company Mobilis, operates services for illegal Israeli settlements inside occupied Palestinian territory. It provides transport to illegal Israeli settlements inside occupied Palestinian territory and is involved in the Jerusalem Light Rail, a project that links settlements to Israel, is designed to cement Israel’s hold on occupied land that has been described as illegal by the UN. By facilitating population transfer into occupied Palestinian territory, Egged and Mobilis are actively and knowingly complicit with Israeli violations of international law.

In Poland, under the aegis of Mobilis, Egged attacks worker’s rights and is reducing the service offered to the public. Egged, one of the companies to profit most from an unpopular round of privatisation in Poland, operates throughout Poland.2 Workers’ wages, working conditions and hours have all been dramatically reduced. The Treasury Ministry is planning further privatization of public transport and Egged will have the opportunity to further tighten its grip on the Polish transport market.

In 2004 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the construction of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory violates international law as laid out in Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids population transfer into occupied territory.3 Egged profits from these violations of international law. The ICJ ruling also stated that all states are under an obligation not to “render assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction”. By providing Egged, an agent of Israeli occupation, with contracts, the Polish state is bringing into question whether it is undermining international law. The Polish Campaign of Solidarity with Palestine, a group of concerned citizens, human rights defenders and trade unionists, calls upon the local municipalities in Poland to end their support for Israel’s illegal occupation but cutting all ties with Egged and refusing to grant the company further contracts.

Given that Egged attacks undermines working conditions in Poland and is involved in maintaining a system of settlements that violate international law and lead to the exploitation of Palestinian labour in Palestine, we also call upon the Polish trade union movement to join us in this campaign. An injury to one is an injury to all!

As citizens have a duty to uphold international law and inalienable rights – let us join together for justice and equality! Free Palestine!

- Kampania Solidarności z Palestyną.

1 http://www.bdsmovement.net/call
2 Egged-Mobilis operates services in Warsaw, Kraków, Bydgoszcz, Ciechanów, Mińsk Mazowiecki, Mława, Płock, Przasnysz and Ostrołęka, Gdańsk, and Kielce and elsewhere
3 http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?pr=71&code=mwp&p1=3&p2=4&p3=6&case=131&k=5a

The call to action came from Palestinian prisoner support and human rights organization Ramallah-based Addameer. Similar vigils and protests were held in the occupied Palestinian territory and several European cities.

The protests demanded that Israeli authorities immediately release all Palestinian female political prisoners and detainees from Israeli jails, including women in administrative detention. There was a special call for release of Eman Ghazzawi, 35-year-old, mother of two. Arrested on the 8th March 2001 she been locked in Israeli jail for 10 years now.

Eman developed respiratory problems in prison and suffers from constant pains in her head, stomach and joints as a result of the harsh incarceration conditions. She still has to serve 3 more years. Eman’s husband is also a prisoner in Israeli jail. Their children, Samah, 12, and Jihad, 13, are living with their maternal grandmother.

The protesters condemned the cruel and discriminatory treatment that Palestinian female prisoners and detainees are subjected to during their arrest, interrogation and in prison, including sexual harassment, psychological and physical punishment and humiliation.

There was a high number of police on the spot of the Warsaw protest. The protesters stayed in silence at first and then shared stories of female prisoners.

Banners reading ‘Warszawa wie co to okupacja’ (Warsaw knows what occupation means) were displayed outside the embassy and a letter outlining concerns was handed to embassy staff. Embassy staff and Polish citizens visiting the embassy expressed their sympathy with the protest.

The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk led a high level delegation to a meeting attended by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu and other senior Israeli officials.

The meeting took place in Jerusalem, a city Israel claims to be its ‘undivided capital’ but the Eastern part of which is recognised as occupied Palestinian territory. Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have faced an escalation of the state-sanctioned campaign of ethnic cleansing against them in recent months. Nearly all countries recognise Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel, not Jerusalem.

London resident Bruce L said, “By meeting the Israeli Prime Minister in Jerusalem, Poland has endorsed Israel’s attempts to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the city.”

“The recent history of relations between Israel and European countries is marked the strengthening of ties on one hand and continued Israeli impunity on the other. Rather than giving the green light to Israeli Apartheid, Poland should instead be supporting Palestinian rights by cancelling the contracts it holds with Israeli companies operating in Poland such as Egged, Eden Springs and Elbit Systems that are complicit with Israeli violations of international law,” he added.

The picket was planned after a call for such actions was issued by Polish activists, who today tied a giant traditional Palestinian scarf (Kuffeyah) around the iconic Palm sculpture in Jerusalem Avenue, central Warsaw.

Thursday February 24th 2011

Today, Palestinian and Polish activists tied a giant traditional Palestinian scarf (Kuffeyah) around the iconic Palm sculpture in Jerusalem Avenue, central Warsaw.

The palm, which dominates Warsaw’s city-scape and appears on post-cards was created by Polish artist Joanna Rajkowska. Rajkowska is known for her advocacy for Palestinian human rights and work in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

The action is a response to the top-level meeting between Israel and Poland, taking place not in Israel’s diplomatic capital Tel-Aviv but Jerusalem – the Eastern part of which is recognised by the EU and United Nations as occupied territory. East Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents have been subject to a violent eviction campaign by Israeli-state sponsored settlers and home demolitions for decades.

The meeting between the two governments includes Prime Ministers Benjamin Netenyahu and Donald Tusk as well as senior representatives from the Ministries of Culture, Defence, Intelligance and Foreign Affairs.

Poland, often described as Israel’s unofficial ambassador in Europe, seeks to upgrade military, research and development, and cultural ties with Israel.

Human Rights activists of the Polish Solidarity Campaign with Palestine have called the meeting a normalisation of occupation and apartheid.

It has also said that Israeli companies operating in Poland such as Egged, Eden, Elbit, and Rafael and the majority Israeli construction company owned  ASBUD are aiding and abetting war crimes and that their contracts should be cancelled until they cease to perpetuate Israel’s illegal occupation.

Artist and creator of the Palm Joanna Rajkowska said:

“The Palm has always been on the side of those who are absent, deprived of their voice or spoken for by others who have no legitimacy to do so. She has been a Jewish woman, a nurse, and a victim of climate change and right-wing governments in Poland.

This time she is the voice of opposition to the illegal annexation of Jerusalem and Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine which the Polish government appears to encourage.

The Palm has always been and always will be a voice speaking up for all emancipatory and liberation movements. In this turbulent time for the Middle Meast, the Palm firmly stands on the side of radical democracy.”

In July 2011 Poland will take over presidency of the European Union.

Contact

Ewa Jasiewicz 511 162 549 (Kampania Palestyna)
Ala Qandil 533 277 207 (Kampania Palestyna)

www.kampania-palestyna.pl

Notes

This was an action entirely planned and carried out by Polish and Palestinian women activists

Italy and Germany are the only other countries to have had such meetings in Jerusalem.

Since 1967, around 2,000 homes have been demolished in East Jerusalem. According to official statistics, from 2000 – 2008 the Israeli authorities demolished more than 670 East Jerusalem homes. The number of outstanding demolition orders is estimated at up to 20,000. (Source, Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions)

Between 2001 and 2009, 37 percent of all settlement housing units in the occupied Palestinian territory were located in East Jerusalem, reports the EU. (OCHA December 2010)

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton reiterated last week that “the EU does not recognize” the annexation of East Jerusalem by Israel, meaning structural changes to the territory are illegal under international law. (Ibid)

Palestinian human rights organisations: Aldameer, Addameer, Al Haq, Defence for Children International, Jerusalem Centre for Legal Aid and Human Rights, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Ramallah Centre for Human Rights, Womens Centre for Human Rights and Counselling, and Ensan Centre for Human Rights have sent a joint letter calling on the Polish Government to undertake its’ responsibilities to abide by EU and international law.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, Donna Baranski Walker, Awarded Medal of Gratitude by Poland in 2010 and founder of the Rebuilding Alliance, and Israeli academics, lawyers and activists from Boycott from within group have also written to the Polish government to contest the Jerusalem meeting.

See www.kampania-palestyna.pl for more details

23 February 2011

Your Excellencies,

In view of the upcoming joint Polish-Israeli cabinet session on 24 February, we, the undersigned organizations committed to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt), would like to express our concern over what we understand will be a meeting to discuss an upgrade in defence and economic co-operation between the two states.

EU member states along with others have condemned Israel’s policies and practices concerning the Palestinian population, which are in contravention of basic principles of international humanitarian and human rights law. Israel’s continuing expansion of settlements is, inter alia, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibition of the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population to the territory it occupies 1 ; and its de facto annexation of East Jerusalem violates the international humanitarian law prohibition of the annexation of occupied territory. 2

Israel also continues to build the Annexation Wall in the West Bank, in defiance of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, that recognized that portions of Wall built on occupied territory are illegal and called for their dismantlement. 3 Furthermore, it refused to co-operate with or recognize the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which found that during Israel’s military operation on the civilian population in the Gaza Strip in 2008/09 war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity have been committed, and recommended that they be subjected to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court 4 .

Poland, as the next EU member state to assume the Council Presidency in July 2011, will be in a stronger position to influence the EU foreign policy agenda concerning Israel and the oPt. The EU has stated that a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Palestinians is a ‘fundamental interest to the parties in the region and the EU’ 5 and must be achieved on the basis of all previous UN resolutions and international agreements. It has also recognized the illegality of settlement building, house demolitions and the construction of the Wall and warned that these actions are major obstacles to a two state solution 6 .

As Israel’s actions constitute serious violations of international law which carry obligations on the international community as a whole, Poland, having ratified the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter and international human rights treaties, has a responsibility in its relations with Israel to ensure that these violations end. Furthermore, as one of the 27 member states of the EU Council which has recognized the illegality of Israel’s policies and practices towards the Palestinians, and as the future holder of the EU Presidency, Poland is in a position when meeting with Israel to reiterate the EU’s position and its deep concern regarding these violations.

We call upon Poland to send a strong message to Israel, confirming that there will be no increased co-operation between the two states unless there is tangible progress in Israel’s adherence to international law, including:

• The dismantling of all settlements, including in East Jerusalem;

• An end to all forms of house demolitions and evictions;

•The lifting of the Gaza blockade and full unhindered access to humanitarian aid and assistance;

•Israel’s compliance with all UN Resolutions, the Advisory Opinion of the InternationalCourt of Justice, the recommendations of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza conflict endorsed by the Human Rights Council, and concluding observations of international human rights treaty bodies relating to the human rights of Palestinians in the oPt.

Yours sincerely,

Sahar Francis
General Director
Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association

Rifat Kassis
General Director
Defence for Children International – Palestine Section

Khalil Abu Shammala
General Director
Aldameer Association for Human Rights

Shawan Jabarin
General Director
Al-Haq

Issam Aruri
General Director
Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights

Issam Younis
General Director
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights

Iyad Barghouti
General Director
Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies

Maha Abu Dayieh
General Director
Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counselling

Shawqi Issa
General Director
Ensan Center for Human Rights and Democracy

1Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49.

2Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 47 and 1907 Hague regulations, Article 43 and 55.

3 International Court of Justice, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied PalestinianTerritory, Advisory Opinion 9 July 2004 available at: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf?PHPSESSID=40f133d97e1be91e631f0c60bc80740f

4 Human Rights Council, Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza conflict, 15 September 2009.

5 Council of the European Union, Council Conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process, Brussels 8 December 2009 (Foreign Affairs Council) available at: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/foraff/111829.pdf

6 Ibid.

As an veteran Israeli peace and human rights organization dedicated to achieving a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) wishes to raise its concern over your planned meeting with Israeli government officials in Jerusalem.

Poland, for understandable historical reasons, has been prominent among the EU members in its uncritical support for Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, which only serve to perpetuate the 44-year Occupation and place the lives and well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians in jeopardy. Your past, we believe, makes it incumbent upon you to promote the security of Jews in Israel and not confuse this with support for policies that security. As you well know from Polish history, wars, violence, occupation and oppression never lead to peace and security, and yet these are precisely the policies your visit appears to be supporting.

Your history, we also believe, also teaches that only respect for the human rights of all people will prevent more occurrences of the violence and suffering you have endured over the centuries. The Polish people’s struggle for self-determination and freedom inspires us all; it requires you, however, to stand by the side of the Palestinian people in their struggle for the same rights, even if that means opposing Israeli policies. In fact, we suggest that you explain to the Israeli government that your government stands solidly against the occupation and all policies that perpetuate it (such as the demolition of Palestinian homes, 25,000 so far) because of the lessons learned from your own history, because of your commitment to human rights as the only way to build a better world and because of your deeply-felt obligations to both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

Poland occupies a special place in the world due to both its suffering and its resistance to oppression. It is that moral voice we desperately need to have heard in the corridors of the Israeli government.

In Peace,

Jeff Halper
Director, ICAHD

PO Box 2030
Fax: +972-(0)2-622-0351
Rehov King George 14E
91020 Jerusalem, Israel
Website: www.icahd.org

Tels: +972-(0)2-624-5560

+972-(0)505-651425
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