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State News Release - August 16, 2002 |
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Illinois Green Party |
| US Support for Israeli Occupation Must End, Says Green Party Candidate. |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Members of the Green Party of the United States have expressed concern that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has targeted activists from around the world who are working for peace in Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as Palestinian and Israeli peace activists. "Clearly, nonviolent protest and our solidarity is the only way that the occupation will end," said Justine McCabe, co-chair of the Connecticut Greens and member of the Green Party's International Committee. McCabe has assisted Palestinian and international relief workers in Bethlehem and Ramallah. "Sadly, the IDF's violent response today to these courageous internationals is what peacefully resisting Palestinians have known on a steady basis for over 35 years," McCabe added. "Although they endure the same wretched conditions as Palestinians while in the Occupied Territories, many of the internationals can go home, back to safety to shore up for the next round. Palestinians living under occupation have no safe place. They risk their lives every day just to remain in their homes, on their own land." According to eyewitness reports on August 7, Israeli police and soldiers used percussion grenades, tear gas, and helicopters to quash a nonviolent demonstration at the Huwara checkpoint near Nablus by Palestinian, American, French, and Irish members of the International Solidarity Movement, including New York members of Jews Against the Occupation. McCabe noted that "this isn't the first time the IDF has used U.S. guns to fire on U.S. citizens." Greens have criticized the bipartisan support of the U.S. Congress and the White House for Israel's continued illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, which has led to the escalating slaughter of innocent people on both sides, invasion and assassination, and the bulldozing of Palestinian homes to make way for Israeli settlements. "The media show us pictures and footage of the terrible, self-defeating murder of innocent Israelis by Palestinian suicide bombers," said Holly Hart, Green candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Iowa and member of People for Justice in Palestine. "But few Americans are aware of the heroic efforts by many Palestinians and Israelis to resolve the conflict through nonviolent negotiation and resistance to Israel's sustained onslaught." "Americans have the real responsibility to end this violence," says Estabrook. "Successive Israeli governments have sold their country to the US for billions of dollars each year; it has become a nuclear-armed Sparta guarding the interests of a US elite in the Middle East," he says. "The result is the present moral corruption of Israel and its possible future physical destruction." "The only way we'll see Israel reverse its illegal treatment of Palestinians and withdraw from the occupied territories is through massive pressure from the U.S., including a threat to end aid to Israel," said Charles Pillsbury, Green candidate for Connecticut's 3rd Congressional District. The Green Party of the United States has joined human rights groups, the European Federation of Green Parties, the Palestinian Authority, the UN Commission on Human Rights, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in repeated calls for an international protection force for all civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Contacts:
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State News Release - August 16, 2002 |
Home | Press | State Press |
