Under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which prohibits countries from moving population into territories occupied in a war, Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories are considered illegal by the international community. The United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice and the High Contracting Parties to the Convention have all affirmed that the Fourth Geneva Convention does apply.
Israel maintains that they are consistent with international law because it does not agree that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the territories occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Legal or Illegal, the ones who suffer the most are the Palestinians Arabs themselves. They live under conditions comparable to non-white people under an apartheid regime:
· No right of free speech, assembly or movement
· Arrest and imprisonment without charge or trial
· Torture
· House searches without warrant
· Assassination, extra-judicial murder
· No right to vote for the Israeli government (even though it controls their lives)
· Israel controls all Palestinian borders, all imports and exports, and all movement between towns and cities.
· The Gaza Strip, still surrounded, besieged and controlled by Israel, has been sealed off and effectively turned into the world’s largest open-air prison.
With the recent Israel’s parliamentary approval of a controversial bill to retroactively “legalise” illegal Jewish outposts built on privately owned Palestinian land, things have gotten worse off for Palestinians.
The so-called regulation bill paves the way for Israel to recognise thousands of illegally built Jewish settler homes constructed on privately owned Palestinian land in what opponents have dubbed a “theft” and “land grab”.
The law retroactively legalises the construction, with the original landowners to be compensated either with money or alternative land – even if they do not agree to give up their property.
We believe in justice and fairness for everyone, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. If injustice is perpetuated in the lands, there will never be peace.
We protest the injustice faced by the Palestinians who find day to day life difficult. Palestinian face continued severe poverty and chronic food insecurity. Due to restrictions, the economic situation of the Palestinians is dire.
We demand that the Israeli government:
· Recognise right of free speech, assembly and movement for Palestinians
· Stop arrest and imprisonment without charge or trial for Palestinians
· Halt house searches without warrants in the occupied territories
· Stop assassination and extra-judicial murder of Palestinians
· Give Palestinians the right to vote for the Israeli government
· Recognise the rights of Palestinians and their legal status
There will be no peace if people are not given their intrinsic rights to a normal life. Punitive and unilateral action by the Israeli Government has not and will not solve the issue, it will only exacerbate the situation for all parties involved.
Every human deserves the basic right to survive. Yes, war is destructive, bombs can be blind, but the systematic denial of the right to survive on unarmed civilians, denial of aid to the populace in desperate need is unjustified.
Support this petition, to show your support for Palestinians, to show your support for humanity. We sign this petition to show our solidarity against Israeli Apartheid, so that this humanitarian disaster and festering wound in the middle east shall heal and peace shall reign again.
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Source: www.change.org
