IPSC alarm at EU/US attitude to recent events in Palestine

international | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Thursday June 21, 2007 14:11 by IPSC - Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign

The IPSC is alarmed at the decision of the European Union and the United States to extend recognition to an administration which has been created by President Mahmoud Abbas in violation of the Palestinian Basic Law.

Press Release : 20 Jun 2007
Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign

IPSC alarm at EU and US attitude to recent events in Palestine

The IPSC is alarmed at the decision of the European Union and the United States to extend recognition to an administration which has been created by President Mahmoud Abbas in violation of the Palestinian Basic Law. Indeed, it is ironic that the US administration has welcomed this violation of a Palestinian law when the website of its own US Agency for International Development makes the provisions of the law available for all to read. See: http://www.usaid.gov/wbg/misc/Amended_Basic_Law.pdf

The Basic Law does allow the president to remove a prime minister but a new government must be approved by the Legislative Council. Mr. Abbas was in violation of the Basic Law when he issued a decree allowing himself to swear in a new cabinet and give it the power to make decisions without the approval of the Legislative Council, in which the party of the deposed prime minister has a majority.

The IPSC has long criticised the EU's participation, at the instigation of Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom, in the boycott of the Palestinian government which was democratically elected by the Palestinian people in January 2006. We have criticised the EU for ignoring the fact that the US and Israel were helping to arm and train forces whose aim was the overthrow of this democratically elected government. The simmering factionalism which finally came to a head in Gaza is a direct result of this interference, a policy of 'divide and conquer' that was used to great effect by the same two countries two decades ago in Nicaragua. No wonder that, in an article in Wednesday's Washington Post, Ahmed Yousef, a senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the democractically-elected prime minister, refers to these forces as "Palestinian contras". See:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20....html

In this context, the EU's decision to grant aid to the new administration looks like connivance at the overthrow of the government which was democratically chosen by the Palestinian people in exemplary elections. It is a decision which seems calculated to divide the Palestinian people, thereby weakening their ability to unite in opposition to their oppressor, Israel.

In view of this we call on the governments of the EU and in particular on the Irish and British governments to abandon their previous supine support for US policy and finally extend to the Palestinian people the support they need in their brave battle for survival. We trust meanwhile that the long Palestinian tradition of sumud (steadfastness) will enable them to overcome this latest obstacle to their liberation.