Advocating for Palestinian Rights in conformity with International Law: Guidelines An outcome document by Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, Birzeit University Institute of Law

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“Today, colonialism, including settler colonialism, is absolutely prohibited. Colonialism, however, was not expressly prohibited by international law at the time Israel was established. The normative shift began only in the 1950s as result of anti-colonial liberation movements, and colonialism became expressly prohibited in 1960, when the UN adopted the Declaration on Granting Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. Since the prohibition does not apply retroactively, earlier colonial processes in which settler colonial societies had established themselves as nation-states were de facto immunized and normalized by UN-led ecolonization. As a result, the dominant legal opinion is that the legal framework of colonialism is not applicable within the borders of existing states, even where founded through aggression, colonization, ethnic cleansing or genocide, such as the United States, Australia and Israel.”

Continue reading at http://lawcenter.birzeit.edu/iol/en/project/outputfile/6/986afcc6c9.pdf

Amnesty International: Trigger Happy – Israel’s Use of Excessive Force in the West Bank

5. ISRAEL’S OBLIGATIONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
Several bodies of international law apply to Israel’s conduct in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem…  International criminal law, which establishes individual criminal responsibility for certain violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, as well as torture, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearance…

5.5 INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
Individuals, including military personnel and law enforcement officers, can be held criminally
responsible for certain violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian
law.
Under the principle of universal jurisdiction, all states have an obligation to investigate and, where
enough admissible evidence is gathered, prosecute crimes under international law, including
genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, extrajudicial executions and enforced
disappearances.

Continue reading at http://www.amnesty.org/fr/library/asset/MDE15/002/2014/en/349188ef-e14a-418f-ac20-6c9e5c8d9f88/mde150022014en.pdf

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BDS to stop the incremental genocide in Gaza! (International Alliance of Inhabitants, August 2014)

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The International Alliance of Inhabitants (IAI) is calling for inhabitants’ organizations all over the world to show solidarity and mobilize to stop the incremental genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza carried out by Israel. The IAI is launching a call for BDS to obtain a just peace with Zero Evictions and rebuild demolished Palestinian homes.

Continue reading at https://www.habitants.org/news/inhabitants_of_the_middle_east/bds_to_stop_the_incremental_genocide_in_gaza

Urbicide in Palestine: Spaces of Oppression and Resilience by Nurhan Abujidi

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These discourses of cultural cleansing and cultural genocide suffer from their focus upon the symbolic cultural heritage, which solely refers to one layer of urban destruction, the deliberate destruction of cultural artefacts. In other words, it focuses only upon the buildings whose loss is judged to be a cultural loss. However, the urban environment normally experiences more widespread destruction than these symbolic buildings. From the Bosnian history of cultural destruction it is evident that hundreds of other types of buildings were subject to destruction–for example, houses in Mostar Old Town and in many of the villages in Bosnia. The same can be noted in the Palestinian history of urban destruction–for example, Nablus old town (more details on Nablus are analyzed in Chapter 6). Indeed, urban destruction encompasses buildings that have no distinctive cultural value, or are of distinct cultural provenance. Thus the interpretation of urban destruction as an attack o cultural heritage provides only a partial (though striking) account of the destruction of the urban environment in Bosnia among other cases; it does not account for the scare of destruction or targeting of buildings that are not recognizable as such symbols of culture. Thus, cultural cleansing and cultural genocide are only partially reflecting the process of urban destruction; they reflect the destruction of cultural artefacts, but this destruction does not take place in a pure form or apart from the destruction of other types of urban environment.

Continue reading at https://books.google.ps/books?id=KLDpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA21

INCITE! Palestine Points of Unity

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“Israel” is committing genocide. It inflicts physical, economic and psychological violence on Palestinians daily…

  • We support Palestinian self-determination and de-colonization of Palestine.
  • We demand the right of return for the 5.5 million Palestinian refugees who have been displaced by “Israeli” invasion.
  • We call for their safe return to their villages of origin and we demand that they be compensated for their losses.
  • We support the movement to “disinvest (or divest) from “Israel.”
  • We join the call for divestment from all corporations that do business with “Israel.” We join the call for boycotting “Israeli” products and divesting from financial ties that support the military industrial complex of “Israel.”
  • The “U.S.” government must STOP $6 billion from US every year to finance “Israeli” colonization.
  • We insist that the voices of Palestinians surviving and resisting occupation be heard.
  • End all forms of violence committed against Palestinian women and families including rapes and still-births at checkpoints, political imprisonment and torture, and housing demolitions.
  • STOP THE GENOCIDE AGAINST PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!

Continue reading at http://www.incite-national.org/page/palestine-points-unity

We can’t just tweet in the face of genocide by Ewa Jasiewicz

It’s clear that we can’t just tweet in the face of genocide and that marching from A to B in the face of massacre and ethnic cleansing is not enough. So what is enough to stop Israeli impunity and apartheid, and ongoing international governmental, institutional and corporate support for Israel? The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a Palestinian initiated call for a comprehensive cultural, economic, and academic boycott of Israel until Israel abides by international law and three core aims are achieved…

Continue reading at http://www.redpepper.org.uk/we-cant-just-tweet-in-the-face-of-genocide/

TAKE ACTION now and write a letter to the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. Make sure to post a copy of the letter in our comments as well, so we can publish it.