Israelis, Palestinians and Americans Confront Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs in to Demand a Just Peace in the Middle Eas
On Monday September 18, from 12:30-1:30pm, protesters will gather outside the Council on Foreign Relations where Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, will be speaking. Ben-Ami’s talk, entitled “Israel’s Continuing Efforts to Achieve a Final Status Agreement with the Palestinians,” angered local activists who see the Israeli government’s policies and practices under the Oslo Peace Agreements as violating basic Palestinian human rights and therefore precluding any possibility of a just peace in the region.
Lucy Mair of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), a New York-based human rights organization coordinating the protest said, “Are we to understand continued land confiscations, house demolitions, settlement building and bypass road construction as Israel’s continuing ‘efforts’ at peace?”
Shlomo Ben-Ami has been a key Israeli negotiator during the Oslo process, including most recently at the Camp David summit. As one of the highest ranking officials in the Labor party and in the Israeli government, he is a chief architect of Israeli policies, many of which are in direct contravention to international law and to the spirit and letter of the Oslo Agreements.
The protesters will present a letter of demands to Ben-Ami which has been signed by hundreds of social justice organizations and activists.
Among the demands that will be presented are:
* An end to expansion of bypass roads and Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
* An end to Palestinian house demolitions and ID card confiscation.
* A lifting of the crippling Israeli-imposed border closure which has isolated and economically strangled Gaza and the West Bank for the past 7 years.
* A release of the 1500 Palestinian political prisoners who remain in Israeli jails.
* Israeli compliance with its commitments under international law, most notably UN Resolution 194 calling for immediate return and compensation for Palestinian refugees.
Over the past several years CESR has conducted an in-depth study of conditions in the Palestinian Territories since the beginning of the Oslo Agreements. Instead of the improvements that the peace process promised, living conditions have declined and human rights abuses have increased. Roger Normand, Executive Director of CESR says that “No just and lasting peace will be possible in the Middle East unless it is based on international law and human rights for all.”
TIME AND LOCATION:
Monday, September 18, 12:30-1:30 pm
58 E. 68th Street between Park and Madison
