Palestine Update 551
Global Network for Palestinian Refugees and Displaced Persons
Indo Palestine Solidarity Network, India (IPSN)
Global Kairos for Asia Pacific Solidarity with Palestine GKAPPS)
Palestine Updates
MESSAGE ON THE OCCASION OF NAKBA DAY 2022
Today we stand here in India, and Asia-Pacific region, in unity with our people in the refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, and in the countries of the distant diaspora, to declare that we are one people, we have one destiny, and that our return is certain.
Today we stand here to renew the pledge that we will continue to resist the ongoing Nakba. The Nakba is not a memory. The Nakba is ongoing with the continued domination of the Israeli colonial-apartheid regime. The Nakba continues with forced displacement, denial of return and residency rights, fragmentation and racial segregation, discriminatory planning and permit regimes, repression, arbitrary arrests and detentions, extra-judicial killings/executions and collective punishments, home demolitions, and denial of access to natural resources and services.
Today we stand here to say that ending the ongoing Nakba requires the dismantling of the Israeli system of colonialism and apartheid politically, economically, legally and ideologically. We stand here to recall that dismantling this regime is the responsibility of the Palestinian people as it is the responsibility of all the free people in the world, because colonialism, apartheid, forced displacement, denial of self-determination, and persecution in all their forms are crimes against humanity and international crimes that must be stopped.
We stand here to confirm that the services of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) are not a gift that the world would kindly give to the refugees of our people. UNRWA services are a right for Palestinian refugees, and providing them is an international responsibility incumbent on the United Nations and individual states. That is why we declare our total rejection of the imposition of political conditions by the United States of America and the European Union on UNRWA in exchange for funding. We reject forcing UNRWA to erase Palestine from the Palestinian curriculum, and reject turning it into a security agency spying on our people for the benefit of the Israeli regime and the donor countries. The project of transferring UNRWA’s services to countries of asylum or to other international agencies and organizations aims to liquidate UNRWA – the existing witness to the international responsibility for the plight of the Palestinian people and their displacement.
We stand to say that the Oslo Accords and the facts they produced are invalid and rejected, and that normalization serves the Israeli colonial – apartheid regime and not the rights of the Palestinian people or peace. We affirm that depriving refugees of their human rights in host countries does not serve return, but rather pushes them to death boats on the high seas and oceans.
Therefore, we affirm:
First: The return of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons to their original homes, the restoration of their properties and compensation is a national, legal and human right that is not subject to derogation, restriction, delegation or substitution, and that any solutions that do not expressly recognize this right are null and rejected.
Second: Ensuring a permanent and stable budget for UNRWA by the international community does not constitute a gift or favor from anyone. It is an international responsibility that is due to the Palestinian people, and it is not permissible to detract from it nor to use it for political blackmail.
Third: The necessity of recognizing the basic human rights of Palestinian refugees and not discriminating against them in host countries.
Fourth: Resistance and partnerships with the solidarity, rights and liberation movements in the world is the way to dismantle the system of colonialism and apartheid, not victim rhetoric or begging and seeking sympathy.
One people, one destiny, and our return is certain
Glory to the martyrs, healing to the wounded, freedom to the prisoners, and long live a free Arab Palestine
Signed by
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GLOBAL KAIROS ASIA PACIFIC SOLIDARITY FOR PALESTINE
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INDO PALESTINE SOLIDARITY NETWORK
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PALESTINE UPDATES
14 May 2022
Source: palestineupdates.com