Palmela Municipality against annexation of West Bank

The Palmela City Council, at its meeting of 1st July, unanimously approved a motion of solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemning the announced annexation by Israel of territory in the Palestinian West Bank. Palmela City Council is made up of four elected members from the CDU (Democratic Unitary Coalition), three from the PS (Socialist Party), one from the PSD (Social-Democratic Party) and one independent.

This is the text of the approved motion:

Motion

Against Israel's annexation of the West Bank

Following the policy of aggression and ethnic cleansing pursued by Israel over the last  decades against the Palestinian people, the new Israeli government has announced that it will soon annex around 30% of the occupied Palestinian territories. The presentation of the concrete annexation plan was scheduled for today, July 1st, but it may have been postponed to a date to be defined, due to internal disagreements within the coalition government and to the lack of agreement with the US government, which has been one of the great drivers of the measure. This hesitation does not result from disagreement with the annexation – which Donald Trump has described as “a historic act to promote peace in the Middle East” – but only from the prioritization of other urgent actions, namely, the fight against the pandemic and the electoral campaign in the States United of America.

This besieged territory languishes under the concerned gaze, but without concrete action, of the international community and the United Nations, which confirm the illegality, under international law, of the growing number of settlements and the annexation of territories and the repeated  failure to comply with UN resolutions and human rights, with thousands of dead, wounded, displaced and political prisoners – including children and young people, without the right to trial and whose trail is often lost.

The idea that a country can, unilaterally and gradually, advance across its neighbour's borders, taking over its territories and its capital and destroying its people, its culture and its autonomy, without the rest of the world taking a stand in its defence, takes on medieval contours that are not consistent with a holistic vision of peace and goodwill among peoples, unavoidable in the 21st century.

The Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and for Peace in the Middle East (MPPM) has sent an open letter to the Portuguese government, which urges it to recognize, “immediately, the State of Palestine in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital”, to reassess “the entire framework of relationship with the State of Israel if the government of that country, in violation of international law, persists in implementing the announced project of de jure annexation of Palestinian territory” and to use “all political and diplomatic instruments at its disposal, particularly in the United Nations system and in the European Union, for the uncompromising defence of the rights of the Palestinian people”.

It also made available a public petition, available for subscription under the heading “Against the annexation of the West Bank. For the recognition of the State of Palestine” and, together with the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation (CPPC) and the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP-IN), scheduled, for the 6th of July at 6:30 pm, at Martim Moniz Square, in Lisbon, a public act of solidarity with Palestine.

Following the multiple political positions and solidarity actions that it has taken, in defense of the Palestinian cause, the fulfilment of the United Nations Resolutions and the respect for Human Rights, the Palmela City Council expresses its repudiation of the intention of annexation of the West Bank by Israel, an illegal act that can only lead to a new escalation of violence in the region.

Meeting on 1 July, 2020, the Palmela City Council resolves:

– To reiterate its solidarity with the Palestinian people;

– To express its total disagreement with the Israeli government's intention to annex the West Bank;

– To demand, once again, the fulfillment of the Resolutions of the United Nations and the end of the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories by Israel;

– To join the initiatives promoted by MPPM, CPPC and CGTP-IN, urging the Portuguese government to take a clear position supporting of the Palestinian cause;

– To make this motion known to the following entities:

– Permanent Mission of Portugal to the United Nations
– His Excellency, the President of the Republic
– His Excellency the Prime Minister
– His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs
– Parliamentary Groups in the Assembly of the Republic
– Portugal-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group
– Embassy of Israel in Portugal
– Diplomatic Mission of Palestine
– Municipal Assembly of Palmela
– Borough Councils of the Municipality of Palmela
– Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation
– Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and for Peace in the Middle East
– CGTP-IN
– Media