Solidarity vote of the Portuguese Parliament on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

The Portuguese Parliament (Assembly of the Republic) marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People by adopting a Vote of Solidarity. Emanating from an organ of sovereignty of Portugal, it is a document of undeniable political relevance, which should be welcomed by all the friends of the Palestinian cause.

Presented by the Portugal-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group, the Vote recalls that the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People was established on December 2, 1977 by the United Nations General Assembly.

This decision, the text underlines, recalled the approval by that very same General Assembly of Resolution No. 181, which established the partition of the territory of Palestine, formerly administered by the British Mandate, into two States. Forty years after the commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and 70 years after the adoption of the resolution that envisaged it, the establishment of an Arab State in Palestine remains unfulfilled.

The text of the [Parliamentary] Vote of Solidarity ends by reaffirming the commitment of the Assembly of the Republic «based on the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, to fight for the end of the occupation of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967 and for the recognition of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to the establishment of a sovereign and viable State, with East Jerusalem as capital, inseparable from the just settlement of the drama of the Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution No. 194».

The Solidarity Vote was adopted with the dissenting vote of a Member of the CDS party, the abstention of the PSD and CDS parliamentary groups and of a PS MP, and the vote in favor of the remaining MPs.