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Palestine
In South America, serious pressure is building against the Israel-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement (FTA), threatening to derail it entirely. South American social movements, who have years of experience fighting against free trade, have integrated Palestine solidarity into their general work.
In view of the recent three-week premeditated campaign of bombing of the population of Gaza and its infrastructure by the State of Israel which came after a crippling, illegal two-year siege, we, 14 member organizations of SKOP, the Maltese national platform of development non-governmental organizations, call for a suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
The recent war in Gaza has served to highlight the European Union’s relations with Israel. Although the genocide in Gaza has embarrassed many EU officials, there are no signs that the European Union is going to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement signed in 2004.
Montrealers are occupying
the ministerial office of Raymond Bachand, Quebec’s Economic Development
Minister, in solidarity with Gaza and to call on the Charest government
to immediately rescind the Quebec-Israel economic accord.
"The EU-Israel Association Agreement should be suspended until Israel complies with international law. It was only last week that I personally met with the fishermen whose boats were illegally water-cannoned and fired upon by Israeli gunboats as they peacefully fish in Gaza waters."
It is not merely the depth of suffering or length of exile that makes the Palestinian struggle an imperative of international solidarity in the current period. It is also the central location of the struggle within the broader context of global resistance to imperialism and neoliberalism. At the heart of this regional framework is the intrinsic relationship between the development of neoliberal capitalism in the Middle East and normalization of relations with Israel. All of the efforts of the US and their client regimes in the region are aimed at promoting these.
Sign this petition which calls for an immediate suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and any further trade between Israel and EU Member States in protest against Israel’s continued violation of human rights of the Palestinian people.
Monday’s announcement for increased relations concerns three areas: diplomatic cooperation; Israel’s participation in European plans and agencies; and an examination of possible Israeli integration into the European Single Market.
At issue is whether to deepen relations governed by the current EU-Israel association agreement
Israel is not interested in the supposed “peace dividends” associated with free trade based on the sovereign economic policy of all parties. Israel evidently has other plans, most obvious of which are territorial expansionism and control of the population, both incompatible with Palestinian sovereignty.
Key members of the Israeli and Palestinian private sectors recommended in a joint study that peace negotiators adopt a "Free Trade Agreement Plus" (FTA Plus) as the basis for economic relations between Israel and any future Palestinian state.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has called for divestment from Israeli companies: a campaign aimed at the European Union, which accounts for two-thirds of Israel’s exports under an EU-Israel Association Agreement. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, has said that human rights conditions in the agreement should be invoked and Israel’s trading preferences suspended. This is unusual, for these were once distant voices.
The impact of the Qualifying Industrial Zones — a concept proposed by the United States in 1996 to bolster cooperation between Jordan and Israel after the Jordan-Israel peace agreement was signed in 1995 — remains, after 10 years, difficult to determine. In spite of the tremendous growth of exports to the US market through these zones, QIZs continue to receive mixed reviews and their future is uncertain. Most importantly, the impact of the QIZs on the peace effort has been insignificant, to say the least.
The aim of this paper is to try to understand the Israeli industrialists’ strategy in the globalization process in the course of the recent years. The new strategy was implemented in the days of the first Intifada (the Palestinian uprising) in the late 80s. At that time voices were heard in the Association of Israeli Industrialists, the strongest organization of Israeli employers, advocating an agreement with the Palestinians which would not oppose the establishment of an independent Palestinian State, as long as the Palestinian economic dependence on Israel is preserved.
The next time your Wal-Mart sweatpants read “Made in Jordan QIZ” on the label, consider the relationship between economic integration and peace. The truth might not be what you expect.
The UK House of Commons international development committee is calling on the Labour government to press for sanctions against Israel over its treatment of the Palestinian people. As a first step in putting pressure on the Israeli government to end this oppression, the UK should now urge its fellow members in the EU to consider suspending the EU-Israel association agreement, the cross-party committee says.
Members of the European Parliament which recently returned from a fact-finding mission to Israel and Palestine insisted that the EU should review its association agreement with Israel.
Rather than rebuke Israel, the UK and its fellow EU member states are actually sitting down today with Israeli representatives in Brussels to seal the continuation of the EU-Israel association agreement. The agreement grants Israel important trading preferences for its exports into the EU, even though these are supposedly conditional on respect for human rights from both sides.
If Solana wants to demonstrate genuine support for the Palestinians he can start by calling for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, in accordance with its Article 2 which grants Israel trade privileges only on condition that it respects human rights.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights says that the EU has failed to enforce Article 2 of its Association Agreement with Israel and suspend the privileges given to Israel until it fulfills its obligations on human rights and democracy.
