- You are here :
- Home >
- Vigil >
- "End the occupation !" PAJU Vigil # 488, June 18, 2010: A Global Campaign to Delegitimize Israel
"End the occupation !" PAJU Vigil # 488, June 18, 2010: A Global Campaign to Delegitimize Israel
Publication date : 2010-06-21
UNITED NATIONS, June 4, 2010 (IPS) - If, as expected, the U.N. Security Council remains politically impotent and refuses to penalize Israel for killing nine pro-Palestinian civilians on a ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, what is the next course of action? Formal or informal sanctions by individual states? Worldwide arrest warrants?
A Global Campaign to Delegitimize Israel
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 4, 2010 (IPS) - If, as expected, the U.N. Security Council remains politically impotent and refuses to penalize Israel for killing nine pro-Palestinian civilians on a ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, what is the next course of action? Formal or informal sanctions by individual states? Worldwide arrest warrants?
All of these - and more - are possible, say two leading constitutional experts, Professor Richard Falk, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights.
The gridlock in the Security Council is likely to remind civil society forces that justice for the Palestinians will depend on bottom-up conflict resolution and the kind of global delegitimizing campaign that worked so well in the struggle to defeat South African racism, Falk told IPS.
Asked how Israel could be punished and/or penalised for its atrocities if action is to be taken outside the Security Council chambers, Falk said there are two sets of punitive responses outside of the U.N. system:
First, by strong diplomatic initiatives, as for instance, the deterioration of Israeli trade and security relations with Turkey, and other nations; and by some governments adopting informal or formal sanctions; Secondly, by civil society initiatives that move toward further delegitimization of Israel, such as a citizen tribunal. Ratner told IPS the injured citizens from various countries can and should begin criminal prosecutions in their home countries against Israeli officials who ordered this attack in international waters. "Worldwide arrest warrants should be issued. Israeli officials should understand that they may have impunity in Israel, but that they leave Israel at their peril," he said.
Adapted from "A Global Civil Society Campaign to De-Legitimise Israel?", written by Thalif Deen and published June 4, 2010 on line by Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency. Read full text on line at: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51724
Distributed by PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity)
WWW.PAJUMONTREAL.ORG