PSC update: Thank you! EU new guidelines

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign works for peace & justice for Palestinians, in support of human rights & against all racism

EU produces new guidelines to prevent Israeli settlements benefitting from EU projects

Thank you – your action made this happen!

The EU has taken action to limit financial cooperation with illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. According to press reports, new guidelines set out that cooperation and contracts between the EU, member states and Israel must explicitly exclude Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

It is clear from reporting in the Financial Times that this came about as a result of MEP pressure. Thousands of you wrote to your MEPs asking them to raise these issues with the Commission. Your MEPs took up these issues after you raised them and so the European Commission has – for the first time – taken formal action against Israel’s illegal settlement activity.

Thousands of you wrote to your MEPs asking them to take action against Israel’s settlements benefitting from EU money

Welcome step

This is a welcome step forward, but completely insufficient. Although European institutions are expected to adopt these proposals they are not mandatory for member states, so we are calling on the British Government to adopt and extend these guidelines within the UK. The EU must stop rewarding the Israeli state for its criminality. We need to see a clear no ‘business as usual’ approach with Israel until it complies with international law and basic principles of human rights. It must end all preferential treatment of Israel. And given that both the EU and the British government repeatedly have accepted that settlements are illegal under international law, they should ban goods grown, made or packed in those settlements. Read PSC’s full report>

Israel’s response

In response, Israel’s Economy Minister called it an ‘economic terror attack’, and Netanyahu stated ‘We will not accept any external edicts on our borders’. Danny Dayan, chief envoy of the settler movement, compared the move to the selection for death camps. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities are expected to approve building another 1,071 illegal settler homes

Support our petition to ban settlement goods!

Our constant campaigning is making a difference! This is an important step in the right direction – but there is a long way to go! Support PSC today

Stop the Prawer Plan

“When I look at the Prawer Plan I see another Nakba coming” Suhad Bishara – Adalah human rights organisation.

Thank you to the 1,200 of you who have already taken action against Israel’s racist plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinian Bedouin from the Naqab (Negev). Bedouin have lived there since the 7th century – long before the state of Israel was created. For over 60 years, they have faced Israel’s policies of displacement, home demolitions and dispossession.

If implemented, the Prawer Pan will result in the destruction of the “unrecognised” villages and the ethnic cleansing of around 40,000 Palestinian Bedouin citizens from their homes and villages. This plan was completed without consultation of the local community, and is a gross violation of basic rights.

Take action today. If you’ve already taken action forward this email and ask your friends and family to do the same.

Dates!

Israeli dates are often grown in illegal settlements on land stolen from Palestinians. Please help us with the campaign to make sure that shoppers don’t buy them. Contact us for leaflets and resources.

Check the label – don’t buy Israeli dates!

News and events

UK exports £7.8bn of weapons and arms equipment to Israel, despite human rights concerns | source

Almost all of the £7.8 billion worth of equipment exported to Israel is covered by just one licence approval – for equipment employing cryptography and software for equipment employing cryptography. Richard Burden MP is taking up the issue.

Palestinian children attacked, imprisoned | the Mail & Haresboys

Israeli soldiers disgusting treatment of a 5 year old boy went viral, even hitting the Daily Mail

“Kiss and hug your mother goodbye,” a Shabak agent told one boy. “You may never see her again.”5 boys are facing long prison sentences for a car accident that was latterly claimed was caused by stone throwing, despite lack of evidence.

MP under attack | JC

Sir Bob Russell MP, one of the MPs who champions Palestinian human rights, has been attacked by a number of right wing blogs and the Jewish Chronicle for asking “If the teaching of 20th c. history is to include the Holocaust, will the life of Palestinians since 1948 be given equal attention?”

Read the PSC Parliamentary update>

For the Jewish Chronicle>

Friday 19 July – Merton PSC Dates Campaign Ramadhan 2013

Saturday 20 July – Weekly Protest Against Sodastream in Brighton

Sunday 21^st July – Milton Keynes PSC – Palestine Social and Music Evening

Join the PSC Thames Path Fundraising Walk – Sunday 15 September along the most picturesque stretch of the Thames in West London.

Norway to recognise Palestine |Icenews

Norway have stated they will recognise Palestine if peace talks fail by September

Pension disinvests from Sodastream | BDS