Verklaring Gretta Duisenberg op de VN-Conferentie tot Steun aan Palestijnse volk

STATEMENT
by

Gretta Duisenberg
Chairperson Stop the Occupation, the Netherlands
at the

UNITED NATIONS
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CIVIL SOCIETY
IN SUPPORT OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

United Nations Headquarters, New York
13 and 14 September 2004

Last week the world commemorated the terrorist attacks of 9/11 three years ago and paid tribute to the almost 3000 victims.
This week, on 16th September, it is 22 years that an equally barbaric attack was executed by the Israëli army on Sabra and Shatila. The number of Palistinian victims is estimated at 3500.
This act of terror was overseen and approved by General Ariel Sharon, then Minister of Defense of Israël. Sharon was removed from office, but he came back with a vengeance: he now is Prime Minister of Israël.

Last week my country, the Netherlands, currently chairing the European Union of 25 member states, invited PM Sharon for an official visit to the Netherlands.
The European Union supported the UN-Resolution accepting the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, in which Israël was condemned on all fronts.
When Israël complained about this attitude of the European Union, the Dutch Foreign Minister, Ben Bot, as chairman of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, reacted by stating that Israël should not worry, because the UN-Resulution was of no significance whatsoever.

The invitation of Sharon and this statement of the Dutch Foreign Minister led to waves of protests, culminating in a massive demonstration in Amsterdam on 19th September, demanding that Israël lives up to the relevant UN-Resolutions (242 and many others), withdraws behind the borders of 1967, tears down the Apartheid Wall, abandons all settlements in the Occupied Territories and cooperates in achieving a just solution for the problem of the millions of Palestinian refugees.

We call on the international community and the European Union in particular, to use the force of sanctions against Israël to abide by the UN-Resolutions and follow up by the demands I just mentioned.

I call on this conference to support these demands.

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