#PalestinePledges: Election candidates asked to pledge support for Palestinian rights
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) today launched a campaign calling on candidates in the General Election to pledge to support justice for Palestine. In a call sent to the hundreds of candidates in forty constituencies, the Palestinian rights group have asked aspiring TDs to take the two #PalestinePledges to support concrete actions to help secure freedom, justice and equality for the Palestinian people if elected to Dáil Éireann.
The campaign is asking candidates to publicly commit to two promises which they are calling the #PalestinePledges. Responses will be published on the website (www.ipsc.ie/ge16) so that all voters concerned with Palestine can have an informed opinion about where candidates stand on the issue of justice for the Palestinian people. The asks are as follows:
1 – The Arms Trade Pledge: “I believe that no one should profit from the deaths and occupation of Palestinians, and if elected to Dáil Éireann I pledge to actively work to end the bilateral arms trade between Ireland and Israel.”
2 – The EuroMed Pledge: “If elected to Dáil Éireann I pledge to actively work to suspend Israel from the EU-Israel Association Agreement (EuroMed), due to its failure to abide by the Human Rights clause in Article 2”
In addition, thousands of copies of a separate election questionnaire for candidates have been sent to IPSC members and supporters with issues to raise with canvassers on the doorsteps. Alongside focusing on the Irish arms trade with Israel and the EuroMed Agreement, it also contains questions and information related to the call for a total ban on products from illegal Israeli settlements.
Launching the campaign today, Martin O’Quigley, Chairperson of the IPSC, said: “Israel is a serial human rights and international law violator that has been oppressing the indigenous people of Palestine for seven decades. In that time it has faced no concrete action from the international community as punishment for these crimes and violations. For this reason, it is of vital importance that politicians pledge their support to help win freedom for the Palestinian people, the victims of one of the great moral outrages of recent history.”
“However”, Mr. O’Quigley continued, “for the Irish state this is not merely a moral issue. The Irish government must meet its legal obligations not to provide assistance to Israeli violations of international law. It can begin to do this by ending all arms trade with Israel, ending preferential EU trade and other agreements, and banning all trade with companies that operate within or provide services to illegal Israeli settlements.”
“We hope those seeking office in our parliament will listen to the call for assistance from the Palestinian people, and take note of the widespread Irish public support for the Palestinian people’s plight, including the tens of thousands of voters who took to the streets in IPSC-led mobiisations or signed petitions to protest the numerous Israeli attacks on the people of Palestine over the past decade.”
Notes:
The IPSC #GE16 website is live at http://www.ipsc.ie/ge16
A full copy of the call sent to election candidates, including background information on each pledge, can be found online here.