(Read the Statement in Catalan) -- The Israeli occupation army is committing a new massacre in Gaza, so far killing over 500 Palestinians, the majority of them unarmed civilians.
This last bloodbath, although being the most severe, is not the first, and it doesn’t mean a logical change in the apartheid and Israeli colonization’s strategy. In fact, it culminates the long Gaza siege which has deserved, on the one hand, different non-binding statements from different international organizations and, on the other - and this should be highlighted - that the Israeli governments have systematically ignored the binding decisions. Palestinian people in Gaza have been living for months in a completely unsustainable situation, imprisoned in a real concentration camp, without resources, basic food or movement, surrounded by the Israeli army and with the Egyptian border closed.
In this situation, we can not stand on the sidelines. Our inaction feeds the complicity of the European Union governments, instead of putting pressure on the Israeli government for its serious and systematic human rights violations, war crimes and systematic non-fulfillments of international law. On the 9th of December, European governments decided to strengthen their commercial relationships with Israel without conditioning this agreement on the adoption of measures in order to achieve a fair peace in the region, respecting democracy and human rights values. The Israeli government, encouraged by the lack of North American criticism, has understood the approval message and acts accordingly. Even in our government, the Vice President's Department and the Innovation, University and Companies Department have taken part these last weeks in various visits to Israel to “promote the economic relationships with Israel”, avoiding the UN reiterative reports that compare the Israeli occupation regime with South African apartheid, and at the same time are claiming to the international community that they are increasing the political and economic pressure against the Israel State.
The organizations and individuals signing this manifesto refuse the dishonest and immoral exercise of comparing the two parts of the conflict because Israel is the occupying force and Palestine is the occupied country and because the disparity of victims is overwhelming. We refuse to be accomplices to the occupation and the massacre against the Palestinian people. For this reason, we ask our governments and all civil society to join the agreement on the culture of peace, widely and reiteratively expressed by the citizenry of Catalunya. This agreement now includes the immediate breaking-off of all the cooperation and commercial association deals with the Israel State at all levels- European, Spanish and Catalan. We demand:
From the Spanish State, stop trading weapons with the Israel State.
From the Catalan citizens, do not buy Israeli products.
From the Generalitat Government, stop promoting commercial dealings with Israel boosted by the Innovation and University Department.
Endorsed by:
- more than 370 organizations
- more than 340 university professors