Statement by the Green Party of the United States Commemorating the 58th Anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba

Statement by the Green Party of the United States Commemorating the 58th Anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba

The Green Party of the United States joins the peace-seeking community worldwide in commemorating the 58th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.

We are part of a global Green movement, made up of more than 100 national Green parties throughout the world. Sharing a vision of ecological wisdom, democracy, human rights, and peace/non-violence, Green parties have emerged throughout the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Pacific.

In2001,we became signatories to the Global Green Charter, which puts forth a global, holistic, and ecological philosophy, looking outward to the rest of the world. We understand that the most serious crises facing the world's people and natural environments, including the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, are global, and that many of these global problems can be traced to the policies of the United States government.

From this Green perspective, we recognize the catastrophe of ongoing Palestinian dispossession as a catastrophe for us all:

It is a catastrophe for the rule of law over military might.

It is a catastrophe for the self-determination of peoples over colonialism and imperialism.

It is a catastrophe for cultural diversity and equality of different peoples, over tribalism, cultural homogeneity and exclusivity.

It is a catastrophe for the remembrance of human suffering rather than the militarization of that suffering.

It is a catastrophe for the intimate, life-sustaining attachment of human beings to the earth.

Thus, with each year that Israel--with crucial US financialandpoliticalsupport--preventsPalestinian refugees from returning home, a part of each of us remains homeless, in exile.

Clearly, Americans have a special responsibility toward Palestinians, as reflectedinourplatformon this issue, “The Green Party of the United States recognizes that our greatest contribution to peace in the Middle East will come through our impact on U.S. policy in the region.” Moreover, only as we evaluate our government’s policies on the Israeli-Palestinian conflictthroughthelensof our own history, can we encourage Israel, Europe and others to do the same.

Our reading of American history underscores the shameful basis on which the United States was founded and upon which much of its wealth is based: genocide and ethnic cleansing of American native peoples, and racism, including slavery. While the worst of these crimes against humanity were committed in the unapologetic era of Western imperialism and colonialism, their effects are with us still. Our government has never formally apologized nor offered reparations to American Indians or African-Americans. Meanwhile, most Americans experience a collective denial about this ignominious history even as its legacy lives dangerously on — not just at home but also in our foreign policy, especially the Middle East.

Indeed, American Indian dispossession by Euro-Americans is older than that of Palestinians by Zionists/Israelis. Yet, the same national formative act--and its denial--constitute a common component of the “special relationship” touted between the U.S. and Israel, and is the basis of much of the international antipathy toward both governments today.

From that historical perspective, we view the dispossession of Palestinian refugees as the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,andregardIsraeliacknowledgementofitsresponsibilityfortheNakba and of the right of Palestinian refugees to return home as key to a just and sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians (http://www.gp.org/committees/intl/response_on_palestine.html).

Accordingly, our platform formally affirmstherightandfeasibilityofPalestinianrefugeestoreturnto their homes; it calls for full withdrawal by Israel from the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza, dismantling of the separation wall, and suspension of all US aid to Israel until it stops these violations of international law (http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/democracy.html#310677)

But how can we enact these policies in the face of our corporate-controlled, two-party system of American government that tolerates little opposition? (In fact, the duopolistic nature of our system is no better epitomized than in US policy on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:unequivocalfinancialandpoliticalsupportforIsraelbyboththeRepublicanandDemocraticParties’attheexpense of international law and Palestinian human rights.)

While our party will continue working to reform this system, we have decided to do what the international community has done in the past when petitions, demonstrations, court rulings and UN resolutions were not enough: join together to sanction the offending government.

To that end, and as a logical outgrowth of our party’s values and platform, the Green party adopted the following resolution on November 21, 2005

(http://www.green-party.org.il/public_statement.htm):

The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) publicly calls for divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people are realized.

To maximize the effect of the Green Party's support for divestment and boycott of Israel:

The party calls on all civil society institutions and organizations around the world to implement a comprehensive divestment and boycott program. Further, the party calls on all governments to support this program and to implement state level boycotts.

The party urges the Campus Greens network to work in cooperation with other campus organizations to achieve institutional participation in this effort.

The GPUS National Committee directs the Green Peace Action Committee (GPAX) to encourage the larger anti-war movement to promote the divestment/boycott effort.

The GPUS National Committee directs the International Committee to work with our sister Green parties around the world in implementing an international boycott.

We recognize the identificationandempathyofmillionsofcitizensofeveryformerlycolonizedcountry in the Americas, Africa and Asia—including the Middle East—with the Palestinian struggle, an empathy that is far beyond the reach of even the most repressive governments in these regions. We believe that it is in the context of a continuing progressive struggle in world consciousness that the Palestinian-Israeli conflictmustbeviewedandforwhichitprovidesacentral touchstone. Attempts to equate such identificationandempathytoanti-Semitismdeflectattention from the socioeconomic, political and psycho-cultural factors that sustain this conflict.Moreover, accusations of anti-Semitism heighten and perpetuate regressive elements on both sides for political gain, trivialize the historic prejudice against Jews, and inhibit the expression of genuine sympathy these peoples do have for Jewish suffering, especially the Nazi Holocaust. However, as our platform states, “we oppose as both discriminatory and ultimately self-defeating the position that Jews would be fundamentally threatened by the implementation of full rights to Palestinian-Israelis and Palestinian refugees who wish to return to their homes.”

We acknowledge that the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan is the homeland of over 7 million Palestinian refugees; that it is, and always has been, a multicultural land, and that Israelis and Palestinians have become inextricably linked by their history and mutual attachment to the same place they now all call home.

In recognition of these facts, our platform also calls for a serious reconsideration of the creation of one democratic state as the national home for both peoples. With this call, we aim to open a conversation in the US and abroad about the only political structure we can envision that conforms to our party’s values and international law, that fully recognizes the historic and present realities, and that gives maximum equality and freedom, including mutual self-determination, to all the people of that land.

However, as US Greens, we do not seek to impose our views on the people of the region, including the form a political solution will take to meet these needs. Instead, we suggest equality before the law as the rallying cry for Palestinian and Israeli liberation—liberation from the apartheid-like system within Israel as well as in the occupied Palestinian Territories.

Finally, as we remember this 58th anniversary of the Nakba and the ongoing suffering of Palestinians, we take comfort from the success of the international community’s resolve in ending South African apartheid. We also remember that the Palestine for which we struggle is not only a cherished piece of land and home to Palestinians. Nor is it just an anti-colonial liberation struggle with which formerly colonized peoples identify. But, as Edward Said frequently reminded us, Palestine is also an “idea”--the idea of freedom and diversity: free in that it transcends the confinementofethnic,religiousornationalisticboundaries;anddiverse in both its history of multiculturalism and ethos that different people can live together without living in ghettos.

May that idea sustain us in the work ahead.

In solidarity,

The Green Party of the United States