[Português] The Brazilian Center for Solidarity with the Peoples and Struggle for Peace (CEBRAPAZ) expresses its deep revolt against yet another episode in the massacre of the Palestinian people and its unwavering support for the struggle for a just peace, for a free and sovereign Palestine. We further express sorrow and indignation for the over 3,000 wounded and for the deaths of over 110 people — half of them this 14th of May alone, while the USA opened its Embassy in Jerusalem, thus recognizing the city, unilaterally and illegitimately, as Israel’s capital.
While condemning the perpetuation of a military occupation and the colonization of Palestine by Israel — a country which is unconditionally supported by its greatest ally, the United States — CEBRAPAZ reaffirms its commitment with the defence of the Palestinian people’s right to resist the brutality that we have been witnessing for over one month, when Palestinian men and women launched a brave protest, the Great March of Return, demanding the refugees’ right to return and the end of the occupation.
This 15th of May, we join the brave Palestinian people to denounce the Nakba, the ongoing catastrophe that devastates Palestine since colonialism, ethnic cleansing and genocide were established in the region as Israel’s state policy. Today we pay tribute to the memory of over 15,000 men, women and children killed and 750,000 expelled, and remember over 500 villages destroyed in the process that culminated in 1948, against an expansionist colonial project that aims to decree the final dispossession, by burying for good the possibility of consolidating the free and sovereign State of Palestine, through more expropriation and colonization of the territory that has been militarily occupied for five decades.
We further denounce the apartheid regime that proves, unequivocally, the racist policy promoted since the establishment of the State of Israel, 70 years ago, through laws and practices designed to make it unbearable for the Palestinian people to remain in their land, to grant privileges to one part of the population in detriment to the rights of the other — to whom a second-class citizenship in Israel is determined –, to impose a military regime of exception in occupied Palestine, to prevent indefinitely the refugees’ return, or to keep thousands of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem in a limbo, with no civil rights guaranteed.
We demand an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine now! We condemn the empty and cynical rhetoric that defends a peace process which has been protracted for almost three decades, whilst Palestine’s colonization by Israel is imposed as an unsurmountable fact.
We also reaffirm the call based on principles already laid out in countless UN resolutions since the “Question of Palestine” was thus named, seven decades ago:
For a free and sovereign Palestine within the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital; for the refugees’ right to return; for the liberation of over 6,000 Palestinian political prisoners; for the end of the Israeli leadership’s impunity; and for an urgent strengthening of world solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people!
End the Israeli occupation and apartheid! Long live free Palestine!
National Board of Directors | CEBRAPAZ
15th of May 2018