IPSC urges Irish Government to vote against Israeli application to join OECD

international | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Thursday April 29, 2010 18:15 by Fintan Lane - IPSC media officer

IRELAND-PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

PRESS RELEASE, 29/4/10

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is scheduled to convene in May 2010 to take a formal decision on Israel’s application for membership of that body. A vote in favour of allowing Israel membership of the OECD will be seen by people of conscience globally - and, in particular, by Palestinians - as an act of complicity by the international community with Israel's occupation of Palestine and its deployment of apartheid measures and military oppression against the Palestinian people. Palestinian civil society and Israeli anti-apartheid activists are united in their call for a rejection of Israel's application to join the OECD.

The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) is calling on the Irish government to speak out strongly against this attempt to 'normalise' the Israeli apartheid state and to vote against their accession to the OECD.

To take action against Israel's OECD application, click on this link: http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/ipsc/displayRe...D=316

According to Dr David Landy, chairperson of the IPSC, "Allowing Israel into the OECD would fundamentally undermine the rule of law and further entrench the culture of impunity that has enabled Israel to escalate its commission of war crimes against the Palestinian people. The Israeli state must be brought to account for its crimes and its persistent abuse of human rights, not rewarded with membership of the OECD. Gaza is still under siege and nobody has yet been brought before the courts to answer for the massacre of 1,400 people last year in that area by the Israeli military - it is important to remember that more than 300 of those murdered were children."

Addressing the Irish government, Dr Landy said: "We call on you to ensure that Israel will not be admitted into the OECD by casting a vote against Israel’s accession in the final review of its application in May. Membership in the OECD will intensely fuel Israel’s militarism, belligerence and aggression, further destabilising the entire region, undermining security as well as social, political and economic development and making the quest for a just peace an unattainable goal."

He continued: "We remain hugely disappointed by the OECD’s persistent disregard of evidence submitted by human rights organisations when Israel’s membership application was being examined. We also deplore the decision by the OECD to ignore Israel’s inability to provide economic statistics that distinguish between the state of Israel and the Palestinian and Syrian territories it occupies."

"The OECD will become directly complicit in Israel’s unlawful acts if it accepts this rogue state into membership. An embrace of Israel will be seen as an appalling and blatant disregard of Palestinian human rights. Israel is an oppressive occupying and colonising power in the West Bank and it has placed the Gaza Strip under a permanent and debilitating siege. These realities cannot be ignored or brushed aside. Real people's lives are at stake."

Dr Landy concluded: "Israel must be held accountable to international law and it must be obliged to respect universal human rights. Until it dismantles its apartheid system and engages meaningfully with the Palestinian people, it should be treated as a pariah state."

PRESS RELEASE ENDS

For further information, phone Dr David Landy (IPSC chairperson) at xxxxx, or Dr Fintan Lane (IPSC media officer) at 087 1258325.