PFLP: Shut down the war criminals wherever they go!

November 8, 2009

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

A call to international progressive forces – for wide distribution

Protests have recently greeted the leaders and representatives of the occupation state wherever they have traveled – in October 2009 in the United States, former occupation prime minister and war criminal Ehud Olmert has been chased from city to city, shouted down in every venue and exposed for his war crimes. Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon was protested and his speech interrupted at the London School of Economics on October 26, 2009. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine salutes all of these protesters and calls upon all Palestinian and Arab communities and international activists for justice to shut down these war criminals, racists and oppressors wherever they go!

The leaders and representatives of the occupation state travel as privileged guests. The notorious Olmert, who presided over the murder of over 1400 Palestinians in Gaza in December 2008-January 2009 and 1200 Lebanese in July 2006, which come only as lowlights in his career of racist, murderous oppression through the mechanism of the illegitimate, colonial-settler Zionist state, sought over $50,000 US for one speaking appearance on his recent tour in the United States. Nevertheless, the most notable accomplishment of Olmert's tour was the depth of outrage, anger and activity it brought forth in every city he entered, where progressive organizations, solidarity groups and Palestinian and Arab communities joined forces to disrupt his speeches, perform “citizens' arrests,” engage in protests, die-ins and mass rallies, and expose his crimes before his audiences and the world.

Hundreds of thousands have viewed online videos witnessing the power of protesters to shut down Olmert in Chicago and San Francisco. The struggle to expose these war criminals, however, does not end with Olmert. Lawyers in the UK and throughout Europe are planning to utilize universal jurisdiction laws to pursue occupation war criminals and prosecute them for their crimes, and upcoming visits by occupation Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat and current occupation chief criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, are scheduled to be met with visible protest in upcoming weeks in the U.S.

Every leader and representative of the occupation state must be shut down wherever they speak and met with the loudest cries of unwelcome. Prevent them from speaking – let it be made clear that the people of the world stand with the people of Palestine and will not accept these criminals, racists and occupiers, that they will not be allowed to speak as normal, when the only place they should be speaking is before an international tribunal, on trial for their crimes against humanity!

The leaders and military commanders of the occupation states should face lawsuits and fear of arrest everywhere they go. We commend the people's lawyers utilizing universal jurisdiction and other human rights statutes to attempt to bring these war criminals to justice, and call upon the people's lawyers and legal organizations of the world to continue and expand such lawsuits and petitions for criminal prosecution for arrest. These criminals and commanders walk free with the blood of thousands of Palestinians and Arabs upon their hands, holding tens of thousands of Palestinians hostage within their inhuman occupation prisons. They should face arrest, lawsuits and criminal prosecutions wherever they attempt to go and be turned away from every border. Let the international complicity, silence and support for the occupation crimes on the part of the so-called “international community” be countered by the international popular support for the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, return and national liberation that can and will hold these infamous criminals accountable for their theft of Palestinian land, destruction of Palestinian lives and attempted genocide.

The entire illegitimate settler occupation state should be subject to complete popular international isolation. The United States government is the foremost sponsor of the occupation, bound to it in a full-scale economic, military and political strategic alliance. The European Union is at best complicit and often actively involved in providing support to the occupation state and its crimes against the Palestinian and Arab people, while criminalizing our resistance. Complicit and reactionary Arab regimes sit silent while the occupiers destroy Palestinian homes, besiege Gaza, build colonial settlements and apartheid walls, pollute our water and steal our land, Zionize Jerusalem, threaten the Palestinian people in occupied Palestine 48 with mass ethnic cleansing, deny the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees, imprison thousands of our people and continue a brutal military occupation. The so-called “international community” is dominated by the will of U.S. imperialism. However, the people of the world, progressive forces and countries building resistance to the unipolar world of the U.S. are a counterforce that cannot be silenced or defeated by the military technology of imperialism.

In Lebanon, Olmert's killers were forced into defeat by the power of the resistance. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the trillion-dollar military of U.S. imperialism has been trapped time and again by the power of the resistance. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world took to the streets during the aggression on Gaza, demanding an end to the occupier's crimes. Across Latin America, there is a massive and popular surge standing firm against imperialism and alongside the Palestinian people, from Venezuela to Bolivia to Cuba to Ecuador.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine calls upon all popular organizations and progressive forces in the world to do their utmost to completely isolate the occupation state in all forms and venues. Israel must be a pariah state, completely unwelcome in every international venue and arena. Every Israeli product, business, official, government, cultural or academic institution complicit with Zionism can and must be boycotted, divested from, subject to complete sanction and entirely shamed and isolated. Several international labor union federations and unions – including the British Trades Union Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and the Canadian Union of Public Employees – have taken action to isolate the occupier. We commend them and call upon trade union and labor activists around the world to emulate their example and act in the name of international workers' solidarity to refuse to handle Zionist cargo, end all partnerships with the Zionist Histadrut, and engage in full solidarity with their brother and sister Palestinian workers struggling under the brunt of occupation. We remember the people of Greece shutting down the shipment of U.S. weapons to the occupation state during the aggression against our people in Gaza and the alliance of workers, left and progressive forces that ensured this isolation took place, which must be repeated everywhere!

We call upon all Palestinian, Arab and international students and student organizations to organize, reject and shut down all war criminals at their colleges and universities, to unify the student body against war crimes and occupation and to stand with students in Palestine confronting the occupier. We call upon cultural and academic workers, organizations and institutions to boycott and isolate the cultural and academic institutions of the occupation state. These institutions are part and parcel of the Zionist fabric of the state, sponsored by the occupation state itself, engaged in active and silent complicity, service and public relations for the criminal, racist, illegitimate occupier state. There is no welcome and no partnership for the occupier and its crimes. We commend all who have taken up this boycott around the world in support of the mass Palestinian call and urge all to redouble their efforts in this regard!

The war criminals who head the illegitimate, racist, Zionist settler-colonial occupation state called Israel must continue to meet with vocal, loud, disruptive opposition wherever they go. They can and should be prevented from speaking and traveling. They must know that wherever they go, they will be held accountable for their actions and they will not escape the justice of the people of the world.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine greets all around the world who stand with the people of Palestine. Together, we call: “Victory for the resistance! Freedom for all the prisoners! Return for all the refugees! Independence, self-determination, and the liberation of all of Palestine!” Shut down these war criminals – they will speak only when they are brought to trial for their crimes!