New group established to oppose the Lisbon Treaty

national | rights, freedoms and repression | feature

Friday June 19, 2009 00:43

by Sean Clinton - Irish Friends of Palestine Against Lisbon

chips at iol dot ie

Click Here for
.pdf Booklet
from VoteNO.ie

We wish to announce the formation of IFPAL, Irish Friends of Palestine Against Lisbon. We are a group of concerned citizens from all over Ireland who support the political and human rights of the Palestinian people, and believe that the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union is inherently inimical to those rights.

Related Links
Irish Friends of Palestine Against Lisbon - www.ifpal.ie

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- One of IMC Ireland.

On the 16th June last year, four days after the defeat of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland, EU foreign ministers (including Minister Michael Martin) agreed to upgrade relations with Israel despite the fact that in the previous five months Israel had killed 384 Palestinians including 60 children. Israel's actions were in blatant violation of the human rights clause of an EU-Israel trade agreement which affords Israel generous trading concessions with the EU - its largest export market.

In January this year Israel killed 1415 people including 314 children in Gaza and wounded and maimed over 5000 others. Israeli land, sea and air forces used weapons of mass destruction: white phosphorous, flechette (nail) bombs and dime bombs against defenceless, imprisoned and besieged civilians. Despite this the EU failed to take any action to sanction Israel and continues to promote diplomatic and economic relations with the rogue state.

Given the foregoing we believe that the EU's purported shared values as outlined in the Lisbon Treaty: human dignity; liberty; democracy; equality; the rule of law; and respect for human rights amount to nothing more than window dressing. The true values of the EU's ruling elite can be best be judged by their actions and inactions.

The EU has resisted repeated calls from civil society and from the European Parliament itself (twice in 2002) for the suspension of the EU-Israel trade agreement in view of Israel's flagrant and ongoing violation of its human rights clause. Nonetheless, the EU is considering further upgrading that status. We demand not alone that our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michael Martin, should oppose any such upgrade, but that on the contrary he should call for the suspension of the Association Agreement until such time as Israel complies with international law and international humanitarian law and ends its criminal policies against the Palestinian people.

Under the Nice Treaty which currently regulates EU affairs, the Irish government has a veto over foreign policy - even if, shamefully, it declines to avail of it. The Lisbon Treaty will facilitate the removal of this option. Irish policy on Israel/Palestine will, in practice be determined by the most powerful states in the EU, states like Germany, France and the UK which have played a disastrous role in enabling Israel to circumvent international law and international humanitarian law, and have expressed their determination to embrace Israel ever more closely despite its refusal to acknowledge the rights and the basic humanity of the Palestinian people. We believe that such policies ill accord with Ireland's traditional stance of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, a stance strongly influenced by our own history.

We further believe that the combination of Foreign Policy with Security Policy, and their embodiment in a single EU "Foreign Minister", perpetuates a misguided linkage that tends toward the replacement of political by military solutions. Peace and justice in the Middle East requires an end to unconditional support for the Israeli rogue state, and a policy of unconditional negotiations with all parties including Hamas. We believe that such a policy was effective in the Northern Irish peace process, and that there is no excuse for its avoidance in the Middle East.