Tuesday, June 11, 2024

 

PSC launches Vote Palestine 2024 campaign for UK General Election

“Candidates who normalise massacres, who greenlight genocide, or who endorse a system of apartheid, should not expect support from voters who believe that human rights and international law should be upheld.”

Ben Jamal, Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign


By the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC)

On Tuesday June 11th Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) launches its Vote Palestine campaign for the UK General Election. 

This General Election has been called at a moment when Palestinians are confronting the darkest moment in their struggle for liberation. Over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, including approximately 16,000 children, in what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has accepted as a plausible case of genocide.

In the last week alone there have been several massacres in the Gaza Strip, culminating in the slaughter of at least 284 people in Nuseirat on Saturday. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister and Defence Minister alongside Hamas leaders, for crimes against humanity, with the charges against Israeli leaders including using starvation as a weapon of war.

This current genocide is built on the foundations of decades of violations of Palestinian rights by Israel in which successive British governments have been complicit. These realities have made the issue of justice for Palestinians a core electoral issue for constituents across Britain. Palestinians have the inalienable right to self-determination, and to be free from discriminatory laws and racial domination.

PSC has drafted 6 questions for all Parliamentary candidates that constituents can send electronically to their local prospective candidates, as a set of concrete actions to commit to if elected. They cover an immediate ceasefire, restoration of funding to UNRWA, an arms embargo, support for the ICJ and ICC to uphold international humanitarian law, suspending trade agreements with Israel and protecting the right to protest, boycott and divest from companies that are complicit in violations of international law.

Ben Jamal, PSC Director, said :

“At this General Election, Palestine is a core electoral issue like never before. The last eight months in Gaza have led to a generational shift in attitudes to Israel – a state that not only occupies Palestine and practices a system of apartheid against Palestinian people but is now committing a genocide with appalling new chapters being seen every day. And this continues with the complicity of UK political leaders who have failed to advocate for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, failed to halt arms exports, and continue to provide political support to Israel.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK actively support the cause of justice for Palestine. We urge them to judge how political parties and candidates respond to our specific demands when deciding how to cast their vote. Candidates who normalise massacres, who greenlight genocide, or who endorse a system of apartheid, should not expect support from voters who believe that human rights and international law should be upheld.”


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