Palestine Human Rights Campaign Auckland
1 April 2011

Protest against Speaker of Israeli Knesset who admits to ethnic cleansing of Palestine

From 6.30pm on Sunday, Palestinian Human Rights activists will demonstrate outside the Greys Avenue Synagogue in Auckland against the presence of the Speaker of the Israeli Knesset (parliament), Reuven Rivlin, who is the guest of the Auckland Jewish Council and the Zionist Federation of New Zealand. Rivlin is one of the more powerful politicians in Israel and a friend of fanatical members of the illegal settlement enterprise. When visiting Paris in October last year he spoke about the Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land and told his French counterpart that the Palestinians thought they did not have to make an effort in peace talks. He said, “Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in the settlements, and they are not an obstacle to peace” adding “when the Palestinians realise that it is in their interest, there will be peace . . the people of Israel want peace and not fantasies.”

Yet a month earlier, when objecting to a refusal by artists to perform in the settlement colony of Ariel, Rivlin let it slip ( as reported in the Israeli publication Maariv ) that what he called “the founders of Israel” had carried out a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

PHRC spokesperson, Janfrie Wakim, says "such statements reveal the duplicity and contradictions used to justify the goals of Israeli state Zionism. Palestinians are denied the most basic human rights, including the right of self-determination in their own land, in flagrant violation of international law and scores of UN Security Council Resolutions".

Demolition of Palestinian houses and evictions that enable Jewish settlers to take over Palestinian homes, along with destruction of Palestinian olive trees and crops, bring great suffering to Palestinians and add nothing to Israel's security. Israel's annexation Wall, declared illegal by the World Court, and the blockade of Gaza effectively deny the UN-sanctioned right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property in the land from which they were driven.

Discrimination and a growing number of apartheid-style laws in Israel underline the philosophy behind Israel's assertion of a global Jewish 'right of return' to both the land under belligerent Israeli occupation and Israel's recognised 1967 borders.

"Rivlin is a representative of the Israeli government that enforces decades of occupation of the West Bank and the inhumane blockade of Gaza" says Ms Wakim "so we encourage all supporters of Palestinian rights to support the demonstration outside the synagogue in Greys Avenue where Rivlin is speaking on Sunday evening at 7.30pm."

Assemble at 6.30pm.

ENDS

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