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