Thursday 3 July 2014

Emergency Demonstration in Solidarity with the people of Palestine: No More Collective Punishment!

SPSC Aberdeen has called on the people of Aberdeen to come together this Saturday 5th July at 12 noon in St Nicholas Square, Aberdeen City Centre, "to send a clear message to our fellow citizens, our governments and the people of Palestine that we deplore yet another illegal collective punishment against the Palestinian people being perpetrated by the Israeli occupation forces."
 
SPSC Aberdeen is calling for increased solidarity with the Palestinian people. Since the kidnapping and subsequent murder of three Israeli teenagers in illegal settlements in the West Bank, the Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 6 Palestinian civilians, including one 14-year-old child and a mentally ill man on his way to morning prayers.

Three members of armed Palestinian groups in Gaza were also extra-judicially assassinated in violation of international law. Israeli occupation forces have wounded at least 90 others, including 16 children and three journalists; conducted over 160 military incursions into Palestinian towns and villages invading hundreds of civilian homes; raided 4 university campuses and 18 charitable associations, a refugee cultural centre and the offices of two cultural magazines; arrested between 440 and 560 Palestinians, including at least 10 children. They have conducted 100 airstrikes in the Gaza strip causing injuries to civilians and targeting greenhouses, an UNRWA health clinic, blacksmith workshop and turnery, a concrete factory and agricultural lands.

SPSC Aberdeen also deplores the mainstream media reporting over the last few weeks which, as usual, fails to provide appropriate coverage of the crimes perpetrated by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people.

The killing of civilians is to be condemned under any circumstances. However, the isolated and unlawful actions of a small group of individuals are not comparable to the state-sanctioned and systematic collective punishment against a whole population. Israel has time and again used incidents such as this to justify indiscriminate airstrikes, killing and imprisonment of Palestinians and targeting of civilian infrastructure as well as settlement construction and land grabs.

Citizens of the world must no longer stand by as Israel tries to justify apartheid, settler colonialism and inhumane occupation in the 21st century.