Socialist Voice

Statements issued June 29 and June 30 by

• Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

• Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs

• Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Condemns Israeli Aggression Against Palestinian People

The following statement on Israeli aggression against the people of Palestine was issued by the Press Office of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías on June 29. The translation is by Socialist Voice. The original can be found at: http://www.minci.gov.ve/noticiasnuev.asp?numn=10463.

Prensa Latina reported on June30 that Bolivia’s foreign minister, David Choquehuanca, has also made a statement condemning the Israeli aggression.

The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, condemned in the name of the Venezuelan people the most recent aggression that Israeli troops have waged against Palestine, as well as the violation of the airspace of Syria.

He made his assertion this Thursday during an act celebrating the promotion of officers and sub-officers of the Presidential Honor Guard Regiment. He said that Israel must respect the Palestinian people, “a people who have struggled for years for peace and independence. We send our solidarity to Palestine’s president and people.”

The Israeli army took over the south of the Gaza Strip and in the early morning dozens of tanks advanced from the north. The Israeli attack included the arrest of ten ministers, 20 parliamentarians, and members of the Palestine resistance.

“They have been using the entire military power accumulated by the State of Israel with support from US imperialism to bomb, penetrate, and invade Palestinian territory in defiance of UN resolutions and world peace. Also, in defiance of the United Nations, they have violated the airspace of the Arab Republic of Syria with overflights of the residence of the Syrian president, using the excuse that Syria protects terrorists. Nothing, absolutely nothing can justify to anyone in this world the transgression of the sovereignty of states and of the liberty of peoples,” the Venezuelan president said.

“That’s why and herein lies the importance of the battle we have been waging, our battle that we know has taken on or has extended itself into the world arena; our struggle is for peace, our struggle is for a world in equilibrium, as Bolivar said.”

Venezuela determined to enter the UN Security Council

All this explains, in the words of President Chávez, the determination of the United States government to block Venezuela from being chosen next October as a member of the Security Council of the United Nations.

“Of course, the United States does not like it when any country or person raises their voice against imperialist outrages. We have raised our voice against the imperialist outrages of the United States and we will keep on raising our voice because we’ve had enough with outrages in this world (…) we want peace and we want respect.”

President Chávez said Venezuela’s nomination to the post is a challenge for the Bolivarian government, one that is accepted nobly. He extended thanks for support given by the governments of Brazil and Argentina because they recognize that Caracas defends the voices of the weakest people in the world.

He is confident that one by one more governments will come to support this proposal despite imperial pressure to block Venezuela’s entry as a non-permanent member of the Security Council.

US spokespeople are already pressuring other governments to try to stop Venezuela’s election as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. “The Unites States says that Venezuela will not make it to the Security Council, and we say: Venezuela is going to the Security Council, we accept the challenge and take the on the battle worldwide, we say this openly.”

He commented with satisfaction on the results of a study carried out by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. It shows that the people of the United States and Venezuela are the ones who feel most pride in their countries. Fair play, political influence, social security, democracy, the military, and history were some of the factors appraised in the study.

The head of the Venezuelan state affirmed that this result shows that with each passing day the women and men of this nation are more proud of having been born in this homeland.

Cuba Condemns Israeli Military Aggression in the Gaza Strip

Statement From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, has learnt with great concern of Israel’s large-scale military operation that began in the Gaza Strip in the early hours of June 28, 2006 with the mobilization of around 5,000 soldiers, hundreds of tanks and other military hardware, during which it attacked the principal electricity station in the area, leaving half of the territory without electricity, indiscriminately bombarded several bridges connecting different parts of the Strip, reoccupied important southern portions of Palestinian territory, and detained many high-ranking figures from the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Israel has used the capture of an Israeli soldier by the Palestinian occupation resistance as an excuse to launch its barbaric aggression, ignoring the fact that the Israeli army has killed 52 Palestinians just in the current month of June, according to recognized international organizations.

This inhumane and criminal aggression took place just when an agreement had been reached among the Palestinian political forces, which is contributing to the renewal of peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis, in line with the relevant resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the Security Council.

At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba rejects the violation of the Arab Republic of Syria’s airspace by Israeli military aircraft which, together with the barbaric actions in the Gaza Strip, once again exposes the Middle East to a dangerous escalation of violence that is putting international peace and security at risk.

As in the past, Israel is acting with the arrogance and impunity afforded it both by U.S. economic and military support and its permanent veto on the UN Security Council.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba wishes to express its most vigorous condemnation of the barbaric Israeli military aggression against the Gaza Strip and calls on the international community and peace-loving forces to mobilize in demand of the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip; a cession of Israeli state terrorism; and respect for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people, including the establishment of an independent, sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem, the return of refugees, and the unconditional return of all Arab territories occupied in June 1967, as the only way of reaching a just and lasting peace for all the people of that convulsive region.

Havana, June 29, 2006

Israeli Military Aggression Highlights Apartheid Reality

Canadian Government Complicit in Policy of Starvation and Sanctions Targeting the Palestinian People

This statement was issued on June 30 by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), in support of a vigil at the Israeli Consulate in Toronto, co-sponsored by the Coalition, the Jewish Women’s Committee to End the Occupation, and the Coalition for a Just Peace in Palestine and Israel. For more information contact: jwceo@hotmail.com or info@coalitiontoronto.com.

The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) condemns in the strongest possible terms the latest Israeli military assaults on Palestinian population centers in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Since Wednesday morning Israeli jets have bombarded positions throughout the Gaza Strip and repeatedly violated Syrian airspace through aggressive aerial maneuvers.

Israeli tanks have taken up positions across the region to buttress military assaults on communities and neighborhoods in Rafah, Khan Younis, Gaza City, Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus and Hebron. Massive Israeli shelling of self-proclaimed “no-go areas” in the Gaza Strip has resumed. These operations are being used to underpin a targeted campaign of mass arrests, kidnappings and arbitrary detentions of elected Palestinian officials, including a third of the Palestinian cabinet.

Of particular concern to CAIA is the targeting of civilian infrastructure, including the destruction of electrical generating infrastructure for over half of Gaza, attacks on bridges, roads and the aerial bombardment of Gaza’s Islamic University. Furthermore, the use of elected officials as hostages by the Israeli government clearly demonstrates Israel’s refusal to abandon state-terrorism. The latest arrests clearly expose the political fiction of Palestinian “self-determination” in the Oslo-created Bantustans.

“Operation Summer Rains” also highlights the real purposes of last-August’s “Gaza pullout”, namely to entrench Israeli apartheid throughout Palestine and to give the Israeli military free reign to pursue more aggressive policies of collective punishment in Gaza. This latest incursion is in fact the logical culmination of a coordinated policy of starvation, sanctions, siege, indiscriminate shelling, detentions, extrajudicial executions, targeting of civilians, etc. that has been implemented with increased vigour since the election of Hamas in the January 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections.

This vindictive Israeli policy is designed to punish the Palestinian people for decisively rejecting Israeli Apartheid through the election of Hamas. The policy was crudely defined by Dov Weisglass, a principal adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, during an official meeting in February 2006: “It’s like a meeting with a dietitian. We need to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not to starve to death.” In fact, this policy of starvation and sanctions has been tragically successful in worsening the conditions of life for the majority of Palestinians with the active acquiescence of significant portions of the “international community”.

According to UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories John Dugard: “In effect the Palestinian people have been subjected to economic sanctions [by the international community], the first time that an occupied people have been so treated,” stating that this was, “possibly the most rigorous form of international sanctions imposed in modern times.”

Dugard cited Israel’s withholding of $50-$60 million in monthly tax revenues, and funding cuts by Canada, the USA and the EU, as contributing to the crisis. As a result, some 70% of Palestinian households are now living in a “state of poverty” as the PA cannot pay salaries to some

140,000 employees who support roughly a third of the Palestinian population. Furthermore, the funding cut has also hit the most vulnerable sectors of the population given that the PA runs 70% of schools and 60% of health services in the occupied territories.

Canada’s Role

While Canadian funds to the PA have dried up, the Canadian state continues to enjoy cordial relations with the Israeli Apartheid regime. In fact, most analysts that follow relations between the two states predict that

2006 will set new records in bilateral trade and foreign-direct investment between the two economies. This economic boom is coupled by increasing Canadian diplomatic support for Israel’s brutal policy of starvation and state-terror. Also Canada’s Free Trade agreement with Israel sends a clear message of support for all the human rights abuses that Israel has and continues to commit in the region.

Canada was the first government after Israel to fully cut relations with the PA in late March 2006 and it currently plans on voting against or abstaining on a number of UN resolutions critical of Israeli policy in the region. The Canadian government therefore holds a particular responsibility for the atrocious deterioration of the human-rights situation throughout Palestine.

CAIA calls on allies and supporters to take a few minutes to respond to the action alerts below. It is becoming increasingly clear that the international community is fully complicit in the current wave of Israeli military assaults, as governments have stood by in recent weeks and watched the repeated massacre of Palestinian civilians, including a significant number of children, without moving a finger. It is clear, now more than ever, that only massive action against Israeli apartheid through the implementation of a clear boycott, sanctions and divestment strategy at the grassroots level will force our governments to listen. CUPE Ontario and the Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada have shown great courage and leadership in their adoption of resolutions to boycott Israeli apartheid; it remains for other institutions and individual Canadians to implement, extend and defend these actions.

Amandhla Intifada!
Amandhla Al-Awda!

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