Greens/Green Party USA resolution on divestment of State Funds from Israel.

The following resolution was submitted to the Green Party USA gathering in Bar Harbor, Maine on June 13--17, 2002 by the Brooklyn Greens, and was approved by the Green Congress as GPUSA policy. It was written primarily by Seth Farber, with help from Avi Bornstein, Mitchel Cohen, William Pleasant, Afrime Derti and Kellie Gasink; with major revisions from the Brooklyn Greens (the entire local reviewed the document in detail) and members of the Manhattan Greens. [Editor's Note: Contents have been edited for style, grammar and length.]

The Greens/Green Party USA joins the movement, initiated by students at the University of California at Berkeley, calling for divestment of funds from Israel. The Greens/Green Party USA joins with this campaign encouraging local, state and federal governments to suspend all bank credits and divest all funds (including State Pension Funds), investments and loans to Israel, unless or until Israel conforms to international conventions of human rights, and complies with the following conditions:

* Immediately ends the military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip;

* Ceases building new settlements and begins vacating existing settlements in the occupied territories, in accord with the Fourth Geneva Convention;

* Accepts the recommendations of the UN Committee Against Torture Report 2001 and ends the use of "legal" torture;

* Adheres to international law, including the 4th and 23rd Geneva Conventions, which ban armies from using starvation and prevention of medical attention as weapons of war; and,

* Resumes negotiations with the representatives of the Palestinian people based upon an acceptance of previous United Nations resolutions, including UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which mandate the withdrawal of both Israeli armed forces and civilians from territories which were illegally occupied during the war in 1967, and UN Security Council Resolution 194 which stipulates that all refugees should be allowed to return to their former lands.

(The following rationale was accepted by the Green Party USA gathering.)

Let us be clear, the Greens/Green Party USA does not condone the ghastly "suicide bombings" against innocent Israeli citizens. However, the gruesome deeds of desperate individuals do not justify the actions of the state of Israel which, as with other "democratic" countries, is obligated by numerous treaties (not to mention its self-proclaimed commitment to the Judeo-Christian moral code) to adhere to international law and norms established after WWII to protect the human rights of all individuals regardless of their race, ethnicity or creed.

The Case Against Israel's Occupation

The Israeli 1967 occupation reinforced a system of legal apartheid, which has become even more rigid in the past decade. Palestinian residents of the occupied territories have been systematically subjected to segregation, economic exploitation by Israeli industries, and continuous surveillance and harassment by the military. In the i 990s Israel encircled Palestinian villages with illegal settlements and more than 200 military outposts. The leading Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz editorialized on January 8, 2001:

Encirclement...lacks even a pretense of having a security purpose... This is a real tool of severe and collective punishment...[It] completely disrupts the day-to-day lives of the Palestinian people. Residents find it difficult to move from one area to another for work, trade or education, and they cannot get basic services.

The editorial concludes with the observation that sick patients frequently cannot get to hospitals for essential medical treatment.

For more than three decades Israeli settlers have confiscated Palestinians' homes, lands and water resources, in violation of international law and verbal promises made by Israel during...