The PCP considers that the announced annexation by the Israeli coalition government of about one third of the Palestinian West Bank territory, illegally occupied by Israel since 1967, will represent, in reality, a criminal attack on the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to an independent and sovereign State.
Following the expansion of settlements and the continued worsening of the occupation, the announced annexations by the Israeli Government, the seriousness of which cannot be underestimated, represent the abandonment of any prospect of a just, negotiated and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue and an affront to the UN, whose resolutions have determined, for decades, the creation of the State of Palestine on the borders of June 4, 1967, with capital in East Jerusalem.
The announced annexations on the West Bank coincide with the 72nd. anniversary of the catastrophe (Nakba) that followed the proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the ethnic cleansing of almost 750,000 Palestinians, expelled from their homes and land. The implementation of the plans of the new government of Israel can result in a new catastrophe in occupied Palestine and in the worsening of conflicts in the already martyred region of the Middle East.
The Israeli Government's annexationist escalation, articulated with the Trump Administration, means a new step in the US and Israeli policy of frontal violation of International Law, including Treaties and agreements signed by them, regarding the Palestinian issue, the nuclear agreement on Iran or disarmament, commercial and environmental agreements. This escalation of arbitrariness and violence also comprises inadmissible military, economic and political aggressions against countries that refuse to submit to the dictates of imperialism, such as aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic.
The PCP alerts that the current course of increasingly open and widespread violation of International Law by US imperialism and its allies, unless it is stopped, will lead the world to a situation of increased conflicts and war, with devastating consequences.
In view of the seriousness of the situation, any possible complicit silences and the absence of concrete political acts in the face of Israel's illegal annexationist plans would constitute an unacceptable form of collusion. Countries that for decades have advocated a political solution to the Palestinian issue, based on a two-state solution, have an unambiguous duty to act firmly to uphold the national rights of the Palestinian people and International Law, including through the immediate recognition of the State of Palestine and its full integration in the UN.
The Portuguese government must put an end to its policy of following the USA's intents and dictates - evident during the meeting in Lisbon between the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, refused by other countries -, and base its intervention on a foreign policy in compliance with the principles of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic and International Law.
The PCP expresses its solidarity with the Palestinian population which faces special risks of being hit by the Covid-19 epidemic, in particular the thousands of political prisoners in Israeli prisons, whose release is demanded, as well as the people of the Gaza Strip, under siege and without regular access to essential goods, including drinking water, and the West Bank, a victim of increasing raids and incursions by Israeli occupation forces, which have not even spared medical aid centres.
The PCP reaffirms its ever-lasting solidarity with the Palestinian people and their legitimate struggle for the inalienable right to an independent State, with the borders of June 4, 1967, with its capital in East Jerusalem, and ensuring the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.
The PCP calls for the strengthening of solidarity with the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people for their national cause, their inalienable rights and historical claims.
