Faced with the intolerable situation that is presently endured in the Palestinian autonomous territories, the PCP cannot decline from once again raising its voice against the unqualifiable policy of terror and violence carried out by the Israeli government and army against the Palestinian people and its representatives.
The siege imposed upon the Palestinian National Authority buildings and the blackmail on President Yasser Arafat, besides representing very serious violations of international law, the several UN resolutions and the most elementary human rights, are examples of Israel’s real intentions: to continue to feed a spiral of violence which justifies all atrocities against the Palestinian people and to eliminate politically or physically its legitimate representatives.
Following the position adopted by the Central Committee in its meeting on the 20th and 21st September, the PCP, once again, warns against the dangers that hang over the peoples of the Middle East and the all over the world. Thus, the PCP draws attention to the tactic of US abstention on the UN Security Council resolution of September 24th, which should not be used as an exchange to obtain UN acceptance in materializing the projected war against Iraq, which can turn the situation in the region even more tragic.
The PCP claims a clear and unequivocal stand of condemnation of the Israeli government by the Portuguese government and demands an urgent intervention by the Portuguese diplomacy in the European Union, to exercise all diplomatic and political pressures on Israel to put an immediate end to the siege imposed upon the headquarters of the Palestinian National Authority and Yasser Arafat, and carry out the withdrawal of its army from the Palestinian autonomous territories.
In spite of the positive factor constituted by the approval of the UN Security Council resolution, the PCP reaffirms that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East can only be obtained with the total withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Palestinian autonomous territories to the positions held before 1967, and the recognition of a free and sovereign state of Palestine, with its capital in East Jerusalem, and a just solution to the situation of the Palestinian refugees.
In a difficult moment of resistance by the Palestinian people, and on the eve of the anniversary of the 2nd. Intifada, the Portuguese communists express, once again, their solidarity to the heroic Palestinian people and the struggle for their inalienable national rights.
The PCP appeals to the workers, the youth, the Portuguese people to, using the different means and forms at their disposal, express their solidarity to the Palestinian people and voice their protest against the criminal actions of the Israeli government.
