The PCP strongly condemns the brutal heightening of Israeli repression against the Palestinian people and warns of the danger of a new escalation in the policy of forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and lands by the current Zionist Government of Israel.
The year 2022 saw the highest number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank by Israeli occupation forces ever recorded by the UN. The rise to power in Israel of an even more right-wing government, which includes representatives of fascist forces, was accompanied by a further worsening of violence in the occupied Palestinian territories. In the first two months of 2023, more than sixty Palestinians were killed by Israeli military and police forces. The brutal attack by Israeli settlers against the Palestinian village of Huwara is an expression of an unprecedented escalation of violence, only possible due to the connivance of the occupying forces. A reality that affirms the urgency of halting Israel's repression against the Palestinian people.
The "principles" of governance announced by Prime Minister Netanyahu for the fascist course of his new Government are unacceptable, namely that "the Jewish people have the exclusive and inalienable right to the entire Land of Israel", explaining that it refers not only to the entire Historical Palestine and, in particular, the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 – which the UN recognises as constituting the future State of Palestine –, but also the Syrian territories of the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in 1967 and annexed in 1981. These “principles” constitute an open violation of all UN resolutions on the Palestinian question and must be clearly repudiated.
Also condemning the bombings against Syria carried out by the Israeli military forces, the PCP warns of the danger of the Israeli Government venturing into a new large-scale war in the Middle East.
When celebrating the 75th. anniversary of the Nakba– the systematic expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and lands, which accompanied the unilateral proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948 – it is important to underline the absence of any political process aimed at implementing the inalienable rights of the people Palestinian, widely recognised and enshrined in numerous UN resolutions. And it should be equally noted that the initiatives taken by former US President Trump, of explicit support of Israel's illegal policy - including the transfer of the US Embassy to Jerusalem and the "recognition" of the annexation of the Golan Heights by Israel – are supported by the current President Biden.
The PCP considers that the Portuguese Government must assume a position of clear defence of the immediate implementation of the right of the Palestinian people to a sovereign and independent State, with the 1967 borders and capital in East Jerusalem, and the implementation of the right of return of refugees, in compliance with relevant UN resolutions.
Saluting the Palestinian people who, under the most difficult conditions and using the most diverse forms of struggle, continue their legitimate resistance, the PCP calls for solidarity with the Palestinian people's struggle for their inalienable national rights, for the end of provocations and violence by the Israeli authorities and settlers, for the end of the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, for the release of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners, including minors, incarcerated in Israeli prisons.
