1. The PCP repudiates and strongly condemns the statement by the US Secretary of State considering “legal” Israel's colonisation of the illegally occupied Palestinian territories in 1967.
This was declared yesterday, a few days after yet another criminal Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, which killed 34 Palestinians and injured more than a hundred. This statement is an insult to the martyred Palestinian people and an affront to International Law and the principles of the United Nations Charter.
The stand now taken by the US Secretary of State, in line with the continued support for Israel's aggressive policy, follows the provocative acts by the Trump Administration, such as the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or the cut in the funding to the UNRWA on which thousands of Palestinian refugees depend.
2. Israel pursues a systematic policy of occupation and colonisation of the Palestinian territories and of expulsion of the Palestinian population repeatedly condemned by the United Nations. At the same time, it brutally represses the legitimate resistance of the Palestinian people, murdering and arresting Palestinian citizens, including children and elected political leaders, as recently and again occurred with MP Khalida Jarrar.
Israel keeps the people of the Gaza Strip under a brutal and criminal blockade that has lasted for more than twelve years and indiscriminately represses the legitimate and peaceful protests of the Great March of Return.
3. At the same time, the Israeli government and army continue to carry out provocative actions in the eastern Mediterranean region threatening the peace, sovereignty and territorial integrity of States, such as against Syria or Lebanon.
4. The PCP urges the Portuguese Government to cease military and/or police agreements with the State of Israel and to act, in accordance with the constitutional imperative and International Law, to end Israeli occupation and colonisation and the uncompromising defence of the right of the Palestinian people to the creation of an independent, viable, free and sovereign State, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with UN resolutions.
5. The PCP expresses its everlasting solidarity with the national cause of the Palestinian people and with their struggle and resistance. It calls for the mobilization in Portugal of active solidarity with the struggle of that people and the denunciation of Israeli crimes, and for participation in the actions of the movement of solidarity with Palestine to be held in Portugal in the framework of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, observed on November 29.
