18/19 April 1998
Ard Comhairle member, Bairbre de Brun
speaking on Middle East Peace Process (International Affairs)
18 April, 1998
Over the past year Amnesty International has condemned the Israeli government on a number of counts related to human rights abuses in the occupied territories:
- At least 1,600 Palestinians were arrested on security grounds by the Israeli authorities
- Around 600 Palestinians were administratively detained in 1997
- At least 1,000 Palestinians received trials before Israeli military courts, whose procedures did not meet international fair trial standards
- A total of 1,155 Palestinian prisoners were freed in the context of peace agreements but more than 3,500 others, including 2,000 sentenced to prison terms in previous years, remained held at the end of 1997
- Torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians during interrogation continued to be systematic and officially sanctioned
- At least 80 Palestinians, including 60 civilians, were killed by Israeli forces, often in cases suggesting extra judicial executions or other unlawful killings.
The litany of human rights abuses perpetrated by the Israeli authorities in the past year only serves to exacerbate tensions and divisions between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, and prevent the full implementation of the Hebron and Oslo peace accords.
The Hebron massacre of 1994 clearly illustrated the disastrous consequences which result from building Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and the arming of settlers. The Israeli government should cease all expropriation of Palestinian land for the purposes of settling immigrants, and recognise the sovereignty and self-determination of the Palestinian people. Resolution 242 passed by the United Nations Security Council unambiguously requires that Israel withdraw from the occupied territories, and to date this resolution has been ignored.
Successive territorial annexations by Israel since 1948 have seen the incorporation of some two million Arabs into Israeli territory. Such expansionist practices have destabilised a politically volatile region and created distrust between Arab and Jew. Moreover, within the occupied territories the Israeli authorities make extensive use of border closures, confining Palestinians to the Gaza Strip and to Areas A and B of the West Bank (areas over which the Palestinian Authority had joint or exclusive jurisdiction according to the Oslo 11 accord) The Netanyahu government has also delayed withdrawal form part of Hebron also agreed under Oslo 11.
The security forces in Israel continue to enjoy virtual impunity for human rights violations including involvement in extrajudicial killings. In November 1997, for example four members of an undercover unit of the Israeli Defence Force were find one agrora (half a US cent) for `negligently causing the death' of a Palestinian who had been stopped at a checkpoint. Amnesty International has stressed that peace in the region `can only be built on the basis of respect for human rights'.
I urge this Ard Fheis to call upon the Israeli government to:
- Stop the expropriation of Palestinian land
- Withdraw from Palestinian areas in the West Bank, South Lebanon and the Golan Heights
- Release all Palestinian Political prisoners
- Create the conditions for the full implementation of the Hebron and Oslo accords