Sponsors: Lois Gagnon  & Dan Kontoff

Vetting: AdCom

Floor Manager: Lois Gagnon Contact information: [email protected]

Shepherd: Lois Gagnon

Summary: The purpose of this proposal is to state the official party position on the ongoing Israeli assault on the Palestinians in Gaza. The implications of not publicly stating our extreme dissatisfaction with the Massachusetts delegation in Washington on what can only be described as genocide would convey an attitude of acceptance of the Biden administration's policy of unconditional support of Israel's actions. The death toll of Palestinians killed is estimated at over 10,800, almost half of them children. This is not to diminish the Israeli deaths from the October 7 attack by Hamas. Collective punishment, however, is a war crime under international law.

Background: The root cause of the current crisis goes way back. Israel's Apartheid policy towards the Palestinians is greatly to blame. This is clearly a settler colonial government committing ethnic cleansing, no different in objectives than the same system that removed the indigenous populations of the Americas and elsewhere. The current violence would not have occurred if the Palestinians had not been locked inside an overcrowded concentration camp with no equal rights, restricted movements, and little access to the necessities of life. The US has financed this illegal project in Gaza and the occupied territories in the West Bank and The Golan Heights to the tune of 3.8 billion dollars a year. It now wants to send more. Israel would not be in possession of its large arsenal of sophisticated military weapons without Washington's continual largesse.

Text of Proposal: In keeping with our Four Pillars of Peace, Ecology, Social Justice, and Democracy, The Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts demands our congressional delegation in Washington call for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian political prisoners which number in the thousands, many of them children. We demand the lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza and the return of stolen Palestinian land back to the 1967 borers. We demand that reparations be made to rebuild the devastation in Gaza to livable conditions for all Palestinians. We demand an end to US funding to Israel that has allowed it to violate Palestinian human rights with impunity. We also demand the US refrain from blocking the passage of UN Security Council Resolutions and respect the enforcement of international law. The Green-Rainbow Party will join with other organizations calling for an immediate ceasefire and the self-determination of the Palestinian people.

Implementation: AdCom, ComCom.

Time frame: ASAP

Financial implications: none

References: https://balfourproject.org