Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Middle East
SECTION TITLE: MIDDLE EAST
SUBSECTION TITLE: ???
OUR POSITION: ONE SENTENCE.
Our commitments to ecological wisdom, social justice, grass-roots democracy, and non-violence compel us to oppose U.S. government support for “friendly” regimes, both in Israel and in the Arab world, whenever those regimes violate human rights, international law, and existing treaties. Those same values compel us to support popular movements for peace and demilitarization, especially those that reach across the lines of conflict to engage both Palestinians and Israelis of good will.
GREEN SOLUTIONS
a. We reaffirm the right of self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis, which precludes the self-determination of one at the expense of the other. We recognize the historical and contemporary cultural diversity of Israeli-Palestinian society, including the religious heritage of Jews, Christians, Muslims and others. This is a significant part of the rich cultural legacy of all these peoples and it must be respected. To ensure this, we support equality before international law rather than appeals to religious faith as the fair basis on which claims to the land of Palestine-Israel are resolved.
b. We recognize that Jewish insecurity and fear of non-Jews is understandable in light of Jewish history of horrific oppression in Europe. However, we oppose as both discriminatory and ultimately self-defeating the position that Jews would be fundamentally threatened by the implementation of full rights to Palestinian-Israelis and Palestinian refugees who wish to return to their homes. As U.S. Greens, we refuse to impose our views on the people of the region; rather, we would turn the U.S. government towards a new policy, which itself recognizes the equality, humanity, and civil rights of Jews, Muslims, Christians, and all others who live in the region, and which seeks to build confidence in prospects for secular democracy.
c. We reaffirm the right and feasibility of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in Israel. We acknowledge the significant challenges of equity and restitution this policy would encounter and call on the U.S. government to make resolution of these challenges a central goal of our diplomacy in the region.
d. We reject the U.S.’ unbalanced financial and military support of Israel while Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We call on the U.S. President and Congress to end all military aid to Israel, shifting much of that aid to ecologically appropriate local projects for economic and social development for Palestinians as well as Israelis. Until Israel withdraws from the Occupied Territories and dismantles the separation wall, we call on our government to suspend all other foreign aid to Israel as well.
e. We demand that the U.S. government end its veto of Security Council resolutions pertaining to Israel. We urge our government to join with the U.N. to secure the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 boundaries and to withhold its grants and loans to Israel until this withdrawal is undertaken.
f. We recognize the limited natural resources in Palestine-Israel and the necessity of creating an Arab/Israeli commission to negotiate the sharing of water by both nationalities.
g. We support a much stronger and supportive U.S. position with respect to all United Nations, European Union, and Arab League initiatives that seek a negotiated peace, and we support significantly greater U.S. financial support for such non-military solutions. We call for an immediate U.N.-sponsored, multinational peacekeeping and protection force in the Palestinian territories with the mandate to initiate a conflict-resolution commission.
h. We call on the foreign and military affairs committees of the U.S. House and Senate to conduct full hearings on the status of human rights and war crimes in Palestine/Israel.
i. We call on congressional intelligence committees to conduct full and public hearings on the development and deployment of weapons of mass destruction, whether by the Israeli military, irregular militias, or Arab states. It should be U.S. policy to seek the removal and/or destruction of all such weapons of mass death wherever they are found.
j. We call for the complete dismantling of the Israeli separation wall in the occupied West Bank. A Green policy toward Israel and Palestine would offer such incentives for peace and mutual security that the wall would be unnecessary, and seen for what it is… an obstacle to peace and a unilateral escalation of conflict.
m. As an integral part of peace negotiations and the transition to peaceful democracy, we call for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose inaugurating action would be mutual acknowledgement by Israelis and Palestinians that they have the same basic rights, including the right to exist in the same, secure place.
