The following letter will be presented to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon during our Nakbah commemoration rally on May 16, 2008.
H.E. Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
The Nakbah—the catastrophe that Zionism has inflicted upon the Palestinian people—has continued for sixty years. In 1948, the Zionist movement forcibly expelled nearly 800,000 Palestinians from their homes—over two-thirds of all Palestinians—and has denied them their right of return. It destroyed over 400 villages and changed their names, as though they had never existed.
Since 1948, Israel has committed countless human and civil rights violations against the Palestinian people. These violations include a denial of the following fundamental rights under international law: the right of return guaranteed to all refugees, the right to a home, the right of self-determination, the right to freedom of movement, the right to food and the right to education. In contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention and other human rights instruments, Israel has imposed a brutal and illegal occupation on an indigenous population; stolen Palestinian land and resources by force; transferred its own population into occupied territory; practiced collective punishment; imprisoned and tortured hundreds of thousands of Palestinians without due process of law. With the world watching, Israel has imposed a system of Apartheid on all Palestinians living in historic Palestine.
From the beginning, the international community has been complicit in Israel’s crimes, either through silence or through direct economic, military and political support. Most appallingly, instead of taking punitive measures against the criminal, the international community punishes its victims, as with the ongoing siege of Gaza.
Today, we stand at the door of the international community to hold you accountable for your role in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people and call upon you to fulfill your moral and legal obligations to act. Your complicity must end today.
The time has come for you to follow the lead of civil society groups around the world and impose a comprehensive system of boycott, divestment and sanctions upon Israel. You must work to end all forms of violence and Apartheid against the Palestinian people and facilitate the return of all Palestinian refugees to their original homes and villages, as embodied in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194. Today, sixty years after the Palestinian catastrophe began in 1948, we demand that the nations of the world right their historical wrongs.
Endorsing Organizations
Arab Muslim American Federation
National Council of Arab Americans
Palestinian American Congress
Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East
Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition-NY
To find out how to endorse our letter, please email us at info@nakbah1948.org.
