Solidarity with the Palestinian people is more urgent than ever

– Despite numerous UN resolutions, the Palestinian people are still living under occupation, annexation, colonisation and an apartheid regime: Palestinian refugees are being denied the right to return. The injustice the Palestinians suffer from has been going on far too long. Israeli aggression against civilians and the whole civil society throughout  2021 must be seen as a wake-up call.  The expansion of the illegal settlements continues. The Israeli criminalisation of human rights and other civil organisations makes it even more urgent to develop an international mechanism for protection.  Fagforbundet calls on the international community to take action to end the Israeli  occupation and Israel must be held  accountable for violations of international law, says Mette Nord

Fagforbundet's solidarity with the Palestinian people dates back to the mid-1980s.  In 2009,  support for the Palestinian people became more specific with the establishment of a long-term cooperation with Norwegian People's Aid.

– It was important for our union to make our solidarity efforts as concrete and effective as possible. Political lobbying to end Norwegian complicity in the occupation was just as important as supporting Norwegian People's Aid’s Palestinian partner organisations. It was also important to spread information  and involve both our elected representatives and our members. The first thing we did, was to establish our own ambassador corps for Palestine. 25 elected representatives were tasked with increasing engagement in their own respective counties. We also produced a booklet which provided a thorough introduction to the background and  history of Palestinians in Palestine and  Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as well as the current situation. It was sent to our 18,000 elected representatives, says Stein Guldbrandsen, a member of the Executive Committee and the person in charge of the union’s solidarity work.

Fagforbundet and Norwegian People´s Aid have also produced reports documenting the Norwegian ties to the occupation and launched various targeted campaigns. Several Norwegian banks have over the years excluded companies that are involved in the settlements. The union is currently encouraging people to take part in the ongoing campaign against the Norwegian Governmental Pension fund’s investments in companies involved in the settlements.

Increased international pressure on Israel

The situation has deteriorated  for Palestinians over the past decade. Gaza has been bombed with major destruction and horrifying civilian casualties in 2012, 2014 and May 2021. The UN declared the Gaza Strip unliveable in 2020. There has been an increase in settlements in the West Bank  along with the highest recorded levels of settler violence. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is on record as refusing to accept  a two-state solution. Israeli Minister of Defense,  Benny Gantz, has stamped six Palestinian human rights and civil organizations, as “terror” organisations despite massive condemnation from the international community.

There has also been increased international pressure on Israel. From 2010 to the present, the UN Human Rights Council (OHCHR) has adopted a total of 62 resolutions criticising Israel's violations of international law and human rights. In 2016 the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2334. It requires Israel to immediately and completely halt all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem. It also  states that the settlements are a “flagrant violation of international law and are legally invalid”. It calls upon all states "to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967”.

In 2020 OHCHR published a database  of business enterprises involved in Israeli settlements. As a result, influential pension funds – such as the Norwegian Governmental Pension Fund  excluded five companies involved in the settlements earlier this year, and the Norwegian KLP has excluded 16 companies on the UN database. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream company will prohibit sales of its products to Israeli settlements after 2022.

In 2015, the EU decided that member states should label settlements goods and in November 2019, the European Court of Justice ordered member states to start labeling. This month Belgium decided on the  the labelling of settlement products and announced plans to increase controls on goods coming from Israeli settlements.

The International Criminal  Court (ICC) is investigating allegations of war crimes committed by Israeli personnel in Palestine and the establishment  of illegal West Bank settlements.

The fight for justice, self-determination and the right to return will be highlighted all over the world today, but it must continue until Palestine is free.