Some 38 Left French MPs have signed a draft resolution condemning Israel’s “institutionalization of an apartheid regime against Palestinian people,” L’Humanite reported on Friday.
The draft resolution was originally submitted on 13 July by Communist MP Jean-Paul Lecocq vice-president of the Foreign Affairs Committee but stirred a public debate on Friday. Resolutions are opinions, issued by one of the two Chambers of Parliament on a specific subject, which do not have the force of law. Most of the signatories are members of the French Communist Party (PCF), like Fabien Roussel, the party’s national secretary and former presidential candidate.
Solidarity with Palestine during the Tour de France (Photo: Association France Palestine Solidarité)
According to the motion, following Israel’s occupation of Arab territories in Six Day War of June 1967, “Israel extended the apartheid policy to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Currently, all territories under Israeli control remain administered with the aim of favoring Israeli Jews at the expense of the Palestinian population, while successive Israeli governments have continued to deny the right of return to Palestinian refugees for more than seven decades.”
Among the actions against Israel urged by the resolution are the “imposition of a strict arms embargo” and a French-sponsored resolution to the UN Security Council that would impose “targeted sanctions, such as the freezing of assets, on the Israeli officials most implicated in the crime of apartheid.”
The resolution who calls for the end of occupation and a “two-states solution”, also quotes several international human rights organizations in support of its contention that Israel practices apartheid, among them Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli B’tselem. Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, was cited approvingly for having reached the conclusion “that the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution are committed by the Israeli government against part of the Palestinian population.”
The full draft resolution (in French):
https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/16/textes/l16b0143_proposition-resolution#
