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American Arab
Forum
www.americanarabforum.org
Contact Aref
Assaf 973-960-2673
aref@ameircanarabforum.org
Ask NJ Legislature to divest from Israel.
While we laud the yet to be
finalized resolution to punish the government of Sudan for its complicity in the
Darfour atrocious, we strongly believe that Israel has also been a consistent
violator of human rights and as such the State of NJ should divest all of its
holdings from companies doing business in Israel.
The NJ Legislature is about
to vote for resolution
AR3482 to divest State's pensions from Sudan, the African nation, over the
its involvement in genocidal atrocities. We ask that the same be applied to
Israel which has had a horrific record of denial of United Nations Resolutions,
systematic disregard for human rights, murder of over 15 thousand Palestinians,
destruction of thousands of homes and continued military occupation of lands
occupied since 1967. We believe that the State ought to use the same moral
yardstick when judging the behavior and determining the appropriate punishment
for abusers of human rights. Alarmingly, Israel is a favored recipient of
billions from NJ's public and private institutions , funds which are invested in
American companies doing business in Israel and which directly aid in the
negation of Palestinian basic human and political rights. We strongly believe
that NJ should demand that Israel abide by the following requirements to be
removed from the list of countries denied our investment funds:
1- Israel is in compliance
with
United Nations Resolution 242 which notes the inadmissibility of the
acquisition of territory by war, and which calls for withdrawal of Israeli armed
forces from occupied territories.
2- Israel is in compliance with the
United Nations Committee Against Torture 2004 Report which recommends that
Israel's use of legal torture be ended.
3- Israel must be in compliance with the
Fourth Geneva Convention ("The occupying power shall not deport or transfer
parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies"; Article 49,
paragraph 6), Israel ceases building new settlements, and vacates existing
settlements, in the Occupied Territories.
4- Israel acknowledges in principle the applicability of United Nations
Resolution 194 with respect to the rights of refugees, and accepts that refugees
should either be allowed to return to their former lands or else be compensated
for their losses, as agreed by the Palestinians and Israelis in bilateral
negotiations.
5- We believe the best
divestment option is the targeted and gradual one:
New Jersey needs to engage in selective
divestment--withdrawal of their investments from companies that are, directly or
indirectly, funding the occupation. First and foremost, states, cities,
universities, churches, unions, banks and pension funds should divest from
Israel Bonds, which finance the occupation, and from any company that sells
arms, ammunition or other military equipment to Israel. This should include
companies like Caterpillar, which manufactures and sells the bulldozers that
have flattened thousands of Palestinian homes, and General Dynamics, General
Electric, Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon and other corporations,
because these companies play an active role in enabling Israeli forces to engage
in practices that violate international humanitarian law.
The State of New Jersey will
become amongst the first in the Union to pass resolutions demanding divestment
of state's funds from companies doing business in Sudan. According to an
article in the June 19, 2005 Daily Record, "in response to accusations of
genocide, torture and rape sanctioned by the government of Sudan, New Jersey
lawmakers are trying to force the state pension systems to sell more than $1
billion in investments in companies doing business in the African nation." Read
summary of Assembly Resolution AR3482. Identical Senate bill is numbered
S2145.
The American Arab Forum
finds it rather ironic that only the Sudan, one of the world's poorest
countries, is being punished for maltreatment of its citizens. Assuredly, there
are many other nations that our Legislators need to look into their systematic
abuse of human rights, murder of innocent civilians and denial of their
political rights. We find more dichotomous that in fact the State legislator is
actually prompting more investment in at least one country, namely Israel, which
has for over 38 years violated the inalienable rights of millions of
Palestinians, displacing them of their homes, and killing over 15 thousand.
We call upon our State
Legislature, especially Assemblyman Donald Payne, the bill's Primary Sponsor
and who is also a US Congressman who applies the same moral yardstick when
applying moral decisions to where and how our state funds, funds that belong to
the citizens of the state. It selectively punishes certain countries or
companies and actually helps other equally horrendous regimes and must be
immediately remedied. We also wish to bring to the attention of the Legislature
a pending resolution,
AR166, that demands state funds be invested in Israel. The bill's Primary
Sponsor is Assemblyman McKeon from West Orange. We have previously
written to and engaged Assemblyman McKeon on this bill. See letter. We also
note
AR129, sponsored by assemblyman Paul Sarlo, which directs that funds be
invested in Israel Bonds, which directly finance the military occupation.
Other relevant bills are contained here.
Sanctions are a powerful and
nonviolent means to insure that the Israeli government abides by international
law and ends its appalling human rights violations in the occupied territories.
Divestment resolutions are long overdue. We have witnessed the power of
worldwide economic pressure in the collapse of the South African apartheid
regime, a crowning achievement in which New Jersey played a major role. We now
need to follow the same strategy, and we could see the end of the Israeli
occupation in our lifetime. Americans will be safer, Israelis will be safer and
Palestinians will be safer.
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