Around fourty far-left members of the French parliament have signed a draft resolution condemning ‘Israel’ for practicing “institutional apartheid regime” and committing war crimes against Palestinians.
The motion, titled “Condemn Israel’s Institutionalization of an Apartheid Regime Against the Palestinian People”, was endorsed by 38 members of the French National Assembly, who represent the newly-formed far-left NUPES coalition.
The draft resolution accuses the Israeli occupation of establishing a system of “systemic oppression and control by one group.”
“Since its creation in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy aimed at establishing and maintaining a Jewish demographic hegemony and expanding its control over the territory for the benefit of Israeli Jews,” the French MPs wrote.
“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.”
The resolution quotes several international human rights organizations in support of its reports that ‘Israel’ practices apartheid, among them Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch and the
Israel-based B’tselem.
The draft resolution supports a solution based on “coexistence between two states on the basis of the 1967 borders.”
The draft resolution urges “imposition of a strict arms embargo” and a French-sponsored resolution to the United Nations 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 signatories also called on the French government to “recognize the State of Palestine.”
The 24-page motion was originally submitted on July 13 by Communist MP Jean-Paul Lecocq, but it became a subject of public debate only on Friday morning, after a dissenting NUPES parliamentarian, Jérôme Guedj, denounced its contents in a thread on Twitter.
The communist bloc must put the draft resolution on the agenda, to be discussed in the National Assembly.
Among the signatories are former presidential candidate Fabien Roussel, and deputies from the “France Proud” (radical left) party, such as Adrien Katniss, socialist Christine Pierce-Bonn, and both Aurelian Tashi and Sabrina Sabaihi of the Green Party.
