NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MONDAY 22 APRIL 2002
"ISRAELIS ARE PLANNING TO DESTROY PALESTINE" SAY PALESTINIAN TRADE UNIONS
After being contacted overnight by an official of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions in Nablus, STUC General , Bill Speirs, issued the following statement:
"Our Palestinian trade union colleagues are now confirming what has been suggested by such news reports as have been able to get out of the areas under Israeli assault.
"Ariel Sharon, with the complicity of the entire Israeli political establishment, is moving to complete his lifetime's ambition the creation of a state of Greater Israel on all of historic Palestine, through the expulsion or killing of non-Jewish Palestinians, and the destruction of all physical evidence of their history.
"That is why the Israeli gunmen have not only been massacring Palestinians. They have also been demolishing centuries-old buildings, and ripping up olive groves, some of which date back to Roman times.
"They have seized and removed the records and documentation of the Palestinian Authority and of Palestinian civic organisations, including all the membership records of the Palestinian trade unions.
"And most significantly, they have seized the Palestinian records of land ownership. What purpose can that have, other than in order to destroy evidence of the Palestinians entitlement to their land?
"And still the world stands by, with Sharon dictating who can and who cannot be part of the United Nations team which might one day drop by Jenin and have a look at what happened there.
If the world's leaders are not prepared to lift a finger to help the Palestinians, the world's people must take action, beginning with a refusal to buy a single Israeli product or use an Israeli service until UN
Tel: 0141 337 8100 / Fax: 0141 337 8101 / Email: bspeirs@stuc.org.uk
resolutions are implemented, and the Palestinians are secure in an independent, viable Palestinian state."
ENDS
NOTE TO EDITORS: At its Annual Congress in Perth last week, the STUC agreed to support the call for a boycott of Israeli goods and services until Israel abides by UN resolutions.
For further comment, contact Bill Speirs: