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Israel’s toxic pesticides out of Palestine now! – PCFS

The People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS) condemns the Israeli government and giant agrochemical corporations such as Syngenta for illegally manufacturing, trading, and using toxic pesticides in Palestinian territory currently occupied by Israel.

We also condemn the Israeli government for allowing the discharge of raw industrial and domestic sewerage from the settlements into Palestinian grazing lands and olive groves, the leaching of chemicals from Israeli industrial and agricultural operations into water resources, the expropriation of farmlands, and the poisoning and shooting of Palestinian livestock.

We salute the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature (APN) and the Pesticide Action Network-Asia Pacific (PANAP) for undertaking a fact-finding mission last May 2016 that exposes thes crimes. We unite with APN, PANAP, the Palestinian people and the latter’s expanding ranks of supporters in condemning these crimes in time for this year’s United Nation World Day of Social Justice, February 20.

We are alarmed and angered that, according to the fact-finding mission, 50 percent of pesticides in the Occupied West Bank is illegal from the perspective of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and five tons of banned pesticides have been confiscated since 1995. The use of poisonous pesticides in Palestinian lands is another crime of the Israeli government – and all of its backers especially the United States – against the people of Palestine.

It is most revolting that the already very limited farms, livestock and water sources in Palestine are being poisoned by Israel and that entire communites and schools are being exposed to poisonous pesticides. That despite the PA’s ban on the most dangerous pesticides such as endosulfan and paraquat, the Israeli government facilitates the entry of such pesticides into Palestinian land and that the PA is denied information on this. That the PA is being denied the
means to dispose these poisonous pesticides by bringing them back to Israel.

The manufacture, trading and use of poisonous pesticides by the Israeli government and agrochemical giants in Palestine cannot be divorced from Israel’s colonization, occupation and closure of Palestine. Poisoning the Palestinian people, their livelihood and their environment through toxic pesticides is another dimension to Palestine’s lack of food sovereignty and national sovereignty.

Such deadly measures are being carried out by the US-backed Israeli government through and as part of extreme militarism and repression against the Palestinian people. We therefore reiterate our condemnation of the Israeli government’s militarism and repression. We also reiterate our condemnation of the murderous support of the US government to the Israeli government. Such support has been manifested recently by the record-high USD 3 trillion
military aid given by the Barack Obama regime and by the statements of Donald Trump.

The PA must be allowed to exercise its laws on pesticides and the disposal of confiscated poisonous pesticides. The Israeli government and agrochemical giants must disclose information on their death-dealing actitivies in the Occupied West Bank. Industrial settlements responsible for the spread of poisonous chemicals and waste must be dismantled properly. The contaminated soil and water must be restored to their health, attacks on Palestinian livestock must be stopped, and Palestinian land must be returned to their rightful owners.

The Israeli government’s militarism and repression against the Palestinian people must stop. The US government’s support for the Israeli government’s repression and militarism must likewise be condemned and stop. We are calling for an end to the illegal production, trade and use of poisonous pesticides in Palestine by the Israeli government and agrochemical giants. We are calling for Palestinian food soveignty and national sovereignty. We are calling for an end to Israeli colonization, occupation and closure of Palestine.###