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Offener Brief, mit der freundlichen Bitte um Weitergabe an Herrn Botschafter Shimon Stein. Danke !

Five years of child rights abuses in the OPT

Sent by Gunter SCHENK

lundi 3 octobre 2005

Offener Brief, mit der freundlichen Bitte um Weitergabe an Herrn Botschafter Shimon Stein. Danke !

Sehr geehrter Herr Botschafter Stein,

vieles, was Ihnen geschrieben wird, machmal auch von mir, mag von Ihnen, zu Unrecht, als polemisch empfunden werden. Das ist ein höchst bedauerlicher Irrtum, denn, auch wenn es Ihnen, dem Botschafter Ihres Landes schwer fallen muss, vieles, was Ihrem Staat, besonders aber seiner Führung, vorgeworfen wird, hinzunehmen, ja nur anzuhören, man machte sich, gerade auch als Deutscher, vor der Geschichte schuldig, nicht auf diese großen Probleme und Ungerechtigkeiten zu deuten.

Was Sie in der folgenden Nachricht lesen, kann - darf - nicht als « bedauerlicher Kollateralschaden », als « Folge der Antwort auf existierende und gefährliche Gewalt » abgetan werden. Keine Gefahr, sei sie real, sei sie schuldlos oder schuldhaft herbeigeführt, rechtfertigt Folgen, wie die unten geschilderten. Wenn die Gefahrenabwehr selbst zur Gefahr verkommt, verspielt ein Staat, verspielt jedes Regime, seine eigene Legitimation.

Wo Kinder in so großer Zahl Opfer einer wie auch immer begründeten Politik werden, stimmt an dieser Politik irgend etwas Grundsätzliches nicht. Dort ist es an den Mächtigen, umzudenken, nicht an den Wehrlosen, nicht an den Opfern staatlichen Handelns. Es hilft auch nicht weiter, beiseitige Opfer, hier besonders von Kindern, gegeneinander aufzurechnen.

Ich bitte sie darum innständig, alle ideologischen oder politischen Meinungsverschiedenheiten beiseite legend, dafür Sorge zu tragen, dass in dem Land am östlichen Rand des Mittelmeeres, auf welches 2 Völker Anspruch erheben und um welches beide Völker seit vielen Jahrzehnten ringen, Kinder nicht weiter Opfer der Politik Israels werden. Dies ist ein Appell an die Moral und an die Ehre Ihres Staates. Davon hängt schließlich nicht allein die Legalität, sondern vielmehr die Legitimierung eines jeden Staates ab. Tragen Sie bitte Sorge, dass das hohe Gut der Legitimierung Ihres Staates nicht zerstört wird durch Missachtung der elementarsten Gesetze von Menschlichkeit : dem Schutz von Kindern...

Die Geschichte wird es keinem von uns verzeihen, gegen schreiendes Unrecht nicht eingeschritten zu sein. Ist nicht dies gerade auch ein
Vermächtnis des europäischen Judentums, nach all dem, was hier, bei uns, geschehen ist ? Deutsche und Juden sind gleichermaßen dazu aufgerufen,
die Achtung vor dem Nachbarn und seine Menschenwürde, im eigenen Land, dem außerhalb, zu garantieren. Dies muss bei Kindern beginnen.

Hochachtungsvoll

Günter Schenk
5, rue des cigognes
F-67930 Beinheim
- membre du « Collectif Judeo-arabe et citoyen pour la Paix » Strasbourg

Source : Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS)
Date : 29 Sep 2005

Five years of child rights abuses in the OPT

Five years ago today, massive protests against the ongoing Israeli occupation erupted throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Since that day in September 2000, the systematic and daily violations of the rights of Palestinians in general and of Palestinian children in particular, have intensified profoundly.

Children too young to walk or speak have been shot dead, thousands have been injured, still more have looked on horrified as friends and family members have been killed, maimed, arrested, humiliated. Schools and homes have been demolished, hospitals destroyed. A vast array of discriminatory and illegal movement restrictions including closures, curfews, checkpoints and roadblocks have been imposed on the Palestinian residents of the OPT, plunging the Palestinian economy further and further into crisis.

But despite clear evidence and wide international recognition that Israel bears full responsibility for the appalling circumstances in which many Palestinians find themselves, the Israeli authorities have done nothing to redress the situation. On the contrary, as the continued illegal construction of the Wall illustrates, Israel has no qualms in flagrantly ignoring international human rights and humanitarian law whenever it suits its own narrowly defined national interest.

According to documentation collected by Defence for Children International/Palestine Section (DCI/PS), at least 720 Palestinian children have been killed since the start of the intifada and hundreds more left permanently disabled by injuries they sustained at the hands of the Israeli military. In the past five years, over 3,000 children have been arrested by Israeli forces and some 300 remain incarcerated — the majority held in prisons inside Israel in direct contravention of international law. Since the intifada began, education in the OPT has become a daily struggle rather than a basic right. Israeli policies such as curfews and closures as well as military bombardments have systematically targeted the Palestinian education system, forcing children across the West Bank and Gaza to miss hundreds of school days. Such actions not only disrupt the lives of students but have a devastating impact on the future development of Palestinian society as a whole.

Recent months have seen Israel implement its much touted disengagement from the Gaza Strip. In August, occupation forces evacuated the illegal settlements and the Israeli troops that for more than 38 years controlled the strip withdrew. But despite the unprecedented media coverage it received, the disengagement does not relinquish Israel from its responsibilities under international law as an occupying power. As such, Israel is obliged to respect the rights of among others all children living in the Gaza Strip. Instead however, within weeks of withdrawing, Israeli military fighter planes and tanks have been bombarding residential districts up and down the strip, targeting civilians, their property and other civil infrastructure — missiles reduced to rubble parts of the Dar al Arqum school in Gaza which provided education for 1,200 students and the Taghreed Foundation for Arts & Culture in Beit Hanoun. Children of all ages are terrified and traumatized by the new Israeli onslaught which illustrates just how insincere talk of Israeli military withdrawal of Gaza really is.

The violations of Palestinian children’s rights that have taken place over the past half decade are but an intensification of the systematic and gross child rights abuses that go hand in hand with Israeli policies governing its 38-year occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. In an initial step to ease the suffering of Palestinian children, it is essential that Israel, as the occupying power, be forced to respect the rights of all children under its jurisdiction, whether this jurisdiction is legal or illegal. In the long-run however, the only way that Palestinian children can be ensured the possibility of enjoying their basic rights and fulfilling their basic needs is within the context the Palestinian people achieving their right to self-determination, freedom and justice.

DCI/PS therefore appeals to the international community and world leaders to abide by their declared commitment to protect the rights of all children, including the children of Palestine. We urge them to bring pressure on the Israeli government, to abide by international law and end the occupation which is incompatible with any declared commitment to promoting and protecting the basic human rights of all. The past five years have seen an unprecedented level of death and destruction in the OPT, it is up to us to ensure the coming years hold out the opportunity for a better future for Palestinian children.

For further information please contact DCI/PS at info@dci-pal.org or go to www.dci-pal.org

« Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law » (From Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which Israel is a signatory)