3rd May 2010
Permanent Delegation of Turkey to the OECD
9, Rue Alfred Dehodencq
75116 Paris
France.
Dear Sir/Madam,
OBJECT ISRAEL’S ADMISSION AS A MEMBER OF THE OECD
We are shocked to learn that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Council, at its forthcoming meeting, will be taking a decision to admit Israel as a member. On 19 January, after signing a key agreement at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria stated: “ We are probably going to complete ( the membership process) in 2010, that’s when it was scheduled for.”
The Roadmap for the accession of Israel to the OECD Convention, adopted by the Council on 30 November 2007, states that accepting fundamental values – commitment to pluralist democracy based on the rule of law and the respect of human rights, adherence to open and transparent market economy principles and shared goal of sustainable development - is a requirement for membership. Admitting Israel as a member would be in gross violation of the requirement of respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Israel is not a democracy but a colonial power. For over 40 years it has been occupying and colonising the territories it conquered in June 1967, in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and international law. It has been Judaising East Jerusalem through ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. The millions living in the occupied Palestinian territories do not enjoy any civil or political rights, and their human rights are daily violated by the Israeli Occupation Forces.
The continuing siege of Gaza has been described by Professor Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and an eminent authority on international law, as a “holocaust-in-the making”.
The Goldstone report on the Gaza Conflict concluded that during the December 2008 – January 2009 attack on Gaza, Israeli forces had committed serious breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention – wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health; and extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. They had also used Palestinians as human shields which constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The Goldstone Mission further found that the series of acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of their means of subsistence, employment, housing and water, that deny their freedom of movement and their right to leave and enter their own country, that limit their right to access a court of law and an effective remedy, could lead a competent court to find that the crime of persecution, a crime against humanity, has been committed.
Goldstone has warned: “The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence. Time and again, experience has taught us that overlooking justice only leads to increased conflict and violence.”
It is incumbent on OECD members, committed to promoting democracy and observance of international law, to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinians and not to reward it by admitting it as a member.
We therefore appeal to you to object to Israel being admitted as a member of the OECD.
Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
…………………………………….
Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid
Secreatriate General
Malaysian Muslim NGOs Consultation Council (MAPIM)
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