Palestina Solidariteit vzw

Activities

• Palestina Solidariteit works as an “independent volunteer movement that fights for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people on the basis of the implementation of UN resolution, International law, respect for human rights and democracy, and for a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
• Palestina Solidariteit’s main activities in Belgium include:
  • “Awareness raising and educational activities for a wide audience.”
  • “Putting pressure on policy makers.”
  • “Providing background information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
  • “Lobbying and campaigns.”
• In June 2022, Palestina Solidariteit called to “Release Shatha Odeh.” On July 7, 2021, Israel arrested Health Work Committees (HWC) General Director Shatha Odeh for her alleged involvement in terror activity. Following her arrest, the IDF closed HWC’s offices for six months.
  • In May 2022, Odeh accepted a plea bargain, pleading guilty to crimes including holding a position in a banned organization, presence in the proceedings of a banned organization, and improperly transferring funds for her role in raising funds for the organization after it was declared a terrorist entity by the IDF in January 2020.
  • Numerous HWC staff members, founders, board members, general assembly members, and senior staff members have ties to the PFLP terror group. For more information on HWC’s PFLP ties, read NGO Monitor’s report “Health Work Committees’ Ties to the PFLP Terror Group.”
• In May 2022, Palestina Solidariteit was a signatory to a flagrantly antisemitic report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council’s permanent Commission of Inquiry against Israel. The submission presented a blatantly false historical account that denied Israel’s right to exist, categorized Israel’s very existence as illegal, and labeled Zionism as a form of racism, demanding that the Commission “Recognise and Address Zionist Settler Colonialism and Apartheid as the Root Causes of Israel’s Ongoing Violations.”
• In October 2021, Palestina Solidariteit was a signatory on a joint statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the statement, “This unprecedented designation is merely the latest escalation in Israel’s widespread and systematic institutionalized campaign that has aimed to silence and discredit any Palestinian individual or organization that dares seek accountability for Israel’s grave human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity…the international community, especially the European Union and its member states who are key supporters of and donors to Palestinian civil society, should ensure that banks and financial institutions in their jurisdiction are notified Israel’s designation of Palestinian organizations is unfounded and inapplicable.”
• In April 2021, Palestina Solidariteit was a signatory on a statement welcoming the decision of the ICC to launch a formal investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the “State of Palestine.” According to the statement, “This is a long-awaited and a critically important step towards ensuring the rule of law and ending impunity, while ensuring accountability for Israel’s crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.”
• Palestina Solidariteit accuses Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing” of “Palestinian Bedouins” in the Negev. In a letter addressed to the Belgium Foreign Minister, the organization called for Belgium to protest the Prawer plan, which aims to resettle “Negev Bedouins into government-recognized villages.”

BDS Activities

• Supports discriminatory BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns against Israel including:
  • A campaign against Israeli security firm G4S to end Belgian cooperation with the company over its involvement in “an illegal situation.”
  • Calling for Dexia bank to end its “illegal funding of Israeli colonization of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
  • Supports the “Made in Illegality” campaign. The campaign’s demands include banning Belgian and French imports of all “settlement products,” discouraging Belgian and French companies “from investing in settlements,” and preparing information for travelers “to ensure that they avoid supporting companies and tourist sites that are located in the settlements.”
• In June 2022, Palestina Solidariteit launched an app titled “Click4Change” to “help map Israeli products.” According to the app, “Don’t buy Israeli products. Stop supporting Israeli apartheid.”
• In March 2022, Palestina Solidariteit was a signatory on a campaign to “call for sanctions on apartheid Israel.” The campaign called for: 
  • “Investigating Israeli apartheid and reactivating the UN mechanisms to combat apartheid to impose targeted sanctions on Israel, including military embargo.”
  • “governments to ban and shops and supermarkets to deshelve products from Israel’s illegal settlements and campaign to end contracts and investments in companies supporting these settlements, particularly those listed in the UN Database.”
  • “Holding institutions that promote our dispossesion, such as the so-called “Jewish National Fund” (JNF), accountable and join efforts to uncover their complicity with ethnic cleansing, illegal settlements and apartheid against the Palestinian people.” 
• In February 2022, Palestina Solidariteit participated in a campaign titled “#StopTradeWithSettlements,” calling “for an EU law that will end trade with illegal settlements once and for all.”
• In September 2020, Palestina Solidariteit called for the UN General Assembly to “Launch international investigations into Israel’s apartheid regime over the Palestinian people as a whole, as well as associated State and individual criminal responsibility,” to “Ban arms trade and military-security cooperation with Israel,” and “Prohibit all trade with illegal Israeli settlements and ensure that companies refrain from and terminate business activities with Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.”
• Supports the suspension of the European Union-Israel Association Agreement.
• Signatory to a 2017 statement marking the anniversaries of the 1917 Balfour declaration, the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan, and the “beginning of Israel’s occupation in 1967.” The statement calls on the international community “to cease all complicity with continued settlement activity and the myriad of ways that Israel violates international law,” and for “the suspension of the EU’s Association Agreement with Israel.” The statement condemns the 1947 UN partition plan, claiming it “resulted in the 1948 Nakba, the demolition of more than 530 Palestinian villages and the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland, and is thus a process of ethnic cleansing.” It also claims that European countries “made Palestine carry the consequences of the monstrous genocide of the European Jews by the Nazis; and subsequently they did nothing to require that Israel respect UN resolutions.”

Support for Palestinian NGOs

• According to its website, Palestina Solidariteit raises private funding for Palestinian NGOs including:
  • Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P): DCI-P supports BDS campaigns against Israel, and several of its board members have alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization, designated as such by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
  • Palestinian Working Women’s Society for Development (PWWSD): Signatory to the 2005 “Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS” against Israel and promotes a Palestinian “right of return,” which if implemented would effectually mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
  • The Palestinian Circus School: Supports a cultural and academic boycott of Israel.