As Palestinians across the world commemorate 77 years of an ongoing genocidal Nakba, the undersigned organisations are dismayed that the political parties of the current Belgian federal governmental coalition are advancing a draft resolution before the Belgian Federal Parliament that compounds this injustice by undermining the Palestinian people’s fundamental rights, including the inalienable right of self-determination, and the right of return.

We, as Palestinian human rights and civil society organisations, unequivocally reject this resolution.

The resolution, spearheaded by a coalition that includes the N-VA (New Flemish Alliance – extreme right), MR (French-speaking Liberal Party), Les Engagés (French-speaking centrist party), CD&V (Flemish Christian Democrats), and Vooruit (Flemish Socialists), is a deeply concerning political document. It represents an unprecedented and regressive shift in Belgian foreign policy—one that both misapplies international law and obscures the realities of Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime, and unlawful belligerent occupation.

We warn that Belgium, in taking this stance, is becoming an outlier in Europe. Yesterday, the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, recognised Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. The Netherlands is leading Third States in calling for a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. While the Prime Minister of France, Emmanuel Macron, criticised Israel’s “shameful behaviour”.

While the resolution appears to call on the government to adopt certain measures —such as support for the International Court of Justice (ICJ), International Criminal Court (ICC), banning of settlement products, a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, and continued albeit conditional support for UNRWA—these are not new commitments. They are longstanding commitments of the Belgian state under international law and towards the Palestinian people. Their inclusion cannot disguise the fact that this resolution fundamentally conditions Palestinian rights on unfounded conditional terms and sets dangerous political precedents.

Foremost among our concerns is the denial of the fundamental and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people; the right to self-determination and the right of return. These rights are enshrined in international law, including the UN Charter, and countless UN resolutions, and recognised by the International Court of Justice. They are not conditional. They cannot be negotiated away.

Notwithstanding, this draft resolution conditions the recognition of a Palestinian state on a series of deeply problematic demands, such as, “combatting incitement to violence in schools, official media channels and religious preaching”, undermining Palestinians’ right to education by allowing Israeli interference in the Palestinian school curriculum; and “cessation of indirect and direct financial compensation to the families” of Palestinians incarcerated under Israel’s apartheid regime - an act of collective punishment - which is prohibited under international law. These conditions are just some of a catalogue of conditions eroding the right of self-determination contained in the resolution. This essentially puts the right of self-determination on the negotiating table - negating its status as a peremptory norm of international law, from which no derogation is permitted, and with complete disregard of the guaranteed inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

We reaffirm that any political solution must be grounded in the full realisation of the Palestinian people’s right of self-determination and right of return. Any and all political settlement that undermines the latter is therefore utterly unfounded.

Our organizations stress that actual peace requires the fulfilment of international rights, including the inalienable right of self-determination of the Palestinian people and return, and the dismantling of Israel’s apartheid regime on both sides of the “Green Line”.

The resolution diverts support from Palestinian civil society organisations who advocate broadly for the exercise of the inalienable right of self-determination of the Palestinian people as a whole, including Palestinian refugees in the diaspora and exiles, without forcing on them the precondition of a Two-State binary. Forcing on them the precondition represents an unwarranted infringement on the collective right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and a deliberate undermining of the needed support of Palestinian human rights and civil society organisations facing direct and indirect threats by the Israeli apartheid regime.

Furthermore, the resolution presents a grave political and legal imbalance in its treatment of the ongoing Israeli genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people. While it includes vague language about a "disproportionate response" in Gaza. There is no reference to the ICJ’s determination of the plausibility of genocide, no mention of war crimes or crimes against humanity, and no acknowledgement of the systematic targeting of civilians, aid workers, journalists, hospitals, schools, and refugee camps by Israeli forces. There is no mention of Israel’s mass arrest, arbitary detention, torture and ill-treatment of Palestinians in many cases resulting in their death in custody, including of doctors and medical workers, nor of Israel’s repeated forcible mass displacement of nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza into ever-shrinking areas unfit for human survival, under imposed total siege, famine and relentless bombardment. This is not a question of "disproportionate use of force". By now, Israel has provided ample evidence, both in rhetoric and action, of its intent to destroy Gaza and its population to serve its colonial plans.  Israel has been committing acts of genocide and atrocity crimes in plain sight, as documented by Palestinian organisations, international human rights bodies, and increasingly, by the international legal community.

Specifically, the resolution presents an incorrect assessment of the situation as a use of force in self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Our organisations remind that Israel is an occupying power required to govern the occupied Palestinian territory under the laws of Occupation, particularly those set out in The Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. The actions of armed groups in Palestine have taken place in the context of an already existing decades-long, recognised military occupation, and are, therefore, regulated by the relevant rules of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. As noted by the International Court of Justice in the Wall Advisory Opinion (2004), Israel cannot rely on a right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter to justify a use of force against non-State armed groups in territory it occupies, where these acts are not attributable to another State.

Our organisations recall the international responsibility to protect the victims of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. We remind Belgium that Palestine is subjugated under an Israeli belligerent occupation and apartheid, and unlike Israel –– Palestine has no military, no navy, no air force, no airports, and no effective control over its territory and borders. Rather, it is a young population predominantly under the age of 35, locked behind walls, watchtowers, and held under siege– a population that Israel has been systematically fragmenting and destroying.

While the resolution contains some steps that respond to longstanding civil society demands—such as the differentiation principle and support for international accountability mechanisms—these are overshadowed by its deeply problematic core. It sets a dangerous precedent in Belgian foreign policy by subordinating International Law to politics.

Therefore,

We call on all Belgian political parties to reject this resolution in its current form and draft another one in consultation with organisations representing the Palestinian people.

We call on Belgian civil society to stand firm in support of Palestinian rights and to resist this political attempt to derail inalienable Palestinian rights and erasure of root causes.
 

We call for the reaffirmation of Belgium’s commitment to international law, including:

• The right of return for all Palestinian refugees;
• The right to self-determination of the Palestinian people as a whole;
• The protection of the Palestinian educational curriculum from Israeli interference, to preserve the history and identity of the Palestinian people;
• A full arms embargo on Israel and the decommissioning of Israeli nuclear weapons;
• The banning of dangerous settler organisations contributing to international crimes in Palestine, including the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund, Regavim and Elad.
• Terminating the EU-Israel Association Agreement due to Israel’s grave breaches of international law, on the basis of Article 2 which provides that relations between the Parties “shall be based on respect for human rights”.
• Terminating the EU MOU with Israel for the export of gas to Europe, and all gas deals with Israel, which include gas infrastructure located in the State of Palestine’s EEZ, including the use of the Mari-B platform and pipelines off the Gaza coast –– noting that the gas is also supporting the illegal settlement enterprise;
• Terminate all Electricity Interconnection Projects with Israel, such projects are directly linked to the electricity supply to the settlement enterprise and maintain the illegal occupation and apartheid, the root cause of the genocidal violence;

Justice is not a matter of political compromise. It is a matter of legal and moral obligation. We urge Belgium to choose the side of justice.

Signed,

1. Al-Haq Europe
2. Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Council (PHROC)

• Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association
• Aldameer Association for Human Rights
• Al-Haq
• Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
• The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
• Defence for Children International Palestine Section
• Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies
• Hurryyat - Centre for Defense of Liberties and Civil Rights
• Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights