Press Release

PCHR’s Director conducts a Lecture at Harvard University

Date: 8 April 2000

Ref: 42/2000

At the invitation of the College of Human Rights and Law of Harvard University in Boston, Raji Sourani conducted a lecture entitled “Oslo Agreements and Palestinian Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”. The lecture strongly condemned the stance of the United States concerning the Fourth Geneva Convention and accused the US administration of attempts to politicize international humanitarian law and of selectivity in implementing the Convention. The lecture also highlighted the impact of the Oslo Agreements on the human rights situation in the OPTs, describing the impact as disastrous, and as having created a de facto apartheid system in the OPTs.

In addition, the lecture described the suffering of the Palestinian people and Israel’s grave violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law and human rights conventions. In this regard Sourani described the policy of settlement building and expansion, land confiscation, the judaization, and ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem. Concerning the detainees issue, he affirmed that Israel continues to torture Palestinian detainees in spite of the Israeli High Court decision to ban torture. Moreover, he affirmed that the Israeli closure policy has disastrous economic and social impact on the Palestinian people and prevents the territorial integrity of the Occupied Territories.

In his lecture, Sourani also remarked on the legal expiry of the Oslo Agreements on 4 May 1999, affirming that the aim of the agreements, to build mutual confidence between the two sides, has not been achieved. In addition no final status agreement had been concluded during the interim period, thereby depriving the Oslo Agreements of the attainment of their most essential aims.

The lecture also highlighted the policies of the Barak government, asserting that over the past ten months the Government’s policies had been worse than those of the Netanyahu government. These circumstances, according to Sourani, have led to a sense of frustration and hopelessness amongst the Palestinian people, creating a potentially explosive situation. Sourani also mentioned the Lebanese resistance to the Israeli occupation in South Lebanon. He suggested that if this approach to resistance forces Israel to withdraw from South Lebanon, then Israel in its practices will force the Palestinian people to take such resistance as a model in order to secure Israel’s withdrawal from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Sourani also asserted that international human rights conventions and international humanitarian law form the standard on which the peace process should be based, and not the reverse as is the current case, in which human rights standards are sacrificed under the justification of keeping the peace process alive. He concluded that at the outset of the third millenium and after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid regime in South Africa, Israel is in the process of creating a new apartheid system under the auspices of peace.

For More Information Contact:

Palestinian Center for Human Right

Tel/Fax (+) 9727 2824776/2823725

E-mail: pchr@trendline.co.il