2023-09-25

west bank and gaza

West Bank / Gaza / position paper

To Avoid a New Nakbeh

We Demand that offenders be revealed and held accountable, and a code of honor that criminalizes violence and use of weapons.

MUSAWA – The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession – deems that it is its national, legal, and humanitarian duty to warn of the emergence of a new Nakbeh, symbolized by the escalation of conflict and division that grows into a geographical, family, and social division.

A new Nakbeh that poses an existential threat and is just as perilous as those that befell the Palestinian people, given that it tears apart the social fabric and expands chaos and conflict, undermines the foundations of stability and civil peace, disintegrates individual and collective security, and rips our homeland to shreds. It perpetuates a culture of hatred and animosity between people of the same nation, city, or even neighborhood, squanders the national right of our people, deprives them of their right to self-determination and sustainable development, and pushes Palestine's best to emigrate or perish amidst the chaos and unrest.

The widespread use of weapons in Palestine, as seen in Hebron yesterday and in recent months, is extremely troubling, as lawyer Abdelkarim Farah, a member of the elected municipal council, was physically assaulted yesterday by masked individuals in broad daylight, sustaining multiple injuries and being transported to the hospital, not to mention attacks on property, as seen in the case of council member Asma'a Al-Sharabati and her husband when armed individuals shot her car and his clinic. This is a stark warning that silence about such crimes, the foot-dragging in revealing perpetrators, and allowing them to evade accountability and punishment, will plunge our people into a bloodbath.

Therefore, we, MUSAWA – The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession – urge everyone with a conscience and sense of belonging to our people and nation to unite and work together to end this sedition before it is too late. In addition, we call on all official competent authorities to take immediate action to reveal the perpetrators and hold them accountable, as well as on all representatives of the Hebron society to develop a national honor code that addresses the root causes of the crisis, criminalizes the use of violence, renounces the culture of hatred, and commits to resolving all conflicts through peaceful and legal means.

MUSAWA

25/09/2023