Freedom for Palestine!

Declaration of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Austria (PdA), Vienna, 11 October 2023

In the view of the renewed armed fighting in the Middle East, much is being said in the media about the terrorism of Hamas. Bourgeois politicians are overflowing in their calls for peace and their condemnations of Palestinian aggression.

The truth is that the attack from Gaza against Israel is not out of the blue, but a reaction to decades of Israeli occupation and oppression. The Palestinian people's resistance - including armed resistance - for their liberation is fundamentally legitimate. However, we strongly note that civilians cannot and must not be legitimate targets of military resistance.

There are currently 5,200 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Of these prisoners, 33 are women and 170 are children. Many of them without having seen a trial or a lawyer. From the beginning of 2023 until the end of August 2023, the Israeli military killed more than 200 Palestinians. Among the dead are children and young people, such as 20-year-old Mahmoud Abu Sa'an or three-year-old Muhammad Haitham al Tamimi.In addition, there are permanent raids by the Israeli military in the West Bank, the closure of the Gaza Strip, which has been struggling for years with huge supply problems due to the Israeli blockade, illegal settlement construction by Israelis in the West Bank under the protection of the Israeli military and racist harassment and exclusion of Palestinians living in the occupied territories or Israel. Most recently, at the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli head of government Netanyahu showed a map on which Palestine simply did not exist and Israel was expanded accordingly.

The violence against and death of civilians is to be deplored and condemned. However, the violence does not originate in the Palestinian resistance, but is a reaction to the permanent and systematic violence of the Israeli occupation and oppression against the Palestinian people.

Lasting peace in Palestine and Israel is only possible if the Israeli occupation, settlement and expulsion policy is ended. The Party of Labour of Austria demands:

- End the Israeli settlement policy! No to expulsions and annexations!

- Withdrawal of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem!

- Withdrawal of the Israeli army from all occupied territories! End the siege and blockade of Gaza!

- Self-determination for the Palestinian people in their own state within the 1967 borders!

- Recognition of the Palestinian refugees' right of return!

- Full civil rights for the Arab population of Israel! An end to repression and discrimination!

- An end to Israeli attacks on Syrian and Lebanese territory!