Statement of the WPC regarding the presence of NATO in Palestine

Thursday, February 6, 2014

The World Peace Council expresses its serious concerns and worries about the recent discussion on a possible future presence of NATO troops (under United States leadership) in Palestine in order to “guarantee” and “supervise” the implementation of a “peace plan” between Palestine and Israel. The interviews by the President of the Palestinian National Authority and the PLO Mahmoud Abbas to Israeli and US Media in this regards, create many questions to peace loving forces and people around the world.

In the year when NATO is completing 65 years of crimes and aggressions against humanity and 15 years after the murderous aggression of NATO against the peoples of Yugoslavia and the creation of its protectorate in the Serbian province of Kosovo, in the year when the NATO occupation and military presence continues in Afghanistan and Iraq and new recent crimes have been committed against the peoples of Libya and Mali, we consider that NATO has never served or will serve in future, peace in any region of the world, especially in the Middle East where the imperialist plans for a “New Middle East” adopted by the USA, NATO and its allies are openly being applied. The presence of NATO in the Middle East would only serve the plans of US and its allies of guaranteeing their influence and domination over the region.

The World Peace Council expresses its support and solidarity to the Palestinian people for the end of the occupation by Israel and for the creation of an independent State of Palestine within the borders of June 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital. The “two-state solution” can not and will never be guaranteed by NATO, which constitutes the armed wing of imperialism and which is backing the Israeli occupation for decades now.

The WPC supported the efforts of the Palestinian people and its leadership to claim the legitimate recognition as full Member State at the UN and its bodies and does not agree at all with the replacement of the UN by NATO.

The WPC reaffirms its positions for the removal of the “Separation Wall” in the Palestinian West Bank, the lifting of the blockade on Gaza, the end of the occupation of the Syrian Golan heights and the Lebanese Shebaa Farms as well as the dismantlement of the Israeli settlements on Palestinian soil. The WPC demands the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails along with the right of the Palestinian refugees for the return to their homeland based on the UN Resolution 194.

A possible direct involvement of NATO in the region would only deteriorate the existing tensions and conflicts, creating only further negative consequences for the peoples of the Middle East and for Palestine itself.

NATO, enemy of the peoples and of peace! Out of the Middle East!

The Secretariat of the WPC
February 6, 2014