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Green MEP supports boycott campaigns on goods made in illegal settlements

April 16, 2015 at 1:04 pm

The Green Party’s 2015 manifesto states that Green MEP Keith Taylor has called for an end to detaining Palestinians without charge, has supported boycott campaigns on recognition of Palestine and campaigned for the recognition of Palestine.

On the Arab-Israeli conflict the manifesto states: “We seek a just, sustainable and peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, based on mutual recognition of the rights to independent statehood for Palestinians and Israelis. We condemn human rights violations by both parties and the oppression and disproportionate use of aggression by the Israeli government against the people of Gaza. We seek to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement.”

The Greens pledge to outlaw the use of torture and the rendition of people to countries where torture is not prohibited, seek negotiated settlements to a range of conflicts around the world and block sales of weapons and military equipment that cause misery and death for non-combatants.

On terrorism the Green Party will: “take proportionate measures to protect against terrorism, ensuring that civil liberties are not undermined in the process, that communities are not scapegoated and that action reflects a genuine assessment of the threat to our security. We need targeted policing and security services activities, not mass surveillance, prisons that rehabilitate those convicted of terrorism offences and effective programmes to prevent radicalisation and to deradicalise individuals.”

In the same way the Greens opposed military interventions in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, they will oppose future interventions that lack a sufficient moral, legal and democratic mandate. Instead they will advocate regional solutions to the conflict with the UK leading diplomatic, economic and political solutions to terrorist threats.

Military intervention has undermined our national and international security which have “brought havoc” on Iraq and Libya and increased the threat of terrorism in the UK.

“If we didn’t depend on oil from the Middle East, we wouldn’t need to invent reasons to go to war there when supply lines are threatened. If we weren’t involved in wars in the Middle East, terrorism here would lose its raison d’etre,” says the manifesto.

The Greens pledge to offer humanitarian support to the millions of refugees displaced by such conflicts, condemn state-sanctioned breaches of human rights by countries including Syria and advocate the use of sanctions and legal action via the International Criminal Court.