Palestinian delegation visits India to activate support

A delegation from the Palestinians Abroad Conference visited India last week in order to activate popular support for the Palestinian cause.

A member of the Conference General Secretariat told Quds Press that India represents a generous store of political, popular and human rights support for the Palestinian people in their resistance against the Israeli occupation.

“The Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular have moved away from the Indian arena in recent decades and this vacuum has, unfortunately, been filled by Israel,” explained Bashar Shalabi. “We have held several meetings with former Indian officials, current parliamentarians, journalists and experts in strategic studies centres, as well as academics, and noted the extent of their preoccupation with the Palestinian issue, and their conviction that this is a national liberation battle.” He pointed out that the Indian officials had also noticed the lack of visits by Palestinian officials in recent years.

“The sympathy that we sensed with the Palestinian cause requires us to take further actions to explain the Palestinian position and inform the Indian officials and political elites about the violations by the Israeli occupation and its racist policies,” Shalabi added.

Read: Why do Israel and Palestine matter equally to Indian diplomacy?

India was the first non-Arab country to recognise the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988. It was also among more than 120 countries which voted in favour of a draft resolution in December 2017 calling on the United States to cancel the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The Palestinians Abroad Conference was launched in Istanbul, Turkey, in February last year. More than six million Palestinians live in the diaspora, most of them as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Gulf States.