Human rights activists from Palestine, Israel, Europe, USA, Canada, South Africa and Australia, have issued a call to people in the diamond industry not to attend International Diamond Week in Israel in February.

Palestinian civil society organisations, groups and individuals working for justice and peace in the Middle East call upon people in the diamond industry not to attend the International Diamond Week in Israel February 10th-12th 2020.

On December 20th the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, concluded there is reasonable basis to believe Israeli forces committed war crimes during the 2014 assault on Gaza which resulted in the deaths of over 2250 people mainly civilian including over 550 children and also in relation to the transfer of Israeli civilians into the West Bank since 13 June 2014.

“The artist, Remy, installed reproductions of gruesome photographs from newspapers on a wall in the city’s historic district. The historic preservation board has ruled that the works must be removed within two weeks. About five years ago, a set of posters appeared on an adobe wall on the corner of Old Pecos Trail and Camino Lejo — an intersection that sits at the gateway to Santa Fe’s famed Museum Hill and is situated on one of the city’s main arteries. The signs were put up by a local organization called Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine, and depicted pro-Palestinian slogans and images, including images of Palestinian children who were killed during Operation Protective Edge, a 2014 military campaign by Israel Defense Forces in Gaza.”

“The producers of the game show “Jeopardy” broadcast a rare, uncorrected error on Friday, when a contestant mistakenly said that the Church of the Nativity, the site in Bethlehem believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus, was in Israel, but was awarded $200 for what millions of viewers were told was the right answer. Another contestant, Katie Needle, looked puzzled as the show then went to a commercial break. That’s because, moments earlier, Needle had offered the correct answer, “What is Palestine?” — putting her response in the form of a question in keeping with the show’s rules — only to be told that she was wrong, and had $200 deducted from her score.”

“When representatives of the Zionist State of Israel are asked by the media regarding what it is that Israel ultimately wants, the answer inevitably is that all they want is peace. All they want is a place where Jews can live in peace. Any half reasonable person would have to validate that answer as a good and decent thing for anyone to want, let alone a people who had just recently suffered the horrors of the Holocaust. But while that may be the reality so far as what the Zionist State wishes for it’s (Jewish) citizens, it is the way that they are going about reaching this goal that is so offensive to any reasonably minded person. If we unpack Israel’s desire for peace we find that this goal contains three basic goals within it.”