The European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC), which brings together farmers' and agricultural workers' organisations at the European level, expresses its full support for the Flotillas sailing to Gaza and condemns the ongoing illegal kidnapping of its members by the Israeli authorities. These flotillas show us the way to global and active solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle to end the genocide and liberate themselves from the occupying power. The flotilla is accomplishing what our complicit governments are failing to do: breaking the illegal military blockade and helping a starving and bombed population.
As citizens from forty countries boarded around fifty vessels in mid-September to attempt to break the military siege that Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2007, ECVC joins La Via Campesina's declaration of solidarity. Through the participation of representatives from the Confédération Paysanne, the Arab and North African region (ArNA), and the Million Rural Women and Landless Women Association, the entire farmer movement is attempting to break the Israeli siege.
While Israel starves the population of Gaza by besieging it and targeting all infrastructure essential to life (maternity wards, bakeries, desalination plants, hospitals, etc.), the Flotilla is carrying humanitarian aid, including baby milk, medicines and medical equipment. This peaceful Flotilla is protected by international humanitarian law, as outlined in the Geneva Conventions, which require states to ensure its safe passage and security to the Gaza coast. Its interception by Israel, therefore, constitutes a war crime for which states must take concrete action. We welcome the clear initiative of the Colombian government to expel the delegation of Israeli diplomats.
Our Palestinian farmer comrades, represented by our sister organisation the UAWC, suffer, along with the entire Palestinian people, constant harassment and extreme violence. The progress of the colonial web is intrinsically linked to the dispossession of arable land, the monopolisation of water and the attack on the Palestinian seed and food system. In July, we denounced Israel's destruction of the Palestinian seed bank in Hebron and the uprooting of 10,000 olive trees in August. These episodes are part of a long list of attempts to destroy Palestine's identity and food autonomy, in line with the use of hunger as a Genocide weapon.
We call on European states to take real action to compel the State of Israel to end the genocide and colonial occupation of the West Bank. Far more than simple passivity, we denounce the active complicity of these governments and that of the European Union, which remains Israel's largest trading partner and second largest supplier of arms. It is incomprehensible that explicit action has not been taken to end this complicity: preventing genocide is an immutable obligation imposed by international law to which every state is subject.
We demand immediate sanctions against the Israeli state, with the implementation of an embargo on products originating from Israel and the immediate and total suspension of the EU-Israel agreement, Article 2 of which provides for its termination in the event of a breach of human rights and democratic principles by either party. We also call on everyone, farmers, consumers, small businesses and public authorities, to boycott products from Israel as long as the genocide and the denial of the Palestinian people's right to self-determination continue.
Finally, we call on trade unions and farmer social movements to come together in solidarity with the Palestinian people to have a tangible impact on the ongoing horrors. We fully support La Via Campesina's call to occupy ports, put pressure on the supply chains fuelling the war, and provide logistical and financial support for every solidarity action, foremost among them the Flotilla. In this regard, our Italian trade union and dockworker comrades serve as an exemplary model of solidarity.
When Israel starves and besieges Gaza, when the colonial stranglehold tightens in the West Bank, when our states become entangled in their complicity, let us stand together! The Flotilla is our dignity.
Long live the struggle of the Palestinian people!