PASSOP welcomes and appreciates the significant and moral steps taken by the South African based human rights organization Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), who made the decision to withdraw its participation from the International Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS) conference to be hosted in Israel. 

 

CSVR reflected on the significance of the INoGS conference location - the location being the Israeli occupied East Jerusalem and at an Israeli institution that has operations in an illegal Israeli settlement and in association with Israeli educational institutions that are funded by the Israeli state and are complicit in violations of human rights and international law. 

It is intolerable that a human rights conference is hosted in such an oppressive and unjust location, that denies basic human rights, and thus they acted on their conscience and upon appeals made by organizations such as Boycott Divestment Sanctions South Africa (BDSSA). 

 

However, it has been increasingly understood the importance of small yet significant principled decisions.  The collective of civil societies in South Africa and across the world is realizing that while major corporations and governments are beginning to withdraw their involvement in Israel over their illegal settlements and occupation of the Palestinian Territories, we too can have a strong impact.  We must impress upon conference organizers that we will not participate in any event or activity that through its content or location legitimizes the Apartheid state of Israel. 

PASSOP appreciates not being invited to any events or conferences in Israel, as it exemplifies our continued fight for human rights as we stand firm in our beliefs on an equal society. 

 

Furthermore, we want to affirm that we never accept an offer, and if we did, it would only be to decline at the eleventh hour showing our distain and ceremoniously rejecting the invitation. PASSOP has joined the growing global outcry against the ongoing abuse of Palestinians, immigrants, and refugees in Israel. As an organization, we will never send a representative to Israel until its government respect human rights. 

 

During world refugee week, we call upon more organizations to publicly state that they will not support any country whose government not only is guilty of Apartheid, but a country which has built the world’s biggest deportation center and whose leadership (in light of horrific xenophobic violence in Israel) has been quoted saying as say “African immigrants are a cancer to the body.”