German, US activists urge pressure on Israel over Palestinian rights

Two well-known peace activists from Germany and the US called on Europe and America to increase their pressure on Israel over its inhuman treatment of Palestinians.

Reiner Braun of the German section of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and Joseph Gerson of the American Friends Service Committee stressed the need to cut western financial and military support for Israel as a result of its repressive policies towards Palestinians.

Israel would collapse, if there was no financial and material support by the US and Europe, Braun said. Braun urged the US and Europe to put added pressure on the hardline right-wing Israeli government.

Singling out Germany's unconditional support for Israel, the German peace activist said Berlin should stop its arms trade with the Israel as

long as the brutal treatment of the Palestinians was continuing.

Braun made clear Israel could never become a member of NATO as long as it is prolonging its cruel occupation of the Palestinian territories.

He lambasted Israel's construction of a so-called "security wall" which is running through the Palestinian territories. "A country that needs a wall will never survive," Braun said.

My statement has also been backed up historical facts, he went on

to say, alluding to the collapse of formerly communist East Germany

following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Meanwhile, Gerson emphasized also that the "biggest problem behind Israel" was US support. "A key element is US backing both military and also financial," he said.

Gerson who himself is a Jew, pointed to the crucial role of "the Zionist and Christian Right lobby" in promoting Israel's agenda within the US political system. He warned the "problems of European anti-Semitism" could not be resolved at the expense of the Palestinian nation. "We are now three generations from the Holocaust. When people in the Arab world are saying it is wrong for the problems of European anti-Semitism to be settled on the basis of the exploitation of Palestinians and destruction of Palestinian nation... They are right," Gerson said.

"It is important for Europeans with a conscience to condemn what

Israel is doing because it's wrong," he went on to say.