Pacific Elders’ Voice calls for reversal of Forum partnership with Israel

The Pacific Elders’ Voice has called for the Pacific Islands Forum to review and reverse its partnership agreement with Israel.

The group of former Pacific prime ministers, presidents and senior diplomats says the Forum’s decision to make Israel a sectoral partner conflicts with the region’s commitments to human rights, self-determination and international law.

In a statement, the Pacific Elders’ Voice (PEV) said the Forum’s decision raised questions about the consistency of the region’s positions on colonialism, human rights and self-determination.

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It cited the conflict in Gaza, illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and what it described as violations of international law, while also noting unresolved issues of political status and self-determination in the Pacific.

The PEV said the agreement to partner with Israel should be reversed to ensure the Forum’s external partnerships remain consistent with the region’s stated principles on peace, justice and respect for international law.

“The Pacific remains one of the only regions in the world with the largest number of peoples living under occupation — from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to Guam; from Kanaky New Caledonia to French Polynesia; and from West Papua to Bougainville.”

The Pacific Elders group said it had consistently supported decolonisation and self-determination in Kanaky and West Papua, as well as investigations by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Pacific Islands Forum into alleged serious human rights violations by France and Indonesia.

Israel’s ‘genocide .. . long history of offending’
“Given our principled positions on colonialism and human rights violations in the region, the PEV is perturbed with the Forum’s recent partnership with Israel, the state which has committed genocide in Gaza, and has a long history of offending against UN resolutions and international law.”

The Elders group echoed a range of Pacific Islands civil society groups in calling for the Forum’s partnership with Israel to be reviewed and reversed.

The group noted that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who has just faced an election in which his governing coalition bloc has failed to win a majority — and other Israeli leaders are considered to have committed war crimes, with arrest warrants in their name issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Members of the Pacific Elder’s Voice include former Pacific Forum Secretary-General Dame Meg Taylor, former Kiribati President Anote Tong; the former President of Palau Tommy E. Remengesau Jr; Robert Underwood — a former Guam delegate to the US House of Representatives and former President of the University of Guam; Tuvalu’s former prime minister Enele Sopoaga; former Fiji Foreign Minister and ambassador Kaliopate Tavola; and Konai Helu Thaman — Tongan academic and former professor at the University of the South Pacific.