Ashrawi calls on EBU to respect Palestinian people's rights

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi called on Friday upon the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) “to respect the Palestinian people's rights and to not broadcast any Eurovision Song Contest events in Israel's illegal settlements.”

She said in a press release, “Giving Israel the privilege of hosting the 2019 Eurovision amounts to rewarding it for and helping it to conceal its decades-old military occupation and grave violations of Palestinian national and human rights.  At the very least, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) must ensure that Israel's illegal settlements throughout the occupied Palestinian territory are strictly excluded from any broadcast of the Eurovision activities.”

Ashrawi demanded on behalf of the PLO that “the EBU oblige all of its members and associate members, especially Israel's public broadcaster Kan, to not broadcast any Eurovision Song Contest events in Israel's illegal settlements, including those in occupied East Jerusalem.”

“This is the minimum that the EBU must do to be in compliance with the obligations of non-state actors, including businesses and organizations, under international law and European policy, particularly given the unprecedented escalation of Israel's unlawful unilateralism and criminal behavior,” she remarked.

The PLO official stressed that the recently adopted 'Jewish Nation-State' law “has given Israel license to apartheid, discrimination and ethnic cleansing at the expense of the Palestinian people. Such racist and prejudicial legislation is illegal by all standards of international law, democracy, humanity, justice, tolerance, and inclusion.”

“The EBU has an obligation to ensure that it does not provide a platform for the legitimization and/or normalization of the illegal system of colonization in Palestine. The EBU must also understand that it is legally accountable to the act of profiteering from this illegal system of colonization, directly or indirectly.”

She concluded by reiterating the call “to the EBU to respect the Palestinian people's rights, as recognized by the multilateral legal and political system, and to comply with its moral and legal obligations not to support, directly or indirectly, any violations of international law.”