The statistics provided by Israel to the OECD’s committees have no reference to the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the almost four million Palestinians who live there – accepting Israel into the OECD would therefore constitute complicity with the Israeli human rights’ abuses and is thus a violation of European law.
Any ascendant state to the OECD must provide the organization with data proving and clarifying its social-economic situation. The data provided by Israel includes the Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territories it has occupied since 1967 but bluntly ignores the Palestinian population who lives there, whose national and human rights Israel grossly violates. This data pertaining to Israel’s occupation would paint Israel’s economic and social status in a very different light and could move Israel, in terms of economics, from the developed world to the developing world. Such data would also show Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian economy and quality of life.
A confidential document released at http://cryptome.org/israel-oecd.zip reveals that the statistics committees of the OECD know that Israel has not provided the necessary data, but have decided to postpone the demand for this data to after Israel has been accepted into the organisation. Such a demand would be meaningless since after becoming an OECD member, Israel would be able to veto any further requests to provide such data. Accepting Israel into the OECD would therefore be complicit with Israel’s ongoing discrimination and human rights violations against the Palestinian population in the occupied territories. Such a move is in contradiction with the European law prohibiting EU members from recognizing the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation.
More details on the subject are available by contacting the Alternative Information Center (AIC). It is possible to interview the AIC economist Shir Hever.
Contact –
Uri Yacobi Keller
uri.y.k.aic[at]gmail.com
+972 545 498 315
