Whereas, on October 3, 2017, Mustafa Afalqa, father of Iyad Afalqa, chair of the California Democratic Party’s Arab-American Caucus, was brutally and senselessly attacked and wounded by the Israeli military. Mr. Afalqa, a 69-year-old Palestinian man, went to attend to his horses at his home in the Palestinian town of Beit Surik, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, when he encountered four members of the a special forces unit, dressed in plain clothes, hiding near his horses, who proceeded to pistol whip him and leave him with his injuries;
Whereas, the attack on Mr. Afalqa falls within the systematic pattern of gross human rights violations perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people, which has been documented and condemned by UN human rights bodies and international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as the Israeli human rights groups Yesh Din and B’Tselem, among others, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel; and
Whereas, the California Democratic Party has previously issued resolutions calling on the United States to work through the United Nations and other international bodies for a just peace based on full equality and security for Israeli Jews and Palestinians alike, and on human rights and international law
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the undersigned members of the California Democratic Party Central Committee, express our outrage at the savage treatment of Mr. Mustafa Afalqa and his family, condemn the attack on Mr. Afalqa by the Israeli Army and call on the government of Israel to immediately cease its attacks upon the Palestinian population and all violations of human rights and international law. We further call upon the United States government to suspend all military aid to Israel until it ends its 50-year occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and ends the 10-year, strangling blockade of the Gaza Strip.
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