The signing of a memorandum of cooperation between the Parliament of Montenegro and the Israeli Knesset represents a political provocation and a deep moral compromise of an institution that should be the guardian of international and human rights, the Palestine Solidarity Movement announced.
They condemned the signing of the document "at a time when the State of Israel continues to carry out mass killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including children, while simultaneously intensifying a systemic campaign of ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem."
"For more than two years, the citizens of Montenegro and the civil sector, through mass protests, public appeals, initiatives and petitions, have consistently and clearly demanded the cessation of all institutional cooperation with the state of Israel and the submission to the parliamentary procedure of a Resolution condemning the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. Despite this, the Parliament of Montenegro chooses to ignore the voice of citizens and their demands and take the opposite path," the statement reads.
Instead of respecting the clearly expressed will of the citizens, as they said, we are witnessing a process in which cooperation with Israel is deepening, while politically rewarding a regime that is the subject of proceedings before the International Court of Justice for violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
Such behavior, they say, represents an open renunciation of the values on which Montenegrin parliamentarism should be based.
"Israeli war crimes perpetrators must be held accountable and bear the consequences for their actions, instead of being rewarded with political and institutional cooperation. The Parliament of Montenegro and its President, by deepening relations with Israel, are giving the green light for further violations of international law and actively contributing to Israeli impunity," the Palestine Solidarity Movement added.
They said that "the normalization of genocide and war crimes committed by Israel" poses a direct threat to global security, peace and the very foundations of international law.
"The Parliament of Montenegro, instead of protecting human rights and the principles on which the modern international order is founded, chooses the path of political collaboration with the Israeli state regime that carries out the systematic killing of civilians, the bombing of children, the collective punishment of the Palestinian people, ethnic cleansing and open violation of international humanitarian law, a regime that ignores the decisions of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice and that builds its policy on impunity, military occupation and institutional violence," the statement reads.
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