Norwegian Lawyers Urge Sanctions on «Israel» for Violation of Int’l Law

By Staff, Agencies

A group of 44 lawyers, including award-winning luminaries and distinguished professionals such as Professor Jan Fridthjof Bernt, have called on Norway to impose sanctions on the “Israeli” entity for its violations of international law.

The petition called “Defend international law” was published by the newspaper Dagsavisen.

The “Israeli” entity has annexed East al-Quds [Jerusalem] and the Syrian Golan Heights and has announced the annexation of the Jordan Valley – without having any major consequences, the petition stressed.

Between March 2018 and September 2019 alone, the lawyers emphasized, 309 Palestinians who have participated in protest marches along the Gaza Strip border were killed. In the past year alone, 56 Palestinian children were martyred by “Israeli” forces, again without any repercussions, including from Norway. The number of Palestinians who have died at the hands of the entity is comparable to the number of murders in the country: 103 people were victims of homicide in 2018, compared with 136 in 2017, according to the local media. For comparison's sake, police in the US, which is better known for police killings, fatally shot approximately one person for every 19 murder victims in 2017.

“Norwegian authorities and politicians must restore respect for international law and work to ensure that ‘Israel's’ long-standing and systematic breaches of international driving rules are met with sanctions”, the petition said.

The authors of the petition stressed that the absence of an international reaction to the entity’s violation of international law, human rights and humanitarian law raises concerns.

“While ‘Israel's’ serious and persistent violations are only verbally criticized, other countries that violate international law are exposed to reactions from the international community through concrete actions and sanctions”, the petition said.

On the contrary, “Israel” is the only entity in the world to have been granted a special status in the Norwegian government's Granavolden platform that allows Oslo to “facilitate enhanced research and development cooperation, trade, tourism and cultural exchange with ‘Israel’”.

“This attitude taken by the Norwegian authorities against serious violations of basic humanitarian and international law principles helps legitimize ‘Israel's’ policy based on the occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, and the collective punishment of Palestinians on the Gaza Strip,” the petition said.

According to lawyer Kjell Brygfjeld, one of the signatories, there are plenty of sanctions Norway could impose on the “Israeli” entity.

“We are already involved in sanctions against Russia, Venezuela, Iran and a number of other countries. All countries should be treated in the same way and with the same severity for violations of international law. We must not make a difference between those we like and those we do not like,” Brygfjeld told the newspaper Klassekampen.

According to him, the Norwegian government has chosen an opposite strategy, where efforts to boost relations are made despite the fact that some Norwegian residents have been denied entry to “Israel”.

Earlier this week, Oslo’s newly installed “red-green” City Council led by three left-of-the-center parties, the Socialist Left, Labor and the Greens, announced it was contemplating a ban on the municipality's procurement of goods and services from “Israeli” settlements, which it called “an area occupied in violation of international law”.

However, State Secretary Audun Halvorsen of the Conservative Party said he doesn't believe sanctions are the way to go. He also stressed that Norway expressed concern over “Israeli” authorities' excessive use of force and human rights violations, “when there are grounds for doing so”.