The Israeli Communist Forum calls for an immediate cessation to the construction of the so-called "Separation Fence". In reality, this fence is aimed at perpetuating Israeli rule over the great majority of the Occupied Territories and preserving most of the colonialist settlements created in these territories. For the sake of this fence, many further lands are confiscated from the Palestinian inhabitants, and many new and severe restrictions placed on the daily life of the inhabitants. The building of the "Separation Fence" is causing a further exacerbation of the situation in the region and an increase of the bloodshed. The only necessary separation is the separation the occupying Israeli army from the Occupied Territories and its withdrawal to the borders of June 1967. Only this kind of separation would make it possible to break the cycle of bloodshed and reach a just peace between the State of Israel and an independent Palestinian state which will arise in the West Bank, including East-Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, alongside Israel.

The Israeli Communist Forum condemns the renewed threats of the government of Israel to remove the elected Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Senior ministers in the government even threatened explicitly with assassination. We strongly condemn these threats and warn of disastrous results if there will be any attempt to implement them. We also condemn all the attempts to define for the Palestinian people its leadership and to impose on it from the outside political dictates, thus harming Palestinian sovereignty and the basic interest of the Palestinian people.

The Israeli Communist Forum condemns the attack carried out by Israel on Syrian territory a few days ago, which constitutes a new stage in the aggressive and warmongering policies of the government of Israel - a policy which threatens to drown in blood the entire region. The attack on Syrian territory was escalation planned long ago - with the terrorist act in Haifa nothing but a pretext for carrying it out. We condemn the suicide bombing in the Haifa restaurant in which were targeted many innocent civilians, Jewish and Arab. This kind of attack severely damages the just cause of the Palestinians and serves the Sharon government. Nevertheless, the more fundamental source of the bloodshed was and remains the Israeli occupation and the lethal campaign of oppression carried out by the occupation authorities against the Palestinian-Arab people.

The Israeli Communist Forum condemns the United States for the backing it gives to the new threats of the Israeli government. The United States is also backing the ongoing committing of crimes in the Occupied Territories, among them the continuation of the campaign of assassinating Palestinian leaders which entails many innocent civilian victims, well as the continued confiscation of land and the accelerated building of settlements. All that, in addition to the closures, sieges, humiliations at checkpoints and all the other "routine" ways of mistreating the Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories.

The Israeli Communist Forum welcomes the increase in protest actions against the policies of the Sharon government, such as the demonstration by thousands which took place recently in Tel-Aviv, and the string of protest vigils and solidarity actions in the Occupied Territories.

We express our special appreciation for all conscripts and reserve soldiers who refuse to take part in the criminal act of oppression and killing in the Occupied Territories. We note the special importance of the completely unprecedented letter by pilots and Air Force staff in which they announce their refusal to undertake any further action causing the death of innocents, and call for an end to the occupation. The letter of the Air Force officers aroused an enormous controversy and put once again on the public agenda the crimes committed in the Occupied Territories, and in particular the outrageous harming of many innocent civilians in the course of the so-called "targeted killings".

The Israeli Communist Forum calls for continuation and acceleration of the protest actions against the crimes committed in the Occupied Territories and the actions demanding  withdrawal of these territories. We also call for increase of the protests against the anti-democratic policy of the government, which is systematically undermining the basic rights of the citizens of  Israel, in particular those of Israel's Arab citizens, and recently even curtailing the right of workers to conduct struggles.

We express solidarity with the public sector workers and with all workers who strike and protest against the unprecedently severe economic measures which the Sharon government enacts against workers and against all economically weak layers of society. In these days we express our special solidarity with the port workers who are on strike against government plans to privatize the ports and lay off many of the workers.

We denounce the severe anti-democratic measures which the government is implementing against the port workers, including the threat to use the ports of Egypt and Jordan to bypass the Israeli ports and in that way - to break the strike. All of the above is highlighting the long-standing attempt to break organized labor and the trade-unions in Israel, thereby denying the workers any possibility of conducting struggles in defense of their rights. We call upon the World Federation of Trade Unions and the unions in the neighboring countries to take no part in breaking the struggle of the Israeli port workers. We welcome the decisions already taken along these lines in Egypt and Jordan.

We call for increasing the protests against the government in Israel and all over the world, and for continuation of the actions of solidarity with the Palestinian people, with the peace forces and workers and with anybody in Israel who is struggling against the criminal policy of the present Israeli government.