CPM gifts Rs 1 cr to Palestine

JYOTI MALHOTRA

New Delhi, May 31, 2007 : The CPM is going where the Indian government has not gone for a long time, by sending a gift of one crore rupees to the people of Palestine.

CPM Politburo member and Rajya Sabha MP Sitaram Yechury is traveling to Israel and Palestine over the next week, where he will attend the 25th Congress of the Communist Party of Israel in Haifa and Nazareth and from there travel to Palestine.

Yechury will gift the cheque to the Palestinian Medical Relief Fund, a gesture from party workers from across India. It is believed that the RBI cleared the amount on the eve of Yechury’s visit.

This is the first time that Yechury is in Israel, although he has travelled to various party meetings across the world. Yechury will find that Israel’s feisty Communist party is as much against the policies of its own government on Palestine as the CPM is back home.

However, Israel is not new to the CPM, with none other than party stalwart having visited Jerusalem in 2000, to promote investment-related activities in West Bengal.

The CPM gesture comes at a time when India’s relations with Israel are getting better and better. Israel has overtaken Russia to become the top weapons supplier for India.

Besides, Yechury will also go to Jerusalem from June 2-4, where he will participate in an international peace meet that marks the 40th anniversary of the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The peace meeting is being organized jointly by the Israeli Communist Party and the Palestinian People’s Party. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas will also be present at this peace meeting, and Yechury is expected to meet him.

The participants will also be taken to the ``wall’’, actually a fence that weaves in and out of Palestinian territories separating it from Israel, and causing enormous hardship to Palestinians who must travel to different parts of the territories for work or even to simply go to school and college.

The theme of the peace conference is being termed the ``Jerusalem Initiative for Peace on the basis of two states : Israel and Palestine.’’ Party comrades from both states are hoping that all of next week will highlight the struggle to end Israeli occupation and establish and just and lasting peace between them.

ENDS