Here are excerpts from the intervention that was delivered by Hanna Amireh in the panel debate which was held in Jerusalem in the 26th of August 2004. The main speaker in the debate was Dr. Arun Ghandhi the grandson of the Mahatma Gaundhi who visited Palestine between the 25th and the 30th of August, in a peaceful mission organized by the Palestinian campaign for freedom and peace. Also participated in this debate the Israeli peace activist Sholameet Alooni.
ONCE again, allow me on your behalf to welcome our honorable guest Dr. Arun Ghandhi, the grandson of the Great Leader Mahatma Ghandhi. I also would like to take this opportunity to extend to our guest the warmest greetings. We also express our gratitude to the initiators who organized this visit namely the Palestinian Campaign for Freedom and Peace that exerted tremendous efforts to make this visit succeed.
As you all know, this visit carries an inspiring and challenging message to show solidarity with the Palestinian people in the campaign against the occupation wall - the wall of annexation and apartheid.
We also believe that the timing of the visit gains more importance, especially that it comes directly after two important events:
First: the decision of the International Court of Justice at The Hague against the wall on July 9, 2004;
Second: the issuing of UN General Assembly resolution which adopted the decision of the ICJ on July 20, 2004.
Those who suffered the calamities of the apartheid system in South Africa can realize and comprehend the sufferings of the Palestinian people as a result of the policy of occupation and racial discrimination and the meanings of the apartheid and occupation wall which is dividing our homeland into cantons and detention camps and which is swallowing up more than half of our lands.
This solidarity visit from Dr. Arun Ghandi, who is an important, influential, and international figure, comes one month after those two events. The visit comes as an important and quality step in the field of implementing the decisions and resolutions of The Hague and the UN. It also comes in the context of activities geared to mobilize international solidarity with the Palestinian popular campaign against the wall. Thus, this visit by our great guest gains historical importance and the Palestinian people will remember this visit as a visit with a noble purpose to highlight and raise the voice of righteousness and justice in light of the negative international conditions after the September 11 events in the US and under difficult regional conditions with winds of war and violence blowing from all sides. Those who suffered the calamities of the apartheid system in South Africa can realize and comprehend the sufferings of the Palestinian people as a result of the policy of occupation and racial discrimination and the meanings of the apartheid and occupation wall which is dividing our homeland into cantons and detention camps and which is swallowing up more than half of our lands.
The so-called unilateral plan of Israeli PM Sharon aims to destroy the components and pillars of the Palestinian state and wipe out the dream of the Palestinian people on their homeland and reinforce the control of the military and settlement occupation indefinitely. The plan also aims to cancel any just solution for the Palestinian refugees cause. Moreover, the government of Israel uses all violence tools to impose these policies and to find an alternative Palestinian leadership that it accepts.
We do not separate between the violent occupation methods (that are being used against our people) and the illegitimate political goals that they want to impose on us. To say that Israel uses those methods to maintain its security is groundless. The bare fact is that Israel wants to keep the security of its occupation and control over another people. The wall is inside our lands and not on our borders. The settlements are built on our occupied lands and around our cities and villages. The Israeli army exercises its activities inside our residential areas therefore, we say that the Israeli acts are not security oriented but acts of expansion, collective punishment, the imposition of new facts on the ground, ethnic cleansing, humiliation exercised against our people at more than 750 military checkpoints spread all over the roads and inside the Palestinian internal areas, etc. In brief, Israel is committing systemic damaging to the pillars of the independent Palestinian entity.
We in the PLO launched the peace initiative in 1988 and supported the principle of two states for two peoples. We saw that the path of negotiations is the means to achieve concrete and practical results and that we want a negotiable political solution that ends the conflict and implements the international legitimacy resolutions.
We all realize that military and violence-based solutions do not know any boundaries. Thus, we in the PLO launched the peace initiative in 1988 and supported the principle of two states for two peoples. We saw that the path of negotiations is the means to achieve concrete and practical results and that we want a negotiable political solution that ends the conflict and implements the international legitimacy resolutions.
We still cling to those principles despite the events in the past three years the principles of a just solution based on negotiations, partnership, respect of international legitimacy resolutions and not the unilateral solution that violates the basic principles of democracy and partnership.
Therefore, we demand respect for the will of the Palestinian people who chose their leadership through elections as a first step and not to impose a siege on this leadership, especially President Yasser Arafat, and marginalize and boycott this leadership.
If Israel and the US do not want to deal with the current leadership, let them prepare the ground for holding new general elections in the Palestinian territories and after they make a promise that they will respect the results of those elections and provide the appropriate atmosphere for holding those elections.
But what we witness now is a weird position. Israel and the US reject the current Palestinian leadership and refuse to allow the holding of new elections at the same time.
Yet, they demand democracy and reform and we have the right to wonder about what kind of democracy and reform are they talking about?
It is the democracy of the wall and the unilateral solution… this is not democracy but occupation, violence and destruction.
We are looking forward to the visit of our great guest and his solidarity with our people and hope for the solidarity of all peace-loving forces in the world towards supporting our struggle to end occupation.
We are looking forward to a Palestinian Stayagraha in spite of the fact that Palestine might not be ready yet for that. We have to start with our first steps on that path because we believe that the way of Mahatma Gandhi should find an abiding place in the Palestinian struggle for freedom.
The struggle of Mahatma Gandhi for the liberation of India constituted one of the major inspiration factors for the struggle of our people and we hope that the visit of his grandson and disciple of Mahatma Gandhi will reinforce this trend.
Let us dedicate our lives to creating a peaceful, respectful and understanding world.
Let us challenge injustice with peaceful solutions.
