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This is the email that was sent out about the protest. I guess it's not just me that's not spotting the neo-lib agenda in this, which is from a group that *surprise surprise* wants the occupation to end...
1. MOSHE KATSAV – Why your presence is profoundly important at
Wednesday’s Rally!
Recent developments between Israeli and Palestinian leaders do give some
hope for a just and fair life for Palestinian people. However it would be
naive to be drawn into believing that a continuation of the recent
relative calm is all that is needed to ensure a peaceful future for
Palestinians and Israeli’s.
Reflecting on the reality that lasting and real peace requires justice,
Israel plans to disengage from Gaza and has received significant and
positive media attention for this planned action. However ‘disengagement’
will leave Palestinians with no control over water, electricity and gas.
Israel will continue to control the border, border crossings, airspace,
coastal waters and will exercise effective control over the economy.
Israel will retain the right for its military to enter the Gaza at will,
and will also continue to knock down houses in the future for so-called
security reasons. It currently plans to knock down 3000 homes in the
Rafah area alone, to create a ‘security moat’.
The price to be paid by Palestinian people for ‘disengagement’ is the
creation of an open-air prison, controlled by Israel, and the stealing of
more land in the West Bank to accommodate the 7,300 settlers removed from
Gaza. These are not realities that will create and build peace.
The recent suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, in which 4 civilians were
tragically killed, has drawn the attention of the world media and brought
threats of retaliation from Israeli leaders, for the Palestinian breaking
of the ceasefire. Yet the media has not reported the 5 Palestinians
killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces since 8 February. Their deaths do
not matter. The killing of Palestinians does not break the ‘ceasefire’.
These are killings of children throwing stones, of unarmed civilians, of a
man cut off from employment who attempted to cross the Apartheid Wall to
seek work on the other side, and what appears to be targeted assassination
after the Israeli policy of targeted assassination has supposedly been
discontinued. Allowing killing by the Israeli Occupation Forces to go
unrecognised and unpunished will not create the conditions required for
peace.
Often stealing the best farm land, the most valuable water resources; the
building of new settlements, the expansion of established settlements and
the construction of roads only able to be used by Israeli’s, continues
apace. Right now we see the construction of a new settlement on Jayyous
village land in Qalqiliya region. The new settlement is being built on
part of the 75% of Jayyous' land stolen by the building of the Apartheid
Wall. Also, expansion of the Alfei Menashe settlement will expropriate
more land from the villages of Habla and Ras Atiah, also in Qalqiliya
region. The massive expansion of the Betar Illit settlement in Bethlehem
district, is currently stealing Nahhalin village land. The expansion of
the Har Homa settlement, also near Bethlehem will squeeze up against
Palestinian towns and make natural growth impossible. Meanwhile,
Palestinians are denied permits to build homes and are cut off from their
land, their farms, schools, water and work by the Apartheid Wall. Do
these actions, that are continuing apace during this period of ‘ relative
calm’, demonstrate a commitment to building a long-lasting and real peace?
Despite the censure of the International Court of Justice, the building of
the Apartheid wall accelerates. The planned demolition of at least 85
Jerusalem-area Palestinian homes to make room for a gratuitously large
'security buffer' around the Wall is combined with the recently announced
decision to force East Jerusalem residents to acquire an Israeli permit in
order to visit the West Bank. This will be enforced after the Jerusalem
section of the illegal Annexation Wall is completed this summer and will
force thousands of East Jerusalemites either to break ties with their
friends, families and careers in the West Bank, or to abandon their homes
in Jerusalem. If choosing to give up their homes, these properties can
then be confiscated without compensation, according to absentee landlord
rulings made by the Israeli Government.
In the words of the editor of The Observer, "If the Palestinians were
black, Israel would be now a pariah state subject to economic sanctions
led by the United States. Its development and settlement of the West Bank
would be seen as a system of Apartheid, in which the indigenous population
was allowed to live in a tiny fraction of its own country, in
self-administered 'bantustans' with 'whites' monopolizing the supply of
water and electricity." Editorial, The Observer, London, October 15, 2000.
Israeli-based peace organizations such as Gush Shalom, Tayyush and The
Other Israel, US based peace organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace,
and Australian organizations such Australians for Justice and Peace in
Palestine, are working to draw attention to these realities.
WE NEED YOU TO COME TO THE RALLY OUTSIDE THE ISRAELI EMBASSY ON WEDNESDAY,
2 MARCH AT 12.30PM, TO DRAW ATTENTION TO THESE REALITIES AND PROTEST THE
VISIT OF PRESIDENT MOSHE KATSAV. WE NEED YOUR PRESENCE TO DRAW ATTENTION
TO THE REALITY OF PALESTINIAN LIFE UNDER THE CONTINUING OCCUPATION. BY
BEING THERE, YOU WILL DRAW ATTENTION TO THE ON-GOING OPPRESSION OF
PALESTINIAN PEOPLE, IMPOSED BY ISRAEL AND OFTEN UNREPORTED BY THE
MAINSTREAM MEDIA.
You don’t need to bring anything or say anything. You don’t need to do
anything other than be there between 12.30 and 1.30 at 6 Turrana St
Yarralumla, this Wednesday, March 2. If you can’t be there at 12.30,
please come at anytime up to around 1.30pm.
Speakers include Gregor Henderson of the Uniting Church of Australia, Kim
Bullimore of the International Women’s Peace Service, Peter Davidson of
the National Tertiary Education Union and Sue Wareham, President The
Medical Association for the Prevention of War.
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