Your Excellency Secretary General
Mr, Antonio Guterres,

On the 22nd anniversary of UNSC Resolution 1325 and the annual open discussion at the Security Council for the advancement of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, the Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition for the Implementation of UNSC Resolution 1325 would like to bring your attention to the fact that the suffering of Palestinian women living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) has unprecedentedly escalated since this resolution was passed, due to the Israeli occupation’s ongoing, hostile policies, systematic violations of human rights and grave breaches of international humanitarian law that are disproportionally impacting women and girls in the OPT. These violations include extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, restriction on movement, military blockades, house demolitions, land confiscation and illegal de-facto and de-juri annexation, in addition to the ongoing isolation of areas of the OPT from one another. This has had both individual and collective impact on the lives of women, impeding their access to resources, compounded by the deteriorating economic situation due to the occupation’s control and dominance over land and resources. Added to this is the rise in poverty levels due to unemployment, military blockade on the Gaza Strip for over 15 years and the occupation’s exercise of systematic long-term violence against the Palestinian protected population in the OPT, settlement expansion combined with settlers’ violence and vandalism

The Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition strongly believes that 22 years since the passage of UNSC Resolution 1325 has not resulted in concrete measures for the advancement of the women, peace and security agenda to Palestinian women living under Israeli prolonged military occupation. A lot still need yet to be made by the Security Council to maintain peace and security for Palestinian women living under military occupation. To the contrary, complications and challenges to Palestinian women have increased in terms of implementing the WPS agenda, due to Israeli impediments to its implementation. Israel, the occupying power, has also placed enormous obstacles before Palestinian women who seek to implement this resolution, given its continued occupation of the OPT and the absence of a just and durable solution to end this prolonged belligerent occupation. No concrete measures were taken by the international community to implement UN resolutions related to the question of Palestine, namely UN Resolutions 242, 338, 194 and 2334. Instead, Israel is intent on confiscating and annexing more land to build settlements, which has severed any path to the establishment of an independent and contiguous Palestinian state. Instead, OPT has been transformed into isolated islands more like the Bantustans of apartheid South Africa, as indicated in the most recent evidence based-report by Amnesty International, describing Israel as an apartheid regime, where one racial group is discriminating against other racial groups.

The Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition, would also like to point out to the remarkable conclusions of a UN independent Commission of Inquiry (CoI) in its recent to the UN General Assembly in New York on 20/10/2022, which considered the Israeli occupation as unlawful according to international law. The report called on the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice for an urgent advisory opinion on the illegality of this prolonged military occupation, and the impacts of the Israeli illegal measures and violations against the Palestinian civilian population in the 1967 OPT.

Your Excellency UN Secretary General,

As the UNSC is meeting to discuss the advancement of the WPS agenda, we would like to draw to their attention the double standards employed by the United Nations in dealing with its own resolutions, especially when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the practices of Israel, the occupying power against Palestinian civilian population. Israeli illegal policies in the OPT , has not only curtailed Resolution 1325 from guaranteeing protection for women and involving her in security and peacemaking, it has also thwarted all international tools and mechanisms for the protection of civilians in times of war and under occupation. This is due to the failure of the international human rights and humanitarian law especially the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protections of Civilians at time of War and under occupation. The reason for this is that the UN itself is discriminatory and has double standards in its handling conflicts, and peoples’ causes due to the huge imbalance in justice and the policy of impunity, which Israeli, the occupying power enjoys. These policies have allowed Israel to escape from accountability or any punitive measures in accordance to UN Charter and more specifically Article 11 of UNSC Resolution 1325, which demands that perpetrators of crimes and violations during war are not afforded impunity. The fact that Israel is treated as a country above the law, and the absence of any form of accountability has only encouraged it to commit more crimes and violations. A case in point is the recent murdering of Palestinian Journalist Shirine Abu Akleh, where no one has been held accountable thus far, although the incident was caught on tape and there is hard evidence proving that her death was the result of premeditated and extrajudicial killing by the Israeli army.

During its evaluation and review of its action plan, the Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition noted that Resolution 1325 and the nine subsequent resolutions, pinpointed the reasons for the outbreak and development of conflicts in various regions of the world to racial, religious and ethnic disputes. However, it excluded women under racist, colonialist occupation, which is the case of Palestinian women under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including occupied East Jerusalem. Thus, it has disregarded all international resolutions pertaining to the rights of the Palestinian people, over and above Israel’s disregard for its responsibilities as an occupying power. This necessitates a special resolution addressing the status of Palestinian women under racist, colonialist occupation, and addressing the root causes of the suffering of Palestinian women and the major obstacle they face in meaningful political participation, and in moving forward in the advancement of the women, peace and security agenda.

Mr. Secretary General,

Finally, we in the Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition for the implementation of Resolution 1325, thank your Excellency for your understanding, and for conveying our concerns to all nation states during the open debate on WPS in the Security Council this year. We call on you to dedicate ample attention to the status of Palestinian women during the 22nd Security Council meeting on Resolution 1325, with the objective to develop and push forth the WPS agenda and put into action the role of international tools of accountability. We ask you to provide the necessary protection for Palestinian women under occupation, by closely overseeing the implementation of this resolution and the party responsible for impeding its application on the ground, namely, the Israeli occupying power that has exacerbated the suffering of Palestinian women at all levels and increased discriminatory measures against them.

With our sincere thanks and appreciation,
The Palestinian Women’s Civil Coalition for the Implementation of UNSCR1325

Mr. President, Esteemed Members of the Security Council,

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to address you today, especially thankful to H.E. Ambassador Macharia Kamau, Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary and the Republic of Kenya for the kind invitation.

For over 70 years, the UN and its various bodies have been seized of the Palestine question; repeatedly reviewing conditions, adopting resolutions, and dispatching fact-finding missions, to no avail. Sadly, this Council has been unable to assert authority, allowing this injustice to become a perpetual tragic human, moral, political and legal travesty.

So it would be disingenuous of me to come before you assuming I could inform you of something you do not already know. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the opportunity to communicate in a candid manner, not to recite endless statistics, nor to reiterate the ongoing pain of a people, deprived of their basic rights, including even the right to speak out, admonished not to “whine” or “complain,” as a means of silencing the victim.

The tragedy is that you know all of this; yet, it has had a minimal impact, if any, on the horrific conditions in Occupied Palestine.

I imagine it must be disheartening and frustrating for this distinguished organization and its members to find themselves trapped in this cycle of deliberate disdain and futility.

It is therefore imperative that this Council consider where it has gone wrong and what it can do to correct course and serve the cause of justice and peace.

Undoubtedly, the absence of accountability for Israel and of protection for the Palestinian people has enabled Israeli impunity to ride roughshod over the rights of an entire nation, allowing for perpetuation of a permanent settler-colonial occupation.

Mr. President,

Much of the prevailing political discourse overlooks reality and is diverted and subsumed by chimeras and distractions proffered by Israel and its allies under such banners as “economic peace,” “improving the quality of life,” “normalization,” “managing the conflict,” “containing the conflict,” or “shrinking the conflict.”

These fallacies must be dismantled. Volatile situations of injustice and oppression do not shrink. They expand and explode, with disastrous consequences. Similarly, the delusion of “imposing calm” under siege and systemic aggression, particularly as in Gaza, is an oxymoron, for calm or security on the one hand and occupation or captivity on the other are antithetical and irreconcilable.

Likewise, the fallacy of “confidence-building measures” is misguided since occupation breeds only contempt, distrust, resentment, and resistance. The oppressed cannot be brought to trust or accept handouts from their oppressor as an alternative to their right to freedom and justice.

The misleading and flawed “both sides” argument calling for “balance” in a flagrantly unbalanced situation is another attempt at obfuscation and generating misconceptions.

Israel’s impunity is further enhanced using such excuses as being the so-called “only democracy in the Middle East” or a “strategic ally,” or having “shared values,” or even for the sake of protecting its “fragile coalition.”

There has also been tacit and, at times overt, acceptance of Israel’s ideological, absolutist arguments, including the invocation of religious texts as a means to dismiss and supplant contemporary political and legal discourse and action. Hence, the so-called “Jewish State Law,” which allocates the right to self-determination exclusively to Jews in all of historic Palestine, is endorsed and normalized.

In the meantime, a massive disinformation machine persists in its racist maligning and demonizing of the Palestinian people, going so far as to label them “terrorists,” or a “demographic threat,” a dehumanizing formula exploited as a way to deny the right of millions of Palestine refugees to return.

Such slander has warped political focus and discourse globally. Some states have gone off on a tangent pursuing Palestinian textbooks for so-called “incitement,” or adopting the IHRA definition that conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, or criminalizing BDS, or intimidating and censoring academics and solidarity activists who stand up for Palestinian rights.

These distortions ignore the unequal and unjust laws designed to persecute Palestinians, individually and collectively. It is evidenced in the defamation of our political prisoners and the targeting of their families’ livelihoods, as though Israeli military courts or prison systems have anything to do with justice or legality.

The mindless refrain that Israel has the “right to defend itself,” while the Palestinian people are denied such a right, is perverse in that the occupier’s violence is justified as “self-defense” while the occupied are stigmatized as “terrorists.”

We cannot afford to disregard the context of occupation and its systemic aggression as the framing device for all critical assessments and action.

Excellencies,

Occupied Palestine, including Jerusalem, is the target of a comprehensive and pervasive policy of colonization and erasure, of displacement and replacement, in which Israel is appropriating everything Palestinian; our land and resources; our cultural and human heritage; our archeological sites, which we have safeguarded for centuries; our history; our cuisine; the names of our streets; and most egregiously the identity of Jerusalem, as we witness in the ethnic cleansing of the Old City, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan among others. Even our cemeteries have been desecrated such as the building of a so-called “museum of tolerance” on top of human remains in Maman’ Allah cemetery. And, Israel continues to stoke the flames of a “holy war,” with repeated assaults on our holy sites, particularly Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Jerusalem is being targeted in a deliberate campaign of annexation and distortion. Israel now brazenly declares its intent to complete the settlement siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the territorial contiguity of the West Bank, with its outrageous plans for E-1, Qalandiya airport (Atarot), “Pisgat Ze’ev” and “Giv’at HaMatos.”

We cannot be distracted by symbolic gestures that create a false impression of progress. Claims that the “time is not right,” or that it is “difficult now” to work for a peaceful solution, give license to Israel to persist in its perilous policies. Likewise, repeating a verbal commitment to the two-State solution, while one state is allowed to deliberately destroy the other, rings hollow.

Mr. President,

All of this does not preclude our recognition of our own shortcomings. We do not shirk our responsibility to speak out against internal violence, human rights abuses, corruption, or other such practices that are rejected and resented by our own people. It is our responsibility to carry out democratic reform and revitalize our body politic while ending our internal divisions. This is a Palestinian imperative.

But we must caution others against exploiting our shortcomings to justify Israeli crimes or international inaction, or to condition any positive engagement on the creation of an ideal system of governance in Palestine while we languish under a lawless system of Israeli control.

We ask that you, trustees of the rules-based order, uphold your responsibilities: provide us with protection from aggression and empower our people to amplify their voice, both in governance and liberation.

Esteemed Members of the Council,

Peace is not achieved by “normalizing the occupation,” sidelining the Palestine Question, or rewarding Israel by repositioning it as a regional superpower. Such an approach maintains the causes of regional instability and insecurity, while enabling Israel as a colonial apartheid State to superimpose “Greater Israel” on all of historic Palestine.

Generation after generation, the people of Palestine have remained committed to the justice of their cause, the integrity of their narrative, the authenticity of their history and culture, and their inviolable right to live in freedom, and dignity, as an equal among nations and in the fullness of our humanity.

It is time to reclaim the narrative of justice and invoke our collective will to activate the UN Charter and affirm the relevance of international law.

The time has come for courageous and determined action, not just to undo the injustice of the past but to chart a clear and binding course for a peaceful future of hope and redemption.

I thank you.

To view the full Speech as PDF

We, the undersigned global coalition of leaders –from civil society to academia, art, media, business, politics, indigenous and faith communities, and people of conscience around the world– call upon the States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to act decisively to put an end to Israel’s notorious use of arms and military equipment for the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights against Palestinian civilians by immediately imposing a comprehensive two-way arms embargo on Israel.

In the spring of 2021, the world once again watched in horror as Israeli occupying forces attacked defenceless Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and inside Israel. Palestinian civilians peacefully protesting against colonisation of their land were assaulted with live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets, sound bombs, tear gas and skunk water. Israel’s deadly military aggression against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip was the fourth in a decade. Over 11 days, 248 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children. Thousands were wounded, and the reverberating effects of the use of explosive weapons on hospitals, schools, food security, water, electricity and shelter continue to affect millions.

This systematic brutality, perpetrated throughout the past seven decades of Israel’s colonialism, apartheid, pro-longed illegal belligerent occupation, persecution, and closure, is only possible because of the complicity of some governments and corporations around the world.

Symbolic statements of condemnation alone will not put an end to this suffering. In accordance with the relevant rules of the ATT, States Parties have legal obligations to put an end to irresponsible and often complicit trade of conventional arms that undermines international peace and security, facilitates commission of egregious crimes, and threatens the international legal order.

Under Article 6(3) of the ATT, States Parties undertook not to authorise any transfer of conventional arms if they have knowledge at the time of authorisation that arms or items would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes as defined by international agreements to which they are a Party.

Under Articles 7 and 11, they undertook not to authorise any export of conventional arms, munitions, parts and components that would, inter alia, undermine peace and security or be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law.

It is clear that arms exports to Israel are inconsistent with these obligations. Invariably, Israel has shown that it uses arms to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, as documented by countless United Nations bodies and civil society organisations worldwide. Military exports to Israel also clearly enabled, facilitated and maintained Israel’s decades-long settler-colonial and apartheid regime imposed over the Palestinian people as a whole.

Similarly, arms imports from Israel are wholly inconsistent with obligations under the ATT. Israeli military and industry sources openly boast that their weapons and technologies are “combat proven” – in other words, field-tested on Palestinian civilians “human test subjects”. When States import Israeli arms, they are encouraging it to keep bombing Palestinian civilians and persist in its unlawful practices. No one –neither Israel, nor arms manufacturers in ATT States parties– should be allowed to profit from the killing or maiming of Palestinian civilians.

It is thus abundantly clear that imposing a two-way arms embargo on Israel is both a legal and a moral obligation. ATT States Parties must immediately terminate any current, and prohibit any future transfers of conventional arms, munitions, parts and components referred to in Article 2(1), Article 3 or Article 4 of the ATT to Israel, until it ends its illegal belligerent occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory and complies fully with its obligations under international law. Pending such an embargo, all States must immediately suspend all transfers of military equipment, assistance and munitions to Israel.

A failure to take these actions entails a heavy responsibility for the grave suffering of civilians – more deaths, more suffering, as thousands of Palestinian men, women and children continue to bear the brutality of a colonial belligerent occupying force– which would result in discrediting the ATT itself. It also renders States parties complicit in internationally wrongful acts through the aiding or abetting of international crimes.  A failure in taking action could also result in invoking the individual criminal responsibility of individuals of these States for aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity in accordance with Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Justice will remain elusive so long as Israel’s unlawful occupation, settler-colonialism, apartheid regime, and persecution and institutionalised oppression of the Palestinian people are allowed to continue, and so long as States continue to be complicit in the occupying Power’s crimes by trading weapons with it.

In conclusion, we believe that the ATT can make a difference in the Palestinian civilians’ lives. It has the potential, if implemented in good faith, to spare countless protected persons from suffering. If our call to stop leaving the Palestinian people behind when it comes to implementation of the ATT is ignored, the raison d'être of the ATT will be shattered.

Joining organisations:

1. Action Sécurité Ethique Républicaines
2. Adalah Justice Project
3. Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
4. AFPS 63
5. Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
6. Aldameer Association for Human Rights
7. Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man
8. Alrowwad Cultural and Arts Society
9. American Muslims for Palestine
10. Anglican Pacifist Fellowship
11. Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ)
12. Arab Canadian Lawyers Association
13. Arab Organization for Human Rights
14. Argenteuil Solidarité Palestine
15. Asociación Americana de Juristas
16. Association Belgo-Palestinienne WB
17. Association femmes plurielles
18. Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS)
19. AssoPacePalestina
20. Australia Palestine Advocacy Network
21. Australian Centre for International Justice
22. Australians For Palestine
23. Badayl
24. BDS Australia
25. Begian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
26. Campagne BDS France
27. Canadian BDS Coalition
28. Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME)
29. Center for Constitutional Rights
30. Center for International Policy
31. Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios Estratégicos para la Seguridad y el Desarrollo Social CIESED A.C.
32. CNAPD - Coordination Nationale d'Action pour la Paix et la Démocratie
33. Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine
34. Collectif 69 de Soutien au Peuple Palestinien
35. Collectif BDS 57
36. Collectif Judéo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Palestine
37. Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines
38. Columban missionaries Britain
39. Columbia Law Students for Palestine
40. Combatants for Peace
41. Comitato BDS Campania
42. Comité de Solidaridad con la Causa Árabe
43. Comité pour une Paix Juste au Proche-Orient asbl
44. Community Action Center - Al-Quds University
45. Confederación Intersindical Gallega (CIG)
46. Cultura è Libertà, una campagna per la Palestina
47. Dagropass
48. De Palestijnse gemeenschap in Nederland
49. Defense for Children -Palestine (DCI-Palestine)
50. Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)
51. docP - BDS Netherlands
52. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
53. European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP)
54. European Legal Support Center
55. Femmes Unies pour la Paix dans la région des Grands Lacs
56. FILEF Sydney Federation of Italian Migrant Workers
57. Finnish-Arab Friendship Society
58. Friends of Palestine Tasmania Inc
59. Gaza Action Ireland
60. Gesellschaft Schweiz Palästina GSP/ASP
61. Global Kairos Asia Pacific Solidarity For Palestine (GKAPS)
62. Good Shepherd Collective
63. Housing and Land Rights Network
64. Human Rights and Democratic Participation Center “SHAMS”
65. Human Rights Network Nigeria
66. ICAHD Finland
67. ICAHD UK
68. Independent Jewish Voices Canada
69. Indian Writers Forum
70. Indo Palestine Solidarity Forum
71. International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD)
72. International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific
73. Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
74. Jewish Voice For Peace
75. Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
76. Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
77. Karapatan
78. Kenya Human Rights Commission
79. Labor for Palestine
80. Manushya Foundation
81. National Association of Democratic Lawyers (South Africa)
82. National Justice & Peace Network (NJPN)
83. National Lawyers Guild, Palestine Subcommittee
84. Nederlands Palestina Komitee
85. Newweapons research group
86. Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine-Israel (NMJPI)
87. North Notts Unite Community
88. NOVACT
89. Oakville Palestinian Rights Association
90. Palestine Solidarity Network - Edmonton
91. Palestinian and Jewish Unity
92. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
93. Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall)
94. Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO)
95. Pax Christi International
96. Pax Christi, England and Wales
97. Paz con Dignidad
98. Platform of French NGOs for Palestine
99. Salaam ragazzi dell'Olivo, comitato di Trieste
100. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
101. SODePAZ
102. Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative
103. The Civic Coalition for Palestinians Right in Jérusalem
104. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)
105. The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC)
106. The National Association of Human Rights Defenders
107. The Oakville Palestinian Rights Association
108. The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC)
109. The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy-MIFTAH
110. UJFP French Jewish union for peace
111. Union syndicale Solidaires
112. US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
113. US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
114. Visualizing Palestine
115. Vrede vzw
116. Vredesactie
117. War on Want
118. Women for Palestine
119. Women in Black Vienna
120. Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling

Joining individuals:

121. Ahmed Ben
122. Ahmed Reda Tolba
123. Alaa Shalaby
124. Alaaeddine Tatak
125. Aline Shaban
126. Amin Abbas
127. Andrea Balduzzi
128. Angie Mindel
129. Ann McNicholas
130. Anne Peacey
131. Ashley Tellis
132. Atamjit Singh
133. Audrey J Bomse
134. Badee M.T. Aldwaik
135. Baruti Likoyi
136. Bernadette McPhe
137. Chirag Shah
138. Claudia Karas
139. Claudia Schiavelli
140. Denise Peillon
141. Denotter JJ
142. Devaki Khanna
143. Dr. Ibrahim Lada’a
144. Dr. Nerina Cecchin
145. Egbert Harmsen
146. Marc Fayard
147. Firoz Ahmad
148. Flavia Lepre
149. Françoise Abadie
150. Frstot Marie-Paule
151. Gabriel Mondragón Toledo
152. Geeta Kapur
153. Geeta Kapur
154. Georges Franco
155. Gillard Francois
156. Gina Cardosi
157. Githa Hariharan
158. Gregory Kotoy
159. Gyan Prakash
160. Haidi Ali Muhammad Eltayeb
161. Hélène Le Cacheux
162. Herman De Ley
163. Huwaida Arraf
164. Ian Ampleford
165. Ian Mc Cabe
166. Indu Chandrasekhar
167. Jake Javanshir
168. James Dickins
169. James Lafferty
170. John King
171. Joop Hoekstra
172. Julia Auf Dem Brinke
173. Julie Hart
174. Kalyani Chaudhuri
175. Karel Arnaut
176. Karin Brothers
177. Karin Verelst
178. Kathryn Kelly
179. Kellie Tranter
180. Lauren Speiser
181. Laurent De Wangen
182. Lee Rhiannon
183. Luisa Morgantini
184. M.N. Harakeh
185. Madeline Lutjeharms
186. Maha Abdallah
187. Maha Alami
188. Malini Bhattacharya
189. Mani Shankar Aiyar
190. Marcy Newman
191. Maria Bartolacci
192. Marjorie Cohn
193. Martin Mavenjina
194. Massimiliano Masini
195. Maxime Florentin
196. Maya Devi
197. Michael Letwin
198. Michel Gevers
199. Mohamad Arouki
200. Mohamed Aboelazm
201. Mohammad Al Nabulsi
202. Mohan Rao
203. Monique Vincent
204. Muralidharan K
205. Nalini Nayak
206. Nandini Sundar
207. Naresh Dadhich
208. Nasir Tyabji
209. Navdeep Mathur
210. Nick Deane
211. Nozomi Takahashi
212. Oishik Sircar
213. P A Azeez
214. Pamela Blakelock
215. Pamela Philipose
216. Paola Manduca
217. Patrick Lechopier
218. Persis Ginwalla
219. Pierre Bordone
220. Pushpa Achanta
221. Pushpamala N
222. Raffaele Spiga
223. Rajni Palriwala
224. Rev Joseph Ryan
225. Rey Asis
226. Rudolf Knutti
227. S. Raghunandana
228. Salim Yusufji
229. Sellin Jean-Christophe
230. Shafey Kidwai
231. Sharib Aqleem Ali
232. Sigour Brigitte
233. Sonia Fayman
234. Stephen Flaherty
235. Sue Ingham
236. Sumanta Banerjee
237. Terri Ginsberg
238. Valter Mutt
239. Vinay Bharadwaj
240. Vincent Basabé
241. Winfried Belz
242. Yousuf Saeed
243. YVes Goaer
244. Yves Jardin

To View the Letter as PDF

The inglorious end of Ehud Olmert's term as Israeli Prime Minister will likely result in a continuation of peace talks with the Palestinian Authority under the new leader, Tzipi Livni. She will have a difficult time. The illegal settlement movement supported by every Israeli administration to date has burgeoned out of control and its right-wing leaders are vehemently opposed to negotiating land for peace. More than likely, we will see Livni use the same stalling tactics that have up until now allowed land grabs from the Palestinians for the Zionist dream of a greater Israel. After all, Livni was nurtured on that dream. What that means is a 15-year peace process ominously poised for failure -- not just politically, but also economically.

The 1993 Oslo Peace Accords were supposed to offer the Palestinians the political freedom and economic independence to which they have always been entitled. Since then, Palestinian society has been taken on a roller-coaster ride of promises, lies, provocations, and chaos with not a single benefit to show for its painful concessions.

So much has been made of Oslo's promise of new beginnings when in actual fact the real historic moment of peace occurred when Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat agreed to a two-state solution at the United Nations General Assembly in 1988, accepting on behalf of his people, Israel's "right to exist" on 78 percent of the land stolen from the Palestinians. That was the hard-won chance for resolving the conflict that Israel should have grasped with both hands. However, Israel was never going to let go its dreams of taking all of the land, and the Oslo Accords and every renewed peace process since then, have simply paid lip-service to Palestinian aspirations while Israel has pursued its own objectives in defiance of international law.

Powerful Israeli interests, and not Arafat's intransigence or Palestinian terrorism, have caused Oslo's failures. From the beginning, Israel and the World Bank violated the economic clauses of the accords supposedly designed to improve and stimulate recovery from the disastrous circumstances that had already been visited on the Palestinians by Israel's military assaults and occupation in the previous decades. As the Harvard University political economist Dr. Sara Roy points out, "decades of expropriation and deinstitutionalization had long ago robbed Palestine of its potential for development, ensuring that no viable economic (and hence political structure) could emerge" (Sara Roy, "A Dubai on the Mediterranean," London Review of Books, 3 November 2005). A viable economy is essential for the functioning of an independent Palestinian state.

No sooner had control of Oslo's economic development programs shifted to the World Bank, than the basic infrastructure that was supposed to have been built was reported as "repairs" to infrastructure when none in fact existed, while the building of a casino in Jericho took precedence over essential ports, roads, and canals. Those who were involved in the corrupt casino project read like a who's who of the Israeli political establishment -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, former primer ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Sharon's advisor Dov Weissglas in concert with an Austrian-Jewish businessman Martin Schlaff who is now being investigated for giving millions of dollars in bribes to Lieberman and Sharon.

The "Gaza and Jericho First" stage of the Oslo Accords provided the perfect opportunity for gambling tycoons to bypass Israel where gambling is illegal. The casino took in around a million dollars a day from Israelis streaming into occupied Jericho for the pleasure of gambling while many Palestinians were barely able to put food on the table. When the Gaza airport and seaport were finally built thanks to European Union efforts along with roads, waterways and the Palestinian broadcasting station, Israel set about destroying each of them, citing security reasons. Conservatively, Israel's destruction of infrastructure has been estimated at $3.5 billion, while lost potential income for the Palestinian economy has been estimated at around $6.4 billion, the total loss far exceeding the overall international assistance received from 1994-1999 (UN General Assembly, Report of the Secretary General A/ 60/90, (d) Assistance to the Palestinian people - Mr Mansour (Palestine), 14 November 2005).

The deliberate pauperization of the Palestinian economy was further exacerbated by the punitive closure of Palestinian society. A complicated system of checkpoints and roadblocks severely restricted the movement of Palestinians and goods and prevented Palestinians from traveling to Israel for work. Unemployment hit record highs going from less than seven percent before 1993 to 25 percent in the West Bank and 38 percent in Gaza in the first quarter of 1996 (Leila Farsakh, Trans-Arab Research Institute factsheet #4, "The Palestinian economy and the Oslo "Peace Process"). What is not widely known is that Israel had created a Palestinian economy deeply dependent on its own during the previous 30 years, which meant that closure was now far more devastating than it would have been otherwise.

As the living standards plummeted and destitution pervaded every level of Palestinian society, Palestinians reacted angrily. But, Palestinian violence was not wholesale. Subjected to a barrage of provocations, minority groups and traumatized individuals committed most of the violence with homemade weapons. One of those early provocations was the terrorist attack and killing of 29 praying Palestinians in a Hebron mosque by right-wing extremist Baruch Goldstein who is today venerated by the Kach settler movement to which he belonged.

Nevertheless, Israel launched reprisals each time against the entire Palestinian population -- almost half under the age of 15 -- using the powerful force of its military arsenal in defiance of international law, which prohibits collective punishment. Even so, international public opinion has not been swayed, then or now, by the nonviolent efforts of Palestinian resistance carried out weekly by community groups in towns and villages all over the West Bank. Instead, it remains fixated on Palestinian armed attacks and suicide bombings without any regard for the disintegration of Palestinian society under Israel's humiliating control and human rights abuses.

By 2000, the Palestinians were highly charged, especially after Arafat was derided for refusing to negotiate "peace" when he walked away from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's much-lauded "generous" offer at Camp David. Concessions on Jerusalem and the Palestinian right of return were not his alone to make and Barak knew it. To bolster his own political ambitions, Barak was able to persuade the public that Arafat had pre-planned the second Palestinian intifada while negotiating peace and had sought to destroy Israel through the return of millions of refugees. Israeli researchers though have shown that the heads of Israel's military intelligence and the Shin Bet security service dismissed the existence of any such plan and that Israeli public opinion -- hitherto ready for territorial concessions even during periods of violence -- had been manipulated by Barak to accept that Palestinians had chosen terror instead of peace to achieve their objectives (see Henry Siegman, "Sharon and the Future of Palestine," The New York Review of Books, 2 December 2004).

At the same time, Israel increased its settlement expansion in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in spite of the Oslo Accords prohibiting "any change in the status of the West Bank ..." Throughout the last 15 years, successive Israeli governments have all continued to build these illegal housing estates for waves of Jewish settlers from abroad while the Palestinians are being pushed into arid areas creating a series of disconnected Bantustans, much like what was created in apartheid South Africa. Despite Israeli-only roads, concrete walls, electric fencing and military zones separating the two peoples, Israel promotes these modern housing estates as "normal" developments. In effect, it has forced the Palestinians into a system of complete dependency where Israel controls all borders and airspace, Gaza's territorial waters and 80 percent of all the water resources.

Prevented from producing and competing with Israel's economy, the Palestinians became forced consumers and this is perpetuated by foreign aid. Effectively international donors foot the bill while Israeli companies profit from the desperate need of an entire population under Israel's occupation. Foreign aid has done nothing to revitalize the economy, and has only made the Palestinians one of the most aid-dependent populations in the world. According to the latest World Bank report, "aid and reform are unlikely to revive the Palestinian economy unless Israel removes economic restrictions at the same time" (World Bank, "Palestinian Economic Prospects: Aid, Access and Reform," 22 September 2008). Even so, with a staggering 98 percent of Gaza's industry now inactive due to Israel's punitive sanctions, according to the World Bank, removing those restrictions will not bring about economic recovery any time soon, if at all. The magnitude of social destruction is incomprehensible as 1.4 million people grapple with failing sewers, sewage-polluted water, rationed food, practically no electricity or fuel and a crumbling infrastructure of roads, schools, hospitals, transport system and other normal municipal services. This systematic "de-development" is spiraling into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis likely to have grave political consequences.

Today, Israel will cite the demographic problem it faces with a Palestinian population fast catching up in size to the Israeli population. It is a problem of Israel's making and one that it could solve tomorrow if it was not moving systematically and determinedly to expand its territory and fulfill its colonial ambitions for a Greater Israel. It will not be long before the four million Palestinians being herded into reservations will be as much a problem for Israel to police as it will be for the Palestinians to endure. The word apartheid looms large.

If comparisons begin to be made with apartheid South Africa, Israel will have to justify its existence as an exclusively Jewish state under a whole new set of rules. Thus, the more it normalizes its current position and keeps talking about peace, the less likely there is of that happening. Once the Palestinians are crushed economically, they will have few choices left: it will be slave labor in the industrial estates now being built or transfer, if they survive. With time, Palestinians will simply vanish into the ether as if they never existed. That is the truth that is being silenced and that is a narrative that the public needs to hear.

Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine and one of the founders and co-conveners of Australians for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia.

Last night as I lay in bed wishing for sleep, I thought I saw a spider scurry across the moonlit ceiling. I closed my eyes only to have uninvited thoughts intrude in that drifting space between wakefulness and slumber. Images floated by. There in that nether world, shimmering threads criss-crossed the darkness of the unknown luring me to come closer until I saw the faces of millions caught in a gigantic, glistening spider’s web. The faces were my own.

I was the girl screaming on a blood-stained beach strewn with the body parts of her family. I was the boy huddled against his father as the bullets sprayed around them. I was the woman faint with labour pains at the checkpoint willing her unborn child to stay in the womb a few more hours. I was the man paraded blindfolded and handcuffed, tortured and jailed for resisting the occupation of his people. I was the family of thousands clutching the memories of lifetimes as the bulldozers tore down the walls of their homes. I was the generations, terrorised and driven from their land and villages in one of the cruellest acts of inhumanity perpetrated by one people against another. I was Palestinian caught in a web of deceit, despised and shunned by a world blinded by Biblical myths and twenty-first century spin.

In those nightmarish scenes, I knew what it meant to be walled in where there are no horizons. I knew what it meant to wait forever in queues going nowhere. I knew what it meant to tremble at the rumble of tanks and the sound of jackboots and to lie waiting for the bombs to tear open the ground beneath. I knew what it meant to be kept from family and loved ones by identity papers that say we cannot live together. I knew what it meant to scrabble for food and to thirst for even a drop of water. I knew what it meant to feel self-loathing for betraying my people to save my sick child. I knew what it meant to be tempted with privileges while others are ground into the dirt. I knew what it meant to be played with by overwhelming outside forces sent to divide and separate and turn us against each other. I knew what it meant to be humiliated and ridiculed, lives not worthy of the world’s compassion. And, in that web of suspended prey, the devourer has no reason to hurry.

Deep calming sleep eluded me. The human condition was too appalling, the inhuman treatment choking me with revulsion, but I could not escape the nightmare. As I moved from one despairing human mass to another I became what the world does not want to see or know. Here were children maimed and crippled, born into destitution and starvation and knowing nothing but extreme violence from a glorified state armed with weapons more powerful and lethal than anyone can imagine. Children who are the next mothers and fathers of Palestine, each generation more crushed and burdened than the last, their homes, livelihoods and futures damned long before they are even born. My eyes flickered open for a second and this time I was sure that I saw a spider disappearing into the cracks in the ceiling. Heavy with weariness and unable to move, I sank back into the world of restless sleep and could feel a spider’s web being spun around me as it has spun unceasingly from one generation of Palestinians to the next.

Once caught in the web, there was nowhere to go. To struggle would have pulled the web tighter and brought the salivating spider closer. To remain still only delayed the inevitable as the spider devoured its trapped prey at its leisure. Those who tried to break the web or pluck the victims from its sticky threads, felt the full venom of the spider’s bite. The nightmare had merged with reality and I no longer knew if I was on the outside looking in or on the inside looking out. My voice had become lost in the keening sounds of women and men mourning their loved ones, my helplessness increasingly reflected in the eyes of children stricken with terror. There was no beginning or end to the days and nights: I felt myself being swallowed up in the sea of a tormented humanity.

I looked this way and that for some relief from the sheer misery of it all, but there was none because this is the Palestinian nightmare – no relief, no hope, no future, just an endless wearing down of the human spirit. Millions of eyes staring through me into the void beyond, millions of people born into captivity unable to lie in a bed and dream or ever to feel safe in their own homes. Millions of flesh and blood people crippled by the denial of hope and freedom, stripped of dignity and abandoned on the human garbage heap of the privileged, the powerful and the indifferent.

Awake at last, but still caught in the grip of terror, I found myself living the nightmare in the prison of my mind while the Palestinians live it in the prison of their world. Neither they nor I can escape the inhumanity of what is being perpetrated. Their nightmare is the ever-climaxing horror story they have been living since the creation of Israel: my nightmare is my helplessness to end it.

So much talk of justice, democracy and peace while each one of those lives pass into oblivion without resolution and not one of those lives meaning anything to people who see the world as exclusively theirs or who are indifferent as long as they themselves do not suffer. Surely this is apartheid in its worst form: a separation between those who have and those who are prevented from having anything. That interminable silence creating a wall more suffocating than any concrete slabs or electric fencing, that turning of the head, that closing of the mind more final than any soldier’s gun or government decree.

Where will the Palestinians go as they are pushed, pulled and torn from their land and edged ever further into those sparse areas where no crops will grow and no water runs? Where will they go as immigrants from abroad swarm into the illegal settlements rising up on Palestinian-owned properties and land from which they have been forcibly evicted? Where will they go as the illegal Wall marks out illegal borders and separates a colonising state from a fanciful one that offers the Palestinians about as much freedom and independence as captive animals in a zoo?

Where are you humanity preached in the pulpits and held aloft in the vainglorious triumphs of generals and presidents? More urgently, where are we who elevate such hypocrites to be our keepers? What does it say about us who claim to live by principles, morality and faith when we refuse to look in the eyes of the innocents whom we have condemned, or worse still, believe those who tell us without accountability that millions of people are worth sacrificing for the security of Israel?

Oh yes indeed, we are allowing the horrors to happen again. The gas chambers and killing fields of yesterday are the cattle-yard Bantustans and the 2000 bureaucratic rules that regulate every single movement of every Palestinian life that Israel holds in captivity - a different kind of ethnic cleansing that takes its time and passes almost unnoticed, but nonetheless decimates a society until it disappears as if it never existed.

And so, my fellow human beings, the sixty-year Palestinian nightmare continues, endless only due to the limitlessness of our inhumanity. Oh what have we become? That is the nightmare that is waiting to engulf us all.

Sonja Karkar is affiliated with Women for Palestine, Melbourne – Australia. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

"ANZACS BACK AGAIN" was the front-page headline of Jerusalem's Palestine Post on 13 February 1940. The ANZAC reputation for courage and daring was legendary after their victory at Beersheba in 1917. That was the Palestine Campaign that saw the celebrated charge of the 4th Light Horse Brigade on the unsuspecting Turks. It was a battle that turned the tide of that campaign and led to the subsequent end of Ottoman rule in Palestine.

During World War II, Palestine was under a British Mandate and Australian and New Zealand soldiers were back helping the British army to stop the Germans from capturing Egypt and the Suez Canal. They fought alongside several Palestinian brigades enlisted into the British Army under The Palestine Regiment. That decisive offensive took place in 1942 at al-Alamein, Egypt, the first allied land victory of the war.

Tragically, more than 2,000 ANZACS from both campaigns would never see Australia or New Zealand again. Over 600 lie in unknown graves with Muslim and Christian Arabs and Jews who also died trying to defeat the German army. Other ANZACS are buried in war cemeteries throughout Palestine, two of which can be found in Gaza -- one beautifully cared for in the Palestinian town of Deir al-Balah, and the other in Gaza City. The Beersheba Commonwealth War Cemetery has graves of some 175 Australian soldiers and lies on the edge of today's sprawling commercial city that Israel has renamed Be'er Sheva. Our soldiers knew it as Beersheba with a largely Palestinian population.

The New York Times of 1 November 1917 described Beersheba as an "ancient Palestine city, having much strategic value," and during the British Mandate, it remained an administrative center providing work and services for some 4,000 Palestinians who lived in the area. The next time Beersheba became a battleground was in 1948, when the army of the newly-created Israel captured the city and terrorized its Palestinian inhabitants into fleeing. It was never intended to become part of Israel under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, but like in other parts of Palestine, the Palestinians were never allowed to return to their homes.

In an effort to conflate Australia's Palestine Campaign with Israel, the Pratt Foundation in Australia, which contributes heavily towards Israeli causes, commissioned a statue for the new theme park that it has set up in memory of the Australian soldiers in Beersheba. That was almost a year ago. A statement made last month by Australian Veteran Affairs Minister Alan Griffin, said that the Park of the Australian Soldier was a gift to the people of Be'er Sheva, but for years the Israelis living there were ignorant of the site's significance and willfully neglectful of its heritage. Earlier this year, the Australian government was forced to order an investigation after the precious water wells, which the Australian soldiers had so bravely fought to secure, were found to be in a shocking state of disrepair and a virtual rubbish tip.

Since then, the embarrassment for Israeli officials over the neglect of this historic site has passed. The statue was unveiled in Beersheba on 28 April to commemorate what many regard as the most significant victory of Australian military history and Australia's Governor-General was in Israel -- a first for our head of state -- along with other international dignitaries for the ceremony. In contrast, Australia's first Jewish Governor-General Sir Isaac Isaacs vigorously questioned the legitimacy of Zionism (the founding ideology of Israel), describing it as "a monstrous historical crime and curse." He did not live to see the state of Israel, but it is unlikely that he would have associated himself with it, particularly in light of its nefarious deeds over the last 60 years.

Gaza has particularly suffered because of Israel. Subjected for two years to an increasingly punitive siege, 1.5 million starving Palestinians are barely 50 kilometers away from the commemorations in Beersheba. Their extreme humanitarian need cries out for attention. They should not be ignored and neither should their history. Some of the heaviest fighting took place in Gaza during the Palestine Campaign when ANZACS and Palestinian soldiers fought the Turks to free Palestine from Ottoman rule. Now, the Palestinians are prisoners of Israel -- not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The Governor-General ought to have paid his respects to the ANZACS resting in Gazan graves, but it is unlikely that Israel would have given him a permit for free passage in any case.

The much-publicized ANZAC-Israel connection would appear then to be more about fudging history than honoring it. While most Australians would see the statue and park for the fallen ANZACS as a tribute to their soldiers fighting and dying for King and Country, editor Dan Goldberg of Rhapsody, a bi-monthly insert in The Australian Jewish News, sees it as "a permanent memorial to those who died in battle for the Jewish state." This is a disturbing and historically incorrect remark, since the battle for Beersheba occurred 31 years before the state of Israel even came into being or was created in Palestine for that matter.

In fact, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which sought British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, was still being debated by the British War Cabinet when Beersheba was captured. In the following decades, the British denied that a Jewish state had been intended -- only a "national home" -- and insisted that a clause be inserted stating that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine," which in itself was insulting to the Palestinians who made up 92 percent of the population.

It was not until 1947 that the United Nations member countries, amongst them Australia, unequally divided Palestine with the stroke of a pen and created Israel without consulting the Palestinians who had lived rich and productive lives in the cities, towns and villages under the Ottomans and later the British. Last month, Palestinians could only watch in despair as the remembrances took place and the historical connection between Australia and Palestine was usurped by a state that did not exist when Australian soldiers fought there for the British Empire.

War memorials everywhere show Palestine etched in stone. Graves in Gaza honor our soldiers. But even more telling, are the four million Palestinians who live in that land under Israel's brutal occupation and siege and the 7.2 million refugees who are waiting to return home. They will not forget. It will take more than Governor-Generals and statues to expunge the history and memories of the ANZAC-Palestine connection, try as Israel might.

Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine and one of the founders and co-conveners of Australians for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia.

By now, people watching their news programs around the world would have caught a glimpse of Gaza City in candle-lit darkness. A pretty sight indeed if it were not for the fact that most of the people in the Gaza Strip will have to depend on these candles as their only source of light now that the power plant servicing much of Gaza's population has shut down completely. There is no fuel to keep the plant running because Israel has imposed a complete lock-down of this most densely populated place on earth. That means no movement in or out of the Gaza Strip for people, or any kind of shipments in of vital food, fuel supplies and medicines. It is more than a miserable existence: it is a slow death.

This is the sixth day of Israel's draconian action against a people already suffering from the punitive sanctions imposed on them after their democratic elections in January 2006 did not yield a result palatable to Israel and parts of the international community. Israel's latest 24-hour reprieve to let in some supplies is not going to change the circumstances under which the Palestinians have had to live for the last two years. At most, these supplies will last two days. The Palestinians have been struggling to survive in conditions that reached emergency levels even before this latest siege. Hunger, poverty and unemployment are widespread and in this maximum-security prison surrounded by Israel's military cordon, disease, malnutrition and anarchy are dangerously close to breaking out.

Israel claims that its actions are in response to the homemade rocket fire aimed at the Israeli town of Sderot bordering the Gaza Strip. But by no stretch of the imagination is the firing of rockets compared to Israel's ongoing siege of Gaza an even contest. The Palestinians are imprisoned in Gaza and have no military force other than guns and homemade rockets. Israel, on the other hand, has the most sophisticated weaponry in the world at its disposal and uses it with merciless ferocity. It is bombing the Gaza Strip with its F-16 fighter planes and helicopter gun ships and is launching artillery fire from the tanks it has surrounding this tiny stretch of land. In just the last few days, some 40 people have been killed and 120 injured, most of them civilians.

Israel's responses are completely disproportionate to the damage caused by the rocket fire from Gaza, which is a symbolic retaliation for Israel's aggression and its effect is largely psychological. While it certainly makes life miserable for the residents of Sderot, Israel itself is not under threat. The number of Israelis killed and injured by these rockets has been very few compared to the exponentially more Palestinians killed in Gaza. In six years, twelve Israelis have been killed while hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in retaliation, not to mention the hundreds more that have been wounded, often permanently maimed.

Such collective punishment of an entire population is illegal under international law. Most of the Palestinians in Gaza are not combatants. Like in any other population, there is the usual mix of civil servants, doctors, teachers, lawyers, health care workers, engineers, journalists, politicians, students and the thousands of people upon whom any society depends to keep services running -- except that hundreds of thousands are now unemployed. And then of course, there are the mothers and children, the elderly and the sick, the incapacitated, the mentally impaired, the charity workers, volunteers, people who do not have a say about what decisions are made. There are also angry young men who feel helpless to protect their families and people already burdened by decades of humiliation and oppression, and many of them are fighting back as any people would do under attack, but their means are primitive and limited because they cannot leave the confines of Gaza.

Over 1,000 Palestinian civilians have gone out on the streets in protest and to beg the world to put an end to this enforced starvation and siege. People are queuing up to find bread, but no one is baking because there is no electricity. Connections with the outside world are dwindling as mobile phones and laptops run out of battery power. There is no water because the pumps need electricity. Washing machines, cook tops and ovens are useless. People cannot get to work because there is practically no fuel for cars and buses. Hospitals with generators are running out of fuel to power them, halting all surgery procedures. Babies in incubators will die once the power goes. Asthmatics on ventilators will suffer. People needing dialysis machines and heart monitors will collapse. Clinics and laboratories will lose their tests and vaccines. Soon, all communication with the outside world will cease and what are we going to do about it?

Najwa Sheikh Ahmad who works for UNRWA in Gaza and began the Candles for Gaza Campaign with her husband last year in October has written to say, "The Israeli side is doing its best to steal every joyful moment in our lives. Starting from treating us like another weird species that should have no mercy, to destroying the best happy moments that a family can have, the wedding of a son, to the slow killing of my people, like banning their right to have medical treatment outside Gaza which has seen 72 people die already, to finally controlling every border and banning the regular rights of having electricity, water and fuel -- basic needs that no one should have to bargain over. I am sitting in the dark cold with my three children and I try to keep them busy, but the days are long and dark and they feel bored and are starting to make trouble. Oh God, how exhausting it is to live this way in the 21st century."

John Dugard, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories said that "The killing of some 40 Palestinians in Gaza in the past week, the targeting of a government office near a wedding party venue with what must have been foreseen loss of life and injury to many civilians, and the closure of all crossings into Gaza raise very serious questions about Israel's respect for international law and its commitment to the peace process."

Luisa Morgantini, the vice president of the European parliament, has expressed concern over the escalating acts of murder committed by the IOF troops in Gaza and the West Bank and has urged the EU high representative Javier Solana and the world community to work side by side to force the Israeli government to stop the violence and mass punishment against Palestinian civilians.

The UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, the Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes said that "This kind of action against the people in Gaza cannot be justified, even by those rocket attacks".

Israel's actions have done nothing to further the peace process over which there was so much fanfare only a few weeks ago. Where will it all stop if Israel is allowed to continue its siege? When people are taking their last gasps in their battle for survival, who knows where desperation will lead them -- mass riots, anarchy, and absolute despair where death will be better than life?

Israel might find that giving the Palestinians their freedom and allowing them the dignity of self-determination in their own land might be far more effective in bringing about a peaceful solution than all this bloodshed and misery. Fifty years have passed since Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan said, "How can we complain about Gaza's hatred towards us? For eight years, they have been sitting in refugee camps while right in front of them, we are turning the land and villages of their forefathers into our home." How much deeper must the hatred be after decades of oppression that has reduced their existence to a mere specter of life? Without a political solution that includes Gaza in negotiations to settle the wrongs done to the Palestinians, a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis is as remote as ever.

The Palestinians need candles desperately and they need your voice to speak for them. There are many ways that you can do this. Organize demonstrations or vigils, or take part in ones that are already being organized. Take the time and write to newspapers and politicians urging them to take action and bring an end to this humanitarian disaster. Also, a deluge of letters to the Israeli Embassy would allow the Israelis to see that the world does not support a siege on the people of Gaza. The power is in your hands to spread the word through your churches, work groups, clubs, neighborhood networks, and simply by talking to everyone you know. We cannot stand by and allow this slow agonizing death of a whole people to continue whatever justification Israel gives for its actions. There has to be another way that gives succor to the people of Gaza and hope for a better future than the ominous one being forced on them right at this moment.

Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of Women for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia.