[IPSM] Palestine: Open Letter to the People of Six Nations

[Nora Butler Burke]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Palestine: Open Letter to the People of Six Nations.
From:    "Tadamon!" <tadamon at resist.ca>
Date:    Fri, March 9, 2007 2:37 am
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Open Letter to the People of Six Nations from Palestine
from the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.

http://tadamon.resist.ca/index.php/post/523


On the anniversary of the Six Nations Land Reclamation we express our
solidarity to you and to all those that are defending today their land and
livelihoods against theft and colonization.

On February 28th, 2006, after the Canadian government gave a construction
company the permission to build a settlement on their land, the people of Six
Nations took it back, demanding an end to the theft and destruction of their
land and to settler encroachment on their territory. Many of them now face
charges in Canadian courts for defending their land. This sounds tragically
familiar to us in Palestine and to many others around the world. For over 500
years the same mechanisms have been used against indigenous peoples, to
colonize and dispossess.

500 years ago empires and their missionaries spread Christianity and
civilization with their swords. Today, these empires and their TV channels
spread their so-called 'freedom' and 'democracy' with cluster bombs. The
truth
behind this 'democratization' became clear when we practiced their democracy,
albeit under Israeli occupation and apartheid. The international community
imposed on us a brutal siege for not choosing their candidates to lead us.

As Palestinians we are still victims of a colonial project and a state that
continues to refer to itself as the "only democracy in the Middle East". The
fact that it has been scrutinized by the UN Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination for its policies and even the UN Rapporteur on Human
Rights accuses it of apartheid policies seemingly does not detract from its
status.

Apparently only technology has improved.

After the swords, in the Americas came the agreements. Agreements were to
settle land 'disputes' for lasting peace. The violations and
renegotiations of
these agreements by the colonizers - in other words the continuation of land
theft - are proverbial today. Here in Palestine, we are facing the same
colonial tactics.

The international community asks us to endorse and comply with all agreements
ever signed in order to be 'partners' and exempted from the embargo
imposed on
us. An absurd logic that forces those under occupation to pass a series of
tests to become in the end partners of the occupiers.

At the same time Israel, the colonizing power, has never respected any of the
agreements it has signed with us and nevertheless is granted Free Trade
Agreements and diplomatic honors world-wide. Its noncompliance doesn't
matter.
The Palestinian people are pressured to sign new agreements and
compromises to
revive the 'peace process' and the Occupation authorities have already been
quite clear that they will not be as 'generous' as the previous.

Some 300 years ago, when the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island (North
America) were forced onto reservations, the White Man came to teach the
hunting
nations how to farm land unsuitable for agriculture. Today, after the second
industrial revolution, they come to Palestine to bring the sweat shops and
industrial zones to the dispossessed farmers enclosed behind Israel's
Apartheid
Wall. A UK 'charity' recently announced a new strategy to adapt our people to
the ghettos. For our university graduates it offers to export the industry of
call centers to Palestine - unqualified, low paid jobs without red tape,
decentralized in the different cities.

Over the centuries something has changed. The colonizing powers have created
rules and institutions that are to regulate international relations and
lead to
global justice.

A long list of international conventions and laws has been developed and the
International Court of Justice has its seat in a beautiful palace in The
Hague.
Yet, this all doesn't protect the Six Nations, the Palestinians and all the
other people occupied and colonized.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously declared the Wall in the
West Bank illegal almost 3 years ago. Yet, Israel continues its construction,
70% of it is now complete. Nobody has moved to enforce this ruling. Israel
was
admitted to the UN with the obligation to respect international laws and
the UN
resolutions. Today it is flouting dozens of resolutions and international
conventions and still maintains its status as a full member. Only recently it
has admitted to possession of nuclear weapons; yet it has never allowed UN
inspectors into the country, and refuses to sign the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation
Agreement. Nevertheless a global war is prepared against Iran for
developing a
nuclear energy program. At the beginning of the year, in Herzeliya, US and
Israeli neo-conservative leaderships held their annual conference to plan the
future of the region. In Jerusalem, the Occupation authorities are already
distributing new gas masks in preparation of the new war code-named
'Operation
Iranian Freedom'.

In fact, Canada shows certain coherence in its politics.

It criminalizes those on whose land it has constructed its wealth for
defending
the little that is left to them. At the same time it ensures that this
logic is
enforced globally. It has abstained in the UN General Assembly vote endorsing
the verdict of the ICJ on Israel's Apartheid Wall; it continues to maintain
Free Trade Agreements with Israel; it was the first state to impose the siege
on the Palestinian people for democratically electing their leadership;
and it
continues to toe the US and Israeli line of aggression against the people of
the Arab World.

But hope is alive and strong. You have faced 500 years of land theft,
massacre
and genocide, but you are still fighting for your sovereignty and dignity.
This
should be a sign for those that today wait for our surrender. 60 years is not
enough to forget our land and dignity, these are things that time cannot
kill.
Rewriting history works only with those that want to believe in lies.
Although
we have been dispossessed, we know our history, we know the names of every
village and town that our colonizers have tried to erase, we remember every
tree they have uprooted, and every river and lake that they have dried up and
polluted. Just as the memory and dignity of the Iroquois people in Turtle
Island is still alive, 6 million Palestinian refugees are still struggling to
return to their over 500 villages destroyed and ethnically cleansed in
1948. We
say this not as the dying remnants of another era; our history has still to
come.

The future will look substantially better than the past only when the peoples
of the world stand together united by their solidarity. The oppression of
colonizers will only end when they are forced to end by the states that
support
them. If the states that make up the international community do not take
action
to stop these crimes, then it is up to the people that make up the
international society to do so, and the people of Palestine will always stand
on the side of those fighting for their freedom and dignity.


Statement prepared by the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall
Campaign:
http://stopthewall.org/

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