[tadamon-l] Palestine: Open Letter to the People of Six Nations.

[Tadamon!]

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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