[van-announce] PSG Forum Thursday/Roadmap Statement

[Derrick O'Keefe]

**Please Forward Widely**

The U.S.-Backed Roadmap and the Palestinian Right of Return

Thursday, July 31, 7:30p.m.
SFU Harbor Centre (515 W. Hastings)
Terasen Room

Palestine Solidarity Group (PSG) invites you to a forum with
delegates reporting back from the Al-Awda (Right of Return)
convention in Toronto, June 20-22. Speakers will address the
continuing fight for the right of Palestinian refugees to return, in
the context of the U.S.-backed "Road Map". Speakers to include:

Hanna Kawas, Canada Palestine Association
Derrick O'Keefe, PSG
Reem Alnuweiri, International Solidarity Movement (Vancouver)

Info: palsolidarity at yahoo.com
***

PSG Statement on the Roadmap
July 21, 2003

In coming weeks, as the so-called "Road Map" for peace in the Middle
East inevitably flounders in the hands of its inept war criminal
progenitors, it is important to keep in perspective the kind of
agreement that was being proposed in the first place. This "Road
Map" is nothing but a map to apartheid. It is not a map to a
peace that is JUST and LASTING.

As Israel steps up its attacks on Palestinian areas - be it through
targeted assassinations, the maiming and killing of innocent
bystanders, or continued incursions, curfews and arbitrary detentions
in Palestinian towns - colonial violence is furthered by the
conditions of an illegal 36-year long Israeli military occupation of
the West Bank and Gaza Strip. While this harsh and tragic reality
continues to play out on the ground, the Bush administration stumbles
forward in its attempt to enforce a new colonial order throughout the
Middle East. The brutal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were a
beginning for this new form of "order" (read disorder) and
now the rough-shod implementation of a flawed peace agreement that
does nothing to address the real issues at stake for any side is next
on the agenda.

The number one issue for this particular "peace" plan - and
there have been many with similar intentions, although none so
hastily put together – is that so-called Palestinian
"violence" or "terrorism" must be stopped. Then, and
only then, will Israel, along with its staunch ally and military hardware 
backer, the
United States, be willing to start speaking of Palestinian statehood
or anything remotely resembling national rights for Palestinians. Not
only does this fly right in the face of international law (as
outlined in the Geneva convention, whereby any group or nation of
people illegally occupied have a right to resist that occupation, by
force if necessary), but it also diverts attention away from the fact
that 3.5 million Palestinians are suffering the daily, humiliating
and dislocating effects of occupation, while another 5 million live
in diaspora, and another 1.2 million live without full rights inside
the state of Israel. Most of these Palestinians are separated from
their families living in refugee camps miles away, and many have been
waiting to return to their homes that were taken from them in the
Israeli/Arab war of 1948, 53 years ago.

None of these fundamental issues are being addressed in this phase of
the plan. In the original "Road Map" document there was a
suggestion for discussion of Palestinian refugees in the final stages
following the establishment of a Palestinian state in 2005, but there
was no mention of their right to return to their homes. In other
words, after the Bush administration, along with Israel, has molded
another Palestinian bantustan colonial entity or "provisional"
Palestinian state as some would call it, symbolic discussion of the
fundamental issues underlining the conflict can occur.

By appointing a corrupt and undemocratic Palestinian politician,
Mahmoud Abbas, to be the defacto Palestinian negotiator, the U.S. has
abrogated any kind of democratic decision making process that could be
fostered through a peace negotiation process. Palestinians, whose
lives lie in the balance while these paper agreements are written,
have had no input on the process whatsoever. Instead they are forced
to watch from the sidelines, as their appointed "leader"
concedes to Israeli and U.S. demands and makes little or no effort to
support the inalienable rights of his people - namely the right to
live without the terror of occupation, and the right to return to
homes that were destroyed or that they were forced to flee from.

Palestinians are being asked to put down their arms, and to stop
resisting the tyranny of brutal occupation and war, to acquiesce in
the face of Bush's new world disorder. However, they will do no
such thing. They are at the forefront of a people's movement for
national liberation that is taking seed worldwide. As privatization,
militarization and globalization drive the world's elite to take
more and more aggressive imperialist measures, so too will the rest
of the world awake and gain consciousness by saying NO to servitude,
NO to austerity, and NO to these aggressions!!

The war criminal Ariel Sharon, as well as the executioner George W.
Bush can wax on about how they acknowledge that a Palestinian state
will be a reality by 2005. They can ruminate about how they will
dismantle settlements built since March of 2001, only to conclude
that they will in fact dismantle a few "illegal outposts" or
tents, housing fanatical Israeli settlers. They can even acknowledge
that there is an "occupation" of sorts taking place in the
region without acting to address this fact. But their actions speak
louder than their words, as one of the world's largest U.S.
funded militaries continually attacks, dismembers, and dislocates an
indigenous civilian population subjecting it to nothing but the
further consolidation of racist colonial-settler rule. Sharon, the
settler's man in power in Israel, and Bush the crusading oil
cowboy, care nothing about creating a just peace for anyone in the
region. They wish to see their constituencies appeased, and their
worldviews implemented in a political program that has absolutely
nothing to do with addressing inequity and poverty – the main
effects of the violation of Palestinian human rights and their continued
dispossession.

The "Road Map" will fail, and future "peace" plans
will fail as they have in the past, if they do not democratically and
succinctly address the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people
to their land, to peace, to justice, and to live in equality with all
people currently living in the region.

-Support the Right of Return!
-End the Occupation!
-End Israeli apartheid now!

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