By the Palestinian People’s Party

Here are excerpts from the intervention that was delivered by Hanna Amireh in the panel debate which was held in Jerusalem in the 26th of August 2004. The main speaker in the debate was Dr. Arun Ghandhi the grandson of the Mahatma Gaundhi who visited Palestine between the 25th and the 30th of August, in a peaceful mission organized by the Palestinian campaign for freedom and peace. Also participated in this debate the Israeli peace activist Sholameet Alooni.

ONCE again, allow me on your behalf to welcome our honorable guest Dr. Arun Ghandhi, the grandson of the Great Leader Mahatma Ghandhi. I also would like to take this opportunity to extend to our guest the warmest greetings. We also express our gratitude to the initiators who organized this visit namely the Palestinian Campaign for Freedom and Peace that exerted tremendous efforts to make this visit succeed.

As you all know, this visit carries an inspiring and challenging message to show solidarity with the Palestinian people in the campaign against the occupation wall - the wall of annexation and apartheid.

We also believe that the timing of the visit gains more importance, especially that it comes directly after two important events:

First: the decision of the International Court of Justice at The Hague against the wall on July 9, 2004;

Second: the issuing of UN General Assembly resolution which adopted the decision of the ICJ on July 20, 2004. We all realize that military and violence-based solutions do not know any boundaries. Thus, we in the PLO launched the peace initiative in 1988 and supported the principle of two states for two peoples. We saw that the path of negotiations is the means to achieve concrete and practical results and that we want a negotiable political solution that ends the conflict and implements the international legitimacy resolutions.

We still cling to those principles despite the events in the past three years the principles of a just solution based on negotiations, partnership, respect of international legitimacy resolutions and not the unilateral solution that violates the basic principles of democracy and partnership.

Therefore, we demand respect for the will of the Palestinian people who chose their leadership through elections as a first step and not to impose a siege on this leadership, especially President Yasser Arafat, and marginalize and boycott this leadership.

If Israel and the US do not want to deal with the current leadership, let them prepare the ground for holding new general elections in the Palestinian territories and after they make a promise that they will respect the results of those elections and provide the appropriate atmosphere for holding those elections.

But what we witness now is a weird position. Israel and the US reject the current Palestinian leadership and refuse to allow the holding of new elections at the same time.

Yet, they demand democracy and reform and we have the right to wonder about what kind of democracy and reform are they talking about?

It is the democracy of the wall and the unilateral solution… this is not democracy but occupation, violence and destruction.

We are looking forward to the visit of our great guest and his solidarity with our people and hope for the solidarity of all peace-loving forces in the world towards supporting our struggle to end occupation.

We are looking forward to a Palestinian Stayagraha in spite of the fact that Palestine might not be ready yet for that. We have to start with our first steps on that path because we believe that the way of Mahatma Gandhi should find an abiding place in the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

The struggle of Mahatma Gandhi for the liberation of India constituted one of the major inspiration factors for the struggle of our people and we hope that the visit of his grandson and disciple of Mahatma Gandhi will reinforce this trend.

Let us dedicate our lives to creating a peaceful, respectful and understanding world.

Let us challenge injustice with peaceful solutions.



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