Leading PLO member Mustafa
Barghouti spoke recently in London
as the number of MPs signing the motion against the Apartheid Wall reached 188.
As Barghouti said, the British media is very selective in what it reports. Palestine is under daily attack, and every day brings more demolished homes and more Palestinian deaths. The current Road Map policy of the US and Britain will only allow a Palestinian state on 11% of historical Palestine. PLO incompetence has not helped matters, as Mustafa admitted, but essentially what the Palestinians are looking at is the possibility of living in three Bantustans with no army and no meaningful independence.
Of course, the Apartheid Wall continues the 1948 process of gradual erosion of Palestine, and the real policy of the Zionists is to have no Palestine at all. Mustafa explained that there have been three simultaneous processes over the ast eight years
• Fal occubacon
• Siege ane cosure
• sous settement expansion
- -e sertement expansion is the most seribus me: 00 percent growth in the last peace as means mere have been an addiSee are the bate: va a car ony norease ceat and destruction Up to February 1, 2845 Palestinians have been killed; 19 per cent children, 82 per cent civilians, 60 per cent were killed with live ammunition.
This would be the equivalent of 250,000 Americans being killed. We can all imagine how the world media would have responded if a quarter million US citizens were killed.
In addition to these deaths, Dr Barghouti informed us that 2500 Palestinains are now permanently disabled. This is largely the result of the bullets the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) use - metallic cylinders covered in rubber. These damage the victims' brain tissue, and are usually used against peaceful demonstrations, of which there have been many recently.
A further 306 Palestinians have been assassinated for involvement in groups like Hamas and Tanzim, plus an additional 15l "unintended" victims - in other words, innocent bystanders. 34 of these have been children. This is extra-judicial execution
Shockingly, over 2000 children have been arrested by the IDF during this intifada, making the total number of Palestinians arrested since the 1967 war an incredible 650,000 This means that 40 per cent of the male population has been in prison at some point.
There are 734 checkpoints in the West Bank. Palestine is the first nation in human
history to be denied the right to use its own roads. Humiliation is the IDF policy - men can expect to have to stand naked for 2 hours at a checkpoint for no reason. Dr Barghouti illustrated this with photographs.
Ninety five Palestinians have died needlessly because the IDF would not allow them to enter a Red Crescent ambulance, or because they deliberately held up an ambulance at a checkpoint and would not let it through. Ambulances carrying patients are regularly attacked by soldiers in jeeps. There have been 128 cases of this, and 36 ambulances have been destroyed. Many Palestinian civilians have been left to bleed to death.
The policy of destroying people's homes carries on unabated. At the last count, 68, 781 West Bank families have had their homes destroyed by Israel.
Gaza is enclosed at all sides, surG
rounded by settlers a clear process of ethnic cleansing. The Zionist plan is for Gaza to become world history's largest concentration camp, with Egypt acting as prison guard. Children in Gaza are regularly murdered by the IDF for returning to the remains of their homes to collect toys or clothes. The death toll of Gazan children in such circumstances is now 82.
The West Bank is being similarly ghettoized. The Sharon/Netanyahu plan is one of annexation and Judaization. The West Bank is within the PA; bring young people into the PA/PLO.
• Bulid the international solidarity movement, using the anti-apartheid movement of the 80s as our model.
In Britain, we have the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the International Solidarity Movement, Victory To The Intifada, and Trade Union Friends of Palestine, all of whom bring together people to engage in meetings, direct action, and political education.
There are also charities raising awareness and much needed cash for specific causes in the Occupied Territories - Enlighten, which raises money for educational equipment for young Palestinians, and Medical Aid for Palestinians, replacing ambulances and mobile clinics that have been destroyed by the IDF. These organisations give everybody the opportunity to contribute to the Palestinian cause.
Summing up, Dr Barghouti promised us that, regardless of what happens, and no matter what the difficulties, nothing is ever going to break the Palestinians' will.
Jewish people around the world are misled by Zionist propaganda, but even here there is a strand of opinion totally opposed to the Zionist project. In Israel itself, groups like Gush Shalom (the Peace Bloc) and Physicians for Human Rights offer an aiternative vision to Sharon/Nentanyahu neo-fasCism naive, however. The initfada will continue for a long time to come, because this war of national liberation is the only thing that can prevent the complete destruction of the Palestinian people and their land
George Galloway recently observed that the most popular film in Palestine - regarded as essential viewing -is the classic The Battle of Algiers, which portrays the Algerian resistance to French colonialism that culminated in Algerian independence.
The Palestinian resistance will ultimately be victorious too, and when it comes it will not happen because of PA officials doing deals with US Congressmen, nor from pleading with the UN to rein in the Israelis
It is up to all of us in the western world to give as much support to the intifada as possi ble, as only an ongoing war of national liberation against Zionism, with as much international support as possible, can truly free Palestine ...
Our correspondent Tony Richardson is currently on a visit to the West Bank, meeting Palestinian leaders
Next month we will feature his diary and pictures
page 19 of the scan
astance April 2004 19
Palestine