** please distribute **
Urgent Invitation and Request to Come to Palestine
this Summer
To all people who believe in justice and want peace,
To all people who identify with global resistance
networks such as PGA, Indymedia and the NoBorder
Network,
-> Sanao'd (the Palestinian Coordination for the Right
of Return),
-> ISM (the International Solidarity Movement) and
-> the Palestinian National Committee Against the Wall
invite you to Palestine this summer, to help us to
stop the Apartheid Wall and to strengthen solidarity
and cooperation between people and grassroots
organisations from Palestine and the rest of the
world.
Please come and participate in:
-> an International Seminar Against the Apartheid Wall
on August 14-16 in Ramallah
-> an International Non-Violent Direct Action Camp
against the Wall, starting on August 20.
-> if you can, the complete Freedom Summer campaign of
ISM (June 25 - August 19), which includes a three-week
Freedom Walk along the path of the Wall from Jenin to
Jerusalem (July 30 - August 19) during which the
International Seminar will take place (see
www.palsolidarity.org)
The permanent aggression against the land and people
of Palestine by the Israeli government denies peace
and stability to the whole region and makes hundreds
of millions of Arabs and Muslims question the double
standards of the West. If Western countries allow the
Israeli government to complete the Apartheid Wall,
dividing Palestinians from Palestinians, stealing more
of our land and destroying more of our livelihoods,
this feeling of injustice and alienation will
intensify. This summer is probably the last chance to
stop the hatred and violence embodied by the Wall
before it is completed, and we ask you to help making
it happen.
We believe that the "clash of civilisations" ideology
on which the wall is based is only a cover to disguise
racism and colonialism. The Wall is not going to solve
the conflict, only the end of the Occupation can bring
justice and peace to our land.
We therefore call upon people from all over the world
to come this summer and do what your governments are
not doing: engaging personally on the ground in order
to support the end of the Occupation and the conflict.
This invitation includes the growing numbers of
Israelis who are taking a courageous stand, rejecting
their government's policies and supporting the
inalienable rights of Palestinian people, such as the
Right to Return of Palestinian refugees.
The International Seminar Against the Apartheid Wall
will cover topics such as land confiscation, the
isolation of Palestinian communities, loss of
agricultural land and water resources, the impact of
the Wall on education, health services and the
economy, the effects of checkpoints and imprisonment
on Palestinian women, the situation of Palestinian
refugees and the attempts to deny their rights,
Palestinian youth work under the occupation, and the
role of civil organisations in resisting the
Occupation, the Apartheid, the transfer and the armed
conflict. Speakers will represent Palestinian
grassroots organisations and representatives of the
Palestinian National Authority, and the programme will
end with a visit to the President Compound.
The Action camp will include actions of civil
disobedience and demonstrations, and will be based on
a strict non-violence code (for the protection of all
participants). Attending a NVDA training by the
International Solidarity Movement will be required in
order to attend the Action Camp. It is much better if
you can attend the trainings offered in your own
country, in order to decide if you want to participate
before catching the plane and to diminish the pressure
on the training capacities of ISM in Palestine. We
need as many people as possible to join in order to
make a deep impact.
If you are interested please get in touch with:
* your national ISM contact (see
www.palsolidarity.org)
* or palestine_seminar@???
Please help us to distribute and translate this
message, and to post it in relevant lists, Indymedia
sites and other alternative information channels. We
want it to reach far beyond the groups that are
already active on Middle East issues, since the
relevance of the Apartheid Wall goes far beyond any
geographic location. We would love to welcome
organisations active in fields such as NVDA,
environmental racism, access to education and health
care, etc.
If you are going to attend the PGA conference in
Belgrade this summer and want to go to Palestine
afterwards, you can take the boat from Greece to Haifa
and join ISM's Freedom Summer Campaign before the
seminar. Check
www.palsolidarity.org for more details
on Freedom Summer.
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