2009-01-13 09:49:35
What should we wait for? A thousand killed? We're almost there. Ten thousand wounded? Obama's speech on January 20th?
« The acts of Hamas cannot justify Israel's cruel war against Palestinian civilians » was the title of the Israeli daily Haaretz's editorial on January 10th.
Nothing can justify the murder of a child, the maiming of a defenceless being, the terror to which people are exposed, hostages of circumstances, caught between cross-fires, under uncontrollable storms of missiles and shells, as in this United-Nations school filled with refugees, where 45 persons were killed, more than 50 mangled, in the Jabaliya Camp.
On January 8th, French media director and essayist Jean Daniel, "sickened with indignation and revolt", denounced what he calls "a shameful regression" in the currently escalating military operation, "in the name of one conception of collective responsibility". "When you decide upon using means a thousand times superior to the enemy's, then you jeopardize your own ends." he warned.
We all want a safe world, a free world for our children. Who does not? In Ashkelon, Gaza, Beersheba, as in Beit Lahiya. Do they not deserve exactly the same rights, the same protection?
Throughout the world, from Jerusalem to Sakhnin, from Jakarta to Ankara, Berlin to Belfast, Oslo to Nairobi, Alexandria to Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Washington even… tension is rising, in a swelling wave of stupor and anger. What is left of "Annapolis"? What will be left of the Arab countries' offers of peace?
For months now, a dozen plus Nobel laureates and some thirty Members of the European Parliament have been campaigning for the opening of prison doors, the opening of the Gaza Strip, besieged for eighteen months. We urge you to join in this campaign, and all demonstrations, initiatives to stop the present madness in the "Holy Land". This Land is so much more than the land of "Israel" or "Palestine": it is the hinge between continents and civilizations.
For the sake of the fabric of Humankind, we cannot allow it to fall apart, and propagate its hell on Earth. Half of the people in Gaza are children, witnesses to the 2008-2009 massacres, stunted by the siege and malnutrition. Who has an interest in the explosion of ethnical conflicts? Who needs to fuel to the flames of anti-Semitic hatred?
More than 900 human beings have lost their lives since December 27, 2008; more than 4,000 remain horribly injured physically. "Let's stop the fighting, not only for three hours a day, but 24 hours a day," has been pleading the U.N. representative in Gaza, vainly. "Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized."
This 11th of January, eight Members of the European Parliament managed to reach Gaza through Egypt, among them five signatories of our Open the Doors Campaign. Beyond any political obedience, any identity reflex, let us unite against the logics of the worse, against the logics of terror, for sheer common sense and humanity!
"Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as the war hawks." Martin Luther King
Open the Doors Campaign
Israel must end the Gaza blockade, end all killings, and enable Gaza to open to the world, so as to guarantee the possibility of a viable economy, and improve the humanitarian situation.
The Palestinians must end all rocket attacks against Israel and the Israelis.
Human beings are not bargaining chips.
Accordingly: the Palestinians must free Corporal Gilad Shalit, that they have held prisoner for two years now.
The Israelis, who hold more than ten thousand Palestinian prisoners in their jails, must urgently release a significant group of women prisoners, sick persons, the eldest and longest-serving among them, along with those held under administrative detention and other arbitrary procedures – including all the elected members of Palestinian legislature.
Supported by:
36 Members of European Parliament
John Bowis, Sharon Bowles, Chris Davies, Jill Evans, Jean Lambert, Caroline Lucas, Elizabeth Lynne, Claude Moraes, John Purvis, Diana Wallis (Vice-President of the European Parliament) (UK)
Kader Arif, Jean-Luc Bennahmias, Catherine Boursier, Jean-Marie Cavada, General Philippe Morillon, Béatrice Patrie, Michel Rocard (former Prime Minister) (France).
Giovanna Corda, Anne Van Lancker, Véronique de Keyser (Head of the Observers' Mission for Legislative Elections in Palestine & Vice-President of the Work Task on the Middle-East), Alain Hutchinson, Frieda Brepoels (Belgium)
Anna Hedh, Jens Holm, Eva-Britt Svensson (Sweden)
Edite Estrela, Ana Maria Gomes, Ilda Figueiredo (Portugal)
Luisa Morgantini (Vice-President of the EP), Umberto Guidoni (astronaut, Italy)
Marios Matsakis, Kyriacos Triantaphyllides (President, Delegation for Relations with the Palestinian Parliament, Cyprus)
Margrete Auken, Soren Sondergaard (Denmark)
Piia-Noora Kauppi (Finland)
Angelika Beer (Germany)
22 Nobel Laureates
Peace Nobel Laureates Bishop Carlos Belo, Mairead Maguire, Desmond Tutu, Betty Williams, Jody Williams
Medicine Nobel Laureates Arvid Carlsson, Roger Guillemin, Richard Roberts
Chemistry Nobel Laureates Elias Corey, Edmond Fischer, Dudley Herschbach, Roald Hoffmann, Sir Harold Kroto, Yuan T. Lee, Jens Skou,
Physics Nobel Laureates Alan Heeger, Jack Steinberger, Donald Glaser, Tony Leggett, Martinus Veltman
Literature Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka
Economics Nobel Laureate James Mirrlees
Authors: Noam Chomsky, David Grossman, Amos Oz
http://www.ovimagazine.com/art/3961
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