| To: | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
| From: | [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
| Date: | Fri, 21 Jun 2002 13:52:23 EDT |
| Subject: | [truckersunite] To end the Israeli occupation |
This is a letter by Bishop Tutu, he won the nobel peace prize in the 1980's because he helped end apartheid in South Africa. We have a new apartheid going on and that is Israel, one in which the state cannot recognize the sovereignty of the people. SO they decide to build walls for security and not listen to the palestinian people and that gives way to extremism which has been rampant in the past few days. This is a lot like what is happening to the truckers, your voices are not being heard, we must stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and start to let the companies know who profit off of the Israeli occupation we will no longer stand for it. The struggle for equality, fairness and justice extends beyond borders and the voices must be heard!!!!
In Solidarity,''
Jim Araby
Build moral pressure to end the occupation
An international campaign
By Desmond Tutu (IHT)
Friday, June 14, 2002
WASHINGTON: The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning
accomplishments of the last century, but we would not have succeeded
without the help of international pressure. There is no greater
testament to the basic dignity of ordinary people everywhere than the
divestment movement of the 1980s.
A similar movement has taken shape recently, this time aiming at an end
to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. We should hope
that average citizens again rise to the occasion, since the obstacles toa renewed movement are surpassed only by its moral urgency.
Divestment from apartheid South Africa was fought at the grass roots.
Religious leaders informed their followers, union members pressured
their stockholders and consumers questioned their store-owners. Students played an especially important role by compelling universities to change
their portfolios. Eventually, institutions pulled the financial plug,
and the South African government thought twice about its policies.
Moral and financial pressure is again being mustered one person at a
time. In the United States, students at more than 40 campuses are
demanding a review of university investments. Europe faces efforts
ranging from consumer boycotts to arms embargoes.
These tactics are not the only parallels to the struggle against
apartheid South Africa. Yesterday's township dwellers can tell you about today's life in the occupied territories. To travel only a few blocks in his own homeland, an elderly grandfather waits to beg for the whim of a teenage soldier. More than an emergency is required to get to ahospital; less than a crime earns a trip to jail.
The lucky ones have a permit to leave their squalor to work in the
cities, but luck runs out when security closes all checkpoints,
paralyzing an entire people. The indignities, dependence and anger are
all too familiar.
I am not the first South African to recognize the chilly reminder of
what we just left.
Ronnie Kasrils and Max Ozinsky, two Jewish heroes of the anti-apartheid
struggle, recently published a letter titled "Not in My Name." Signed by several hundred other prominent Jewish South Africans, the letter drew an explicit analogy between apartheid and current Israeli policies.
The writer Mark Mathabane and former President Nelson Mandela have also
pointed out the relevance of the South African experience to the current conflict.
To criticize the occupation is not to overlook Israel's unique
strengths, just as protesting the Vietnam War did not imply ignoring the distinct freedoms and humanitarian accomplishments of the United States.
In a region where repressive governments and unjust policies are the
norm, Israel is certainly more democratic than most of its neighbors.
This does not make dismantling the settlements any less of a priority.
Divestment from apartheid South Africa was certainly no less justified
even though there was repression elsewhere on the African continent.
Aggression is no more palatable at the hands of a democratic power.
Territorial ambition is equally illegal whether it occurs in slow
motion, as with the Israeli settlers in the occupied territories, or in
blitzkrieg fashion, as with the Iraqi tanks in Kuwait.
Almost instinctively, the Jewish people have always been on the side of
the voiceless. In their history, there is painful memory of massive
round-ups, house demolitions and collective punishment. In their
scripture, there is acute empathy for the disenfranchised. The
occupation represents a dangerous and selective amnesia of the
persecution from which these traditions were born.
Not everyone has forgotten, including some within the military. The
growing Israeli refusenik movement evokes the small anti-conscription
drive which helped turn the tide in apartheid South Africa. Several
hundred decorated Israeli officers have refused to perform military
service in the occupied territories. Those individuals not already in
prison have taken their message on the road to U.S. synagogues and
campuses, rightly arguing that Israel needs security, but it will never
have it as an occupying power.
More than 35 new settlements have been constructed this year. Each one
is a step away from the safety deserved by the Israelis, and two steps
away from the justice owed to the Palestinians.
If apartheid ended, so can the occupation, but the moral force and
international pressure will have to be just as determined. The current
divestment effort is the first, though certainly not the only, necessary move in that direction.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984
for his work against apartheid, contributed this comment to the
International Herald Tribune. It was written in collaboration with Ian
Urbina, associate editor of the Middle East Report, Washington.
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