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Please
note that Spring is not officially connected to the Stop the Wall
Campaign but that we support and express solidarity with it. The STW
link is provided to the right and there is other information on
Palestine Solidarity events in Japan and around the world presented on
this page, other than STW material.
Fathi Kheiderat Addresses 105
Participants at Tokyo Bunkyo-Ku Kumin Kaikan. Calls for Comprehensive
International Boycott of Israel.
On Saturday 1st December
2007 Mr Fathi Kheiderat, a
Palestinian grassroots activist and founder of the Stop the Wall
Campaign gave a presentation
on the actual day to day living
conditions of Palestinians in the occupied territories. A former mayor
of a town in the Jordan Valley he called for international solidarity,
the boycotting of Israel and a one state solution to the conflict.
The evening began with
introductions from the Japanese coordinators of
the event who were drawn from nine
NGO's which pulled together
to arrange the speaking tour which
took in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Okinawa, Sendai, Sapporro and
Hiroshima. Kheiderat began by making an appeal to humanity. He compared
the Palestinian situation to that of a small village under attack, a
village that must be defended, but alluded to the 'brotherhood of man',
arguing in effect that we were all members of this small village and
that we are all responsible for its defence.
Following this, a series
of facts about the daily struggle of the
Palestinians were presented with a slide show of over a hundred
photographs
personally taken by the speaker in the occupied territories.He drew
attention to the fact that Palestine is smaller than Tokyo, but whereas
Tokyo has
approximately 500 metro stations,Palestine has over 520 Israeli
military checkpoints. At this
juncture he drew attention to the apartheid wall itself,
describing its size, 9 metres high and so far, 420 kilometres long,
completely encircling all the major Palestinian cities and cutting them
off from each other. In order to move in and out of their own cities,
the Palestinians must go through gates in the wall which are of course,
controlled by Israeli military personnel.
Keiderat also explained
the situation with regard to the Israeli
settlements on
Palestinian land and noted that they cover 50% of the Jordan Valley. Of
the other 50%, Palestinians are denied access to 45% leaving only 5%
for
daily use. The daily harrassment of people going about their business
was talked about as well as a series of laws designed to confiscate
Palestinian property which are linked to the right of return.
As well as the issues
above, a crucial topic for discussion was raised:the question of
water and
access to it. Necessarily linked to the question of fertile land, the
Israelis enforce strict control over even wells in Palestinian
villages. Annexing them and surrounding them with barbed wire topped
fencing and putting them under armed guard, Palestinians are forced to
use water from tankers which is driven in. Women and children collect
their rations in drums and other containers for their everyday needs.On
occasion, water tanks are destroyed by the Israelis, for example when
one is built without permission from the authorities. Once destroyed, permission is not
granted for new
tanks and then, if someone is
so desperate that they attempt to
steal water from Israeli controlled wells and tanks, they are
fined heavily, their animals are confiscated or they end up in jail for
six months under special arbitrary powers given to the Israeli military
commander for the area. No trial, no hearing, something that is akin to
Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib.
Further to this, housing
conditions and regulations preventing Palestinians from building,
rebuilding or even repairing their dwellings were covered, as well as
continuing Israeli land grabs and the ethnic cleansing of a Bedouin
village which was visited by Tony Bliar ( sorry Blair) and the Japanese
ambassador at the behest of the Palestinians in an effort to save it.
ILO officials also visited the village. A few weeks later it was gone,
wiped out by bulldozers. All this was backed up with photographic
evidence and with references to dates, times and places.
Drawing the presentation
to a close Kheiderat talked about the most
crucial element in the Palestinian struggle - education. Having covered the
building regulations and laws preventing Palestinians renewing their
towns and villages, he called for an international campaign to
pressurize the Israelis into allowing a school building
programme.
He referred to British Palestinian Solidarity campaigns that had helped
to get permission for the building of a single school in a local
village and said that the school was under construction and should be
opened in 2008.
Essentially, without
schooling and access to basic utilities, the
Palestinian people are like colonial slaves. Child labour is routinely
employed in the occupied territories by big Israeli companies that were
founded on the occupation. They produce building materials and products
for consumption in the new Israeli settlements and make use of a
desperate, impoverished workforce - Palestinian. After the USA, the
occupied Palestinian territories provide the biggest
market for Israeli
products. This means that the
Palestinian people are trapped in
a cycle of dependency and slavery, manufacturing the goods they
themselves are repressed with and at the same time need for their own
lives. Without education, the occupation actually becomes
necessary for the Palestinians as it is their only means of survival -
Kheiderat argued that
people will accept their poor working and living conditions unless they
are given the means to fight back and improve their lot.
This led Kheiderat to
address the issue of the free movement of
Israeli goods and
services internationally,
compared with the severe restrictions
on the movemnet of Palestinian produce at the local market level. When
Israeli checkpoints are closed, the Palestinians cannot move
themselves or their goods anywhere, whereas Israeli produce can be in
London from farmers fields or factories in 9 hours. This inevitably led
to
the question of an international boycott of Israeli goods and
services - something addressed in the Q&A session that followed the
presentation.
Near the end of the slide
show, one of the most impressive photographs
loomed large on the screen - a close up picture of the apartheid wall
emblazoned with grafitti reading "To
Exist is to Resist". I was
simply struck by the comparison with
the Berlin
Wall.The Wall
in Palestine is MUCH BIGGER,
LONGER and STRONGER.........Is
this what we have come to?
Kheiderat concluded his talk by saying that "We were there
before them and we
will never leave. We will continue. This is our homeland"
Following a round of
applause and a fifteen minute break, an interesting
and entertaining Q&A session took place in which the speaker
recapped and clarified issues and addressed questions on amongst
others, the JAICA
project in the Jordan valley, the boycott of Israel and a one state or
two stae solution to the conflict.
With regard to the first
issue, Kheiderat tore the Japanese government
Aid programme for the Jordan Valley to shreds. Asking who are aid
projects for? he
proceeded to explain that the Japanese
government is in the
Jordan Valley out of its own economic interests. He insisted that Japan
was sharing in the occupation with Israel by setting up joint business
and construction projects. By doing so, they undermine the resistance
to the occupation via the boycott by providing trade for Israel.
Kheiderat noted that the Japanese had proposed to help in road building
in the occupied territories and asked effectively roads to where?
Desperately in need of schools, utilities, food and clean water, he was
categorical in his assertion that with a budget of over $100,000,000 in
Palestine, Japan had
achieved
nothing on the ground. When
asked for more information on the
JAICA project, Kheiderat remarked that as he was in Japan addressing
issues concerning the government, then perhaps the participants should
know more about it than himself!
Concerning the question
of a
one or two state solution to
the conflict, Kheiderat backed a
one state solution, asking what kind of state would result for
Palestine if the two state option were pursued. If a one state solution
with equal rights for both Arabs and Jews was agreed on and
implemented, Palestinians would soon become the majority in the
country, able to guarantee the rights of everyone. Kheiderat emphasized
that the problems in the region were due to Zionism, and that
previously Arabs, Jews, Muslims and Christians had lived together
peacefully.
Finally he called for a
comprehensive international boycott of Israeli goods and services,
calling on people to investigate Israeli investments in Japan and vice
versa and to boycott companies with links to Israel. When asked
if the boycott would hurt the Palestinian people, he replied that given
what they had already been through, it was impossible, and referred to
the successful boycott of South Africa.
To end the evening,
everyone was courteously invited to Palestine and
promised a warm welcome.
If
you would like to
help Fathi Kheiderat and the Stop
the Wall campaign go to the link at the top right of this page.
We will be adding boycott information with regard to Japanese-Israeli
ties periodically.
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Rights Reserved.
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