Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apar
**For Immediate Release**
November 8, 2004
9th-16th
November 2004 - 2nd International Week against the Apartheid Wall:
Massive Mobilization in over 20 Countries Worldwide!
Contact:
Jamal Juma’: +972-52-285-610;
Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign:
+972-265-65-890;
mobilize@stopthewall.org --
www.stopthewall.org
The 9th – 16th of
November 2004 marks the 2nd International Week against the
Apartheid Wall called for by the Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
and since then endorsed by various movements, groups, networks, and
international civil society conferences, following
last year’s Palestinian and worldwide mobilization during the 1st
International Week against the Apartheid Wall (November 9-16, 2003) that brought
the Wall to the top of the Palestinian and international political agenda with
the participation of social movements around the globe.
This year,
some 70 events, protests and demonstrations in over 20 countries have already
joined the call of the Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign for the 2nd
International Week against the Apartheid Wall!
See
http://stopthewall.org/worldwideactivism/795.shtml for a full list of
activities.
In Palestine, during the 2nd
International Week Against the Apartheid Wall farmers will continue to find
themselves unable to access their lands in the isolated areas “behind” the Wall
and near settlements during this olive harvest season, where Israel has ensured
in countless ways that people’s lands and livelihoods are out of reach. It is
during this week that the Campaign will continue its activities in supporting
farmers to harvest their lands, put together an intensive media campaign on
local television stations, as well as coordinate a central march from the
Tulkarem city center to the Wall entrapping the city.
This
year’s call for mobilization to tear down the Apartheid Wall and end Israeli
Occupation is part of the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign and Palestinian demand
for immediate and concrete action
on all levels – boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli Apartheid
–to
bring an end to Israeli Apartheid and Occupation.
What does this week mean in
Palestine? It is for the Palestinian People and its supporters worldwide a
clear international rejection for the longstanding Israeli Apartheid System is
becoming daily more unbearable in the Occupied West Bank. It means, in the face
of mass mobilization worldwide, that we have strong partners in the struggle
against oppression and this brutal occupation.
This past year, the destruction caused by this
Crime has carried on incessantly: entire villages are closed in open-air
prisons, families have lost their livelihoods and access to the most fundamental
services, lands are razed and trees uprooted. While the devastation along the
Wall’s “first phase” in the northwest of the West Bank continues, the Wall is
now in Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and in Hebron.
This July, the International Court of Justice
issued its advisory opinion declaring the Wall illegal along with its
“associated regime”, demanding the dismantling of the Wall and compensation for
the damages incurred. Yet, the international community has yet to go beyond the
level of verbal condemnation of Israel’s Apartheid policies, and even the
decision of the UN highest judicial body risks being trivialized if words are
not turned into real, concrete change.
As was the case in the
South African struggle against Apartheid, it is the civil society worldwide
that must take up responsibility and demand for an end to the Wall and the
Occupation.
Ten years after the formal
end of apartheid in South Africa, we see the various Palestine solidarity
movements joining forces in what is a reawakening in relation to the past
experience in support of the South African struggle as the necessary and
basic components for an Anti-Apartheid Movement are taking shape. The term
“Apartheid” has become commonplace in reference to the Israeli Occupation, and
most noticeably in reference to the Apartheid Wall. Campaigns for Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions are steadily growing and enlarging their base of
support all over the world.
Download Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign Press Release
