Sabeel Solidarity Statement April 13, 2002

A CHALLENGE FROM PALESTINE UNDER FIRE

This statement was adopted by participants in the international Sabeel Solidarity Visit held in Jerusalem from April 6-13, 2002.

We have arrived in a land under its most intense military occupation in years, and among a people suffering a sustained and brutal military assault. Violence against the Palestinian people has reached a level that is unprecedented in 35 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

Illegal Israeli settlements cover much of their land. Hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks choke off movement by Palestinians, as well as international visitors, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists.

The people of Palestine feel betrayed by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the people of Israel, and the international community. The world has remained largely silent as Palestinians‘ land has been confiscated, their homes demolished, their culture compromised, their economy devastated, and their most basic human rights violated.

Now they stand on the brink of a disaster as terrible as the one that forced them from their homes and land in 1948. Still the world‘s silence betrays a people who seek justice, dignity, and their own nation.

We believe that justice for the people of Palestine demands an immediate end to Israel‘s occupation. Only justice can lead to lasting peace and, ultimately, to reconciliation.

We condemn all attacks on civilians, Palestinian or Israeli. Terrorism by any individual, organization or state is unacceptable to all civilized people. We see in the occupation the source of all of the violence.

We call for the establishment of a sovereign and viable Palestinian state on the whole of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to exist alongside Israel in peace and security.