5th Bil’in International Conference on Popular Nonviolent Resistance
NOBEL LAUREATES, 26 Apr 2010
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service
Salaam Alikum,
My dear Friends,
Please accept my best wishes and support for your important 5th International Conference on Popular Nonviolent Resistance.
I am sorry that Ann Patterson and myself cannot be present, but we are with you in spirit. We had planned to attend the conference but due to volcanic eruption in Iceland and subsequent cancellation of all flights, we were unable to travel.
We wish everyone there present, Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals, a very successful conference.
Your Palestinian Popular Nonviolent Resistance movement is so important because you are asserting to the Israeli government and the world that Palestinians, like all human beings, are entitled to dignity and freedom, freedom of movement, freedom of expression, and access to work, health care and education. Your Peoples’ Movement is touching the hearts of many people around the world who are increasingly coming to recognize the truth, that the Palestinian people have been deprived from all of these things for decades by dispossession and Israeli military occupation.
Increasing numbers of world citizens are beginning to support and work for your call for the immediate ending of Israeli occupation, full implementation of humanitarian and international law, and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
They are also supporting your call for the immediate removal of military check points in the West Bank, ending of settlements, house demolitions, as well as the separation wall, and for the lifting of the unacceptable and inhuman siege of the Gaza strip. Your call to support the BDS campaign to end occupation and Apartheid (as it did in South Africa) is gaining momentum with citizens, international bodies and governments, and they are increasingly beginning to ‘break the silence’ and call upon Israel to implement justice and peace for the Palestinians.
I thank you for your great spirit of nonviolent love in action and encourage you to keep hope alive and keep on building Palestinian unity – united, the Palestinian people will succeed. Believe passionately in peace and justice and it will come out of the seeds of nonviolence and sacrifice you, and your families, are making on behalf of us all, the human family.
Salaam, Shalom, Peace
_____________________________
Mairead Maguire is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment, and co-founder of Peace People in Northern Ireland.
Tel: 44 (0) 28 90 663465
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 26 Apr 2010.
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