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(PINA): The following is a letter signed by leading Palestinian
intellectuals in Palestine and
abroad addressing Israeli intellectuals and public. Mahmoud Darwish,
Edward Said,
Yasser Abed Rabbo, Samih Al-Qassim and Hanan Ashrawi were a few of
those who
signed the letter.
Letter to Israeli Intellectuals:
The sword has never been and never will be a substitute for the
scales of justice. Generals,
no
matter how fluent in the rhetoric of murder, will never be able to
transform daily military
orders into a substitute for the meaning of peace, whether in
dictionaries or in global
principles that define the difference between co-existence among
human communities
and
the chaos of the wild.
Palestinian resistance has no definition other than a national
struggle to end the occupation
and
to achieve freedom and independence. The brutal Israeli military
campaign against the
Palestinians has no definition other than seeking to perpetuate the
occupation-the longest
occupation in the 20th century and the last of all occupations in an
age that celebrates
human
rights and recognizes peoples' rights to freedom and
self-determination.
And since we all realize that this occupation will inevitably come
to an end sooner or later, it
is
our and your duty to act to shorten the lifespan of this
blood-drenched violence and to
prevent its claiming of more victims on both sides. The solution is
visible and clear: the
occupation is violence, and ending the occupation guarantees the
peace and security of
both
sides. However, this current government in Israel wants both
occupation and peace
simultaneously- that is, it wants us to acquiesce to enslavement in
return for refraining from
shelling us by air.
It has been evident to us, as to many different sectors in the
Israeli public and in the
international community as a whole, that the present Sharon
government not only lacks any
plan
for a political solution but also combats any attempts to break the
current cycle of
murder, by using more murder in an attempt to prevent the exposure
of its political and
moral
bankruptcy.
We have accepted to live and co-exist with you on 22% of the land of
our historical
homeland on which we will build an independent state and in which we
will enjoy, like the
rest
of the peoples on this planet, freedom, dignity and independence.
This vicious war
being
waged against us has no meaning other than seeking to deprive us of
this right, by
the
use of arms and the violence of murder.
If Israel has any excess of power, that excess would not endow its
desire to occupy another
nation with the semblance of a just war or with the illusion of
self-defense. And if we suffer,
among
others, weakness of resources and we lack means of self-defense,
such a
weakness has never served to weaken a just cause throughout history,
nor has it ever
stripped it of the moral values that would enable blood to vanquish
the sword.
Let us work together to end this vicious cycle of violence. There is
no other way except to
end
the occupation. Only then would peace and co-existence become our
joint horizon.
Signed,
Mahmoud Darwish, Edward Said, Yasser
Abed Rabbo, Samih Al-Qassim, Hanan
Ashrawi,
Hanna Nasser, George Giacaman, Fouad Mughrabi, Ali Jarbawi, Salim
Tamari,
Hassan
Khader, Jamil Hilal, Mudar Kassis, Zakaria Mohammad, Islah Jad,
Saleh
Abdel-Jawad, Mamdouh Nofal, Samih Shbaib, Rima Hamami, Suad El-Ameri,
Yahya
Yakhlef,
Hussein Barghouti, Izzat Ghazawi, Faisal Hourani.
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