Monday, September 26, 2011

The UN is part of Palestine’s problem



Frank Barat
The Electronic Intifada
26 September 2011

"....Did white South Africans, after the Sharpeville massacre, think that killing black women, kids and innocents was not what their beloved God or nationalist ideology had in mind? Did Hosni Mubarak after more than thirty years in power think that it was time to have a real democracy in Egypt?

They did not.

Those struggles were won by people’s power. When the people said NO. When the people, despite eventually facing terrible consequences, organized, took on the streets, marched, chanted, went on strike, united, rebelled and said “we will not have it your way any longer.”

What will make the road shorter for the Palestinians — who have already struggled and endured for so long — is to mobilize as much international solidarity as possible, to shift the balance in favor of the people faster.

And this is on the way. Palestinian civil society has done precisely this with its 2005 civil society call for boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS).

All over the world, people acting on the BDS call are building a movement, and building momemtum that no one can control because it comes from the bottom up, is in constant evolution and keeps re-inventing itself. A movement based on human rights and international law.

This movement, accompanied by other initiatives such as the International Solidarity Movement, the Free Gaza Movement, the flotillas and “‘flytilla,” the Viva Palestina convoys, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and many other creative and spontaneous actions hav isolated and delegitimized Israel, a rogue state, far more effectively than years of endless and fruitless negotiations.

People are taking matters into their own hands; they are writing and making, history. The masters know that this has happened many time in the past. The thought of it happening again sends shivers into their expensive suits."

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