| 28TH April, 2009
OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
FROM: MAIREAD MAGUIRE, NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE
DEAR PRESIDENT OBAMA,
I found your book ‘Dreams from my Father’ a moving
and inspiring story of your own struggle to find your identity
and purpose in life. You found it for sure, and today carry
the hopes and dreams of so many people in our world. We pray
for you and your family. We wish you all good health and happiness.
You carry so much responsibility. We hope you will change
the policies of USA (both domestic and Foreign) to people
centred policies, based on the values and ethics which you
try to live out in your life.
Reading your book I was inspired by your involvement (during
Sophomore year at University) in the South African anti-apartheid
Divestment campaign. Your own words - ‘I found myself
drawn into a larger role – contacting representatives
of the African National Congress to speak on campus, drafting
strategy, I noticed that people had begun to listen to my
opinions.’, encouraged me to share with you the following
opinions, and experiences, of many of the people I met during
my most recent visit to Palestine/Israel.
Earlier this month, I attended the 4th Bil’in International
Conference on Popular Nonviolent Resistance held in Bil’in,
near Ramallah, in the Israeli occupied Terrority of Palestine.
Here, all the Palestinian people are asking of you, President
Obama, is to listen to their opinions and use your position
to help end the racist, apartheid policies of Israel, which
continue to cause so much pain and suffering to them. Each
week, for the past four years, the villagers (after prayers
in the Mosque) walk to the Wall which has annexed much of
their land, and cuts them off from their farms and olive groves,
and their ability to make a living for their families. As
you know, under International Law the Apartheid wall is illegal
but Israel continues to ignore International Laws (and some
62 UN resolutions) and annex more land from the Palestinians,
all the while demolishing Palestinian homes, building illegal
settlements both in East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, and
laying Siege to the Gaza strip (l and a half million people),
thus breaking the Geneva Conventions and committing crimes
against humanity.
To visit Palestine is to walk with a people whose lives are
being made unbearable by Israeli Policies of ethnic cleansing.
Each year when I visit I ask myself ‘how can the Palestinians
bear so much suffering and still have hope?’ The Philosopher
Karl Jung says ‘Go into your grief for there your soul
will grow’. Being privileged to walk alongside the Palestinian
people, one sees so much soul. Many are materially poor having
been made refugees and often pauperised by Israeli occupation
and siege, but their dignity, courage, and persistent resistance
to injustice is awesome to witness. It reminds me of the magnificence
of the human spirit and, I feel humbled to be welcomed as
a friend of the people of Bilin, Ramallah, Gaza, and Palestine.
I wish that you President Obama would go and walk with them
as you walked in spirit with the people of South Africa in
their great and inspirational anti-apartheid movement.
Walking every week in the peaceful protest to the Apartheid
wall, are Israeli activists and Internationals. It takes great
courage to come from Israel to the occupied terrorities and
oppose your own Government’s Policies and I pay tribute
to the Israeli peace activists who continue to do so, often
at the cost of punishment by the Israeli Government. Yet,
they come, and here is the hope that not all Israelis support
their Government’s racist and apartheid policies of
siege, occupation and militarization of both Israel and Palestinian
villages and towns. I also pay tribute to the Internationals
who put their lives daily on the line to stand in solidarity
with the Palestinians. Last month in the Village of Nilin,
one young man from your own country of America, Tristan Anderson,
was targeted by Israeli soldiers, and hit in the head with
a gas canister. He is currently in intensive care, and we
all hope he will recover.
At the Bilin Conference an Israeli asked me ‘how can
we touch the hearts of the Israeli people’ so they can
change their Government’s policies?’ I believe
there is so much fear amongst the Israeli’s of ethnic
annialiation but this fear can be dissolved by the politics
of the heart. Israel should not be afraid of the Palestinians
or Arab world. They are not the enemy and this can be borne
witness to by the Israelis who come to stay in this village
and who are taken care of, with such love, by the Bilin villagers.
The Israeli people must make friends with the Palestinians
and indeed the whole Arab world, and take seriously the peace
agreement offered by the Arab countries. There will never
be a military or armed struggle solution to the Israeli/ Palestinian
conflict, as it is a political problem with a political solution.
What is lacking is a real political will, on behalf of the
Israeli Government, to enter seriously into all inclusive
unconditional talks.
During the peaceful protest to the wall, we were assaulted
by the Israeli soldiers with teargas, and rubber bullets.
Many of us were overcome with the teargas and others seriously
hurt with steel tipped rubber bullets. On 17th April, 2009,
at this wall, one of the protesters, Bassem Abu-Rahma, was
hit in the chest with a teargas metal container and killed.
He was a young man from the village much loved by all and
his death caused great pain and anger particularly amongst
his peer group. I marvelled at the skill of the Village Leaders
and Muslim women, who kept reminding the young men that they
must keep their protest peaceful, but the atmosphere felt
like a pressure cooker with the lid about to blow. How much
longer must this injustice to Palestinian people be allowed
to continue unchallenged by your administration? If you do
not insist upon Israel Upholding its International responsibility
immediately, this anger will grow and the daily humiliation
of Palestine, by Israeli injustice and soldiers will push
more people towards retaliatory violence. (As one of our great
Irish poets W.B. Yeats wrote ‘too long a sacrifice makes
a stone of the heart’).
I appeal to you President Obama, to change USA Policies and
stop supporting through military aid, etc, Israelis occupation
of Palestine, and to move immediately to help lift the siege
of Gaza and say to Israel ‘enough is enough’.
In the meantime I support the Bilin committee’s strategy
of BDS in an attempt to get their freedom and rights. You,
as a supporter and activist for South Africa’s BDS campaign
know it succeeded in ending Apartheid as Nobel Peace Laureate
Archbishop Tutu often reminds us. Such a strategy can work
for Palestine too. Some South Africans Anti Apartheid leaders
when visiting Israel have said it is much worse than the days
of Apartheid in their country.
However, I believe President Obama, you can do so much more
than those of us who
Support the BDS campaign. You can bring your experience in
your own struggle for
peace and freedom to help solve this problem.
Love and hope gives us all courage and belief that peace
and freedom is possible.
God bless you and your family.
Mairead Maguire
Nobel Peace Laureate
www.peacepeople.com
24th April, 2009.
Ps Thank you for all you do Mr. President.
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