BY KERRYN WILLIAMS
CANBERRA — "The Palestine question is a question of justice, human rights, international law and fairness", Ali Kazak, the head of the Palestinian Delegation to Australia told an April 10 Resistance forum on the Australian National University.
Eighty people attended the meeting to hear Kazak speak on the topic "How can peace be achieved in the Middle East?"
Some in the audience were brought to tears when he discussed his own personal history. "I was a few months old when I was dispossessed along with 70% of our people", he explained.
According to Kazak, Israeli president Ariel Sharon is now "up to his final solution to the Palestinian question. He has only military plans, which he's unashamedly conducting for the whole world to see."
Kazak pointed to the five volumes of UN resolutions that have been passed condemning Israel's aggression, attacks and confiscation of land, asking "when are we going to see the implementation of the UN resolutions? How long will Israel be allowed to stand above international law?"
Kazak argued that despite Israel's "endless appetite for more land, refusing our offers for compromise... as a viable, civilised solution we propose that Israel withdraw from east Jerusalem" and that east and west Jerusalem become the capitals of Palestine and Israel respectively.
Asked how the Palestinians felt about the failure of many Arab and Muslim countries to take action for Palestine, Kazak replied that: "the Arab people are 100% with the Palestinians. They are showing it every day, marching in the streets ... The fault is with the regimes, not with the people."
Further, he argued, taking the side of justice for Palestine has "nothing to do with race, religion or ethnicity. All you have to be is a human being to support the Palestinians."
"Israel's complete withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it's return to the borders of June 4, 1967, the right of the refugees to return and to be paid compensation, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state — these are the minimum requirements of justice", Kazak concluded. "They want us to surrender, but we will never surrender."
He told the meeting it was also a "duty of everyone who rejects Israel's atrocities" to pressure the Australian government and members of parliament to demand Israel ends its aggression.
From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.
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