Day and daily the Palestinian people face the harsh and brutal repression of the Israeli apartheid system. It took many years of struggle by the people of South Africa to dismantle the apartheid system in that country, and let's not forget the civil rights movement in America to break down such a system in that country, here we are in the 21 century and the stench of apartheid has not been removed from the earth. The fact that such an inhumane system is still pursued is not just an indictment against the Israeli state, but also an indictment against the international community, that includes you and I.
This is an appeal for support for the Palestinian people from
AVAAZ.
Dear friends,
In
hours, brave Palestinians will risk attack and arrest to board public buses that
are forbidden to Arabs. This could be the beginning of a game-changing,
non-violent Palestinian spring -- direct action to win freedom and a new
state. Avaaz is webcasting the action LIVE -- click to watch, and provide the
global solidarity the activists need to win:
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In the next few hours,
history could be made in Palestine. A small number of brave Palestinians
will risk attack and arrest to commit a forbidden act -- they will board a
public bus.
Lacking their own state, Palestinians are forbidden to use
buses and roads reserved for non-Arabs -- part of a host of race-based rules
that US President Jimmy Carter has called "apartheid". 50 years ago,
African-Americans in the US challenged these rules by simply and non-violently
refusing to follow them. In a few hours, Palestinians will take the same
approach, and their actions will be live webcasted by Avaaz teams at the link
below.
As diplomats stall in the fight for a Palestinian state, the
Palestinian people are taking the fight into their own hands, one public service
at a time. And they're doing it with the simple, elegant and unstoppable moral
force of non-violence in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
The
Palestinian spring begins right now - click below to watch it LIVE, register
support, and give these brave activists the global solidarity and attention they
urgently need to win: http://www.avaaz.org/en/palestine_freedom_riders/?vl Non-violence
is the game-changing force in this long-standing conflict. Boarding buses is
a symbolic act, but so was Gandhi's salt march, and Rosa Park's own courageous
ride on a segregated bus in the US. Just as non-violent protest was able to
topple dictators in Egypt and Tunisia, so can it finally free the Palestinian
people from 40 years of crippling military oppression by a foreign power.
There are many dangers. Israel has been arming the extremist
settler population, a tactic which is likely, if not intended, to provoke awful
violence that will draw the news cameras away from the brave acts of
non-violence. Even the Palestinian authorities are pushing back on the action
which they fear will start a democratic protest movement that they cannot
control. But these few brave Palestinians have had enough, and if we stand with
them now,
we can help them ignite a flame that will burn its way all the way
to a free and peaceful Palestinian state: http://www.avaaz.org/en/palestine_freedom_riders/?vl We
have no idea what will happen in the next 24 hours. Maybe the authorities will
crush this brave action. Maybe it will spark into a massive conflagration. Maybe
it will sow the first seed of an unstoppable movement with tremendous integrity.
But we can watch it live, and lend our voices to the effort. And maybe one day,
we can
tell our grandchildren that we were there when Palestinians boarded
the buses that would ultimately take them to freedom. With hope and
determination,
Ricken, Emma, Alice, Raluca, Pascal, Diego and the rest of
the Avaaz team