Ramallah 20-2-2009 Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi was in Bilin this morning to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the West Bank City’s popular nonviolence movement. It was at the demonstration, attended by hundreds of Palestinian, Israeli and international peace activists, that the doctor first learned of Israeli President Shimon Peres’ decision to approve Netanyahu as the next Prime Minister.
In a statement before the assembled press, the doctor suggested that Israel has been dragged into new lows of racism and xenophobia. “The next Israeli coalition is not only racist and undemocratic,” he said, “but also unwilling to even consider a lasting peace based on justice and international law. Today marks the official death of the peace process and a guarantee that Israel will remain in a state of brutal Apartheid – the only one of its kind in this new century. A Netanyahu-Lieberman led Israeli governing coalition should be a loud and clear signal to the international community that there is no Israeli Partner for Peace.”
As the doctor spoke, Israeli soldiers began firing a barrage of teargas into the crowd of protesters, several were injured.
“You see the way that they have already begun reacting?” the doctor asked. “It is because they fear the peace movement in Palestine, and they know today, more than ever before, that it is this movement which will eventually bring down this occupation. Israel wants to punish nonviolence, make it go away. For them it is too much of a painful reminder of how brutal and savage they have become as it shreds them of their sense of victimhood and righteousness”
Dr. Barghouthi insisted that, despite Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza and their attempts to marginalize the Palestinian nonviolence movement, they have failed.
“We will be back again next week…and the week after that, until we have our justice.”
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