Palestine Solidarity Conference held in Germany, releases document and encourages endorsers

Closing Document of the Palestine Solidarity Conference

“Separated in the past – together in the future”

Equality – or nothing (Edward W. Said)

From 26-28 November 2010, over 200 participants came together for a “Palestine Solidarity Conference”. The theme of this three-day conference, with the title Separated in the past – together in the future, was “Barriers and Perspectives for a just solution” of the conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinians.

The speakers were the Israeli historian Prof. Ilan Pappé from the University of Exeter (U.K.), Prof. Haidar Eid from the Al Aqsa University Gaza, Prof Mazin Qumsiyeh from Bir Zeit University Ramallah, the co-founder of the Internet Portal Electronic Intifada Ali Abunimah, the Palestinian activist Lubna Masarwa, the international law expert from Hamburg Prof. Norman Paech, the journalist and human rights activist Evelyn Hecht-Galinski, Annette Groth MP from the parliamentary fraction of the left party (DIE LINKE), lawyer Jörg Lang, and Attia Rajab and Verena Rajab from the Stuttgart Palestine Committee. The jazz musician Gilad Atzmon supported the conference with his welcome address. The actress Julianna Herzberg and Samir Mansour with his Layalina Ensemble performed in the cultural programme. The patron of the conference was the Israeli-German lawyer and human rights activist Felicia Langer.

The conference participants from England, France, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, the USA and Germany discussed strategies and objectives that they could follow together.

The great majority determined that the dogmatic adherence to the 2-State Solution ignores the actual realities and assumes a false parity between a colonized and occupied people on one side, and a colonial state with its military superiority on the other. This falsely propagates the possibility of achieving a peace in which the Palestinians living in the areas occupied in 1967 are granted limited national rights, while the rights of those living within the borders of 1948 and of the expelled are denied their rights.

The adherence to a 2-State Solution condemns Palestinians with Israeli citizenship to live as second class citizens in their historic country, in a racist state in which they are not allowed the same rights as Jewish citizens. Furthermore, the continuance of a Zionist state on the land of the Palestinian refugees denies these refugees the internationally recognized right to return.

...At the end of the discussion there was general agreement that only the creation of a shared secular and democratic state in historical Palestine with equal rights for all can bring peace and equality for Palestinians and Israelis – a state in which all people live together with equal rights, irrespective of their religion or background. This of course includes the Palestinians expelled from the country (fulfilment of Resolution 194 of the UN General Assembly).

Leading powers, above all the USA and the EU countries, continue to tolerate or support the sustained transgressions of Israel against international law and the abuse of all UN resolutions, which condemn the colonial and discriminatory politics of Israel as illegal. The governments of the USA and the EU tolerate the constant attacks against the Palestinian people and their homes. In particular, the complete failure of the “international community” during the Israeli massacre in Gaza in Winter 2008/2009 demonstrates clearly that only pressure from civil society worldwide can enforce a change in the politics of Israel and her supporters. Read more