15 March 2005
Mr. Kofi Annan
UN Secretary-General
c/o UNSCO, Jerusalem
14th March, 2005
Dear Secretary-General Annan,
We welcome you to Israel-Palestine. Your interviews in the Israeli media suggest you are attempting to address negative attitudes towards the United Nations prevalent among many Israelis - an important goal, whose achievement may facilitate a more effective UN role as part of the international “Quartet” charged with promoting an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Your decision to attend the ceremony at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem is evidently part of that effort, and a renewed affirmation of the UN’s determination to oppose any manifestation of racial prejudice and persecution, of which the extermination of six million European Jews is a particularly horrific and terrible example.
Nevertheless, your visit takes place at a particularly sensitive time, when every action has most serious long-term ramifications. Precisely because of the importance of your visit here, the choice to include certain sites on your itinerary and exclude others is crucial. As you told Israeli TV recently, the Gaza Disengagement Plan propounded by PM Sharon could be a positive step - provided it is a step in the implementation of the “Road Map,” whose ultimate goal is viable peace, a complete end to the Occupation and the creation of a viable Palestine.
Unfortunately, there is no sign that Ariel Sharon regards things that way; there are many signs to the contrary: not only explicit statements by Sharon and his aides expressing a clear intention to hold on to the bulk of the West Bank lands, but also unilateral acts on the ground intended to grab Palestinian territory and effectively annex it to Israel.
In particular, we wish to stress continuing construction of the so-called “Separation Wall.” All across the West Bank, entire communities are being cordoned off, many losing their land: such villages as Wallajeh, Nuaman, Jayyous, Ras Tira, Azzun, Marda, Nazlat Issa, Wadi Fukin, Beit Souriq and many others. Palestinian towns, especially around Jerusalem (e.g. Abu Dis, Bethlehem and A-Ram) are being cut down the middle or surrounded and made into isolated enclaves, with a massive dislocation of trade, education, health services, access to religious sites and every facet of normal daily life.
A visitor to the Wall at Abu Dis can see schoolchildren climbing through gaps in the Wall (often harassed by Border Police), men climbing it to find work so they can feed their families, women with babies in their arms, even the sick and the elderly having to climb in order to get to the only hospital in the region. Elsewhere, in such villages as Beit Surik, Bila’in, Budrus and many others where the Wall is being erected, visitors can observe the Israeli armed forces daily using tear gas, “rubber” bullets and even live ammunition against non-violent villagers protesting the take-over of their land - and also against Israeli and international peace activists who share that protest. At Jayyous village, where the Wall was erected in 2003, one can see settlers busily creating a new settlement on land to which the Palestinian owners are denied access - in the so-called “Seam Zone.” This political border (the real intention of the Wall) is creating conditions whereby settlements thrive and expand while Palestinians are fearful of being forced into transfer: a form of ethnic cleansing.
Your visit to Jerusalem, passing within a short distance of where all this takes place, without stopping to acknowledge it, will be construed as tacit acquiescence by you and the institution you head - tacit acquiescence in a brutal practice for which the security of Israelis is the pretext rather than the true reason; security can only be reached by a political solution and the Wall actually hampers rather than helps reach such a solution.
We need hardly remind you that the creation of this Wall was strongly condemned by the overwhelming majority of the UN General Assembly, that its disastrous humanitarian consequences have been elaborated in great detail by a UN Rapporteur and that its continuing creation is in flagrant defiance of the International Court at the Hague, the body empowered by the international community to interpret International Law. We are sure it is not your intention to approve - explicitly or tacitly - such phenomena. Nevertheless, that is what you would be doing in practice by failing to include the Wall on the itinerary of your visit. Therefore, we - Israeli and Palestinian and international peace activists - call upon you to observe first-hand the Wall and its disastrous humanitarian effects, which will have such a negative impact on peace making and the future viability of Palestine. We also eagerly await institution of a Register of Damages caused by the Wall, and the institution of a system of compensation for loss of income, education, freedom of movement, land and homes, as called for by the ICJ Advisory Opinion and UN General Assembly.
When in the past the world has stayed silent, atrocities have been committed; your visit to Yad Vashem underlines that principle. When, on occasion, the United Nations and the world community have delayed in response to tragedy, further tragedy has been allowed to happen. Mr. Annan, as citizens of the world we call upon you to take the necessary measures so that the unnecessary, wanton tragedy in this part of the world will cease, the Wall and settlements be dismantled, justice will be seen to be done, UN Resolutions enforced and viable peace achieved here for the long-term benefit of all.
Signed:
Jody Williams, Fredericksburg VA, USA, Nobel Peace Laureate, The Landmines Campaign
Angie Zelter, Cromer UK, Alternative Nobel Peace Laureate, Founder of International Womens Peace Service
Uri Avnery, Tel Aviv, Alternative Nobel Peace Laureate, Founder of Gush Shalom
Ambassador Carleton Coon, Washington, DC
Gush Shalom - Peace Bloc, Israel
Coalition of Woman for Peace, Israel
Ada Ravon, Adv., Tel Aviv, Israel
Adam Keller, Gush Shalom, Tel Aviv, Israel
Adi Dagan, Tel Aviv, Israel (Coalition of Women for Peace)
Adv. Ghiath Nassir, East Jerusalem
Adv. Mohammed Dahleh, East Jerusalem
Aharon Shabtai, Tel Aviv, Israel
Alexandre Zimmermann, Leiden, Netherlands
Alix K. Weizmann, Israel
Amira Katz, Dept. of East Asian Studies, Hebrew University, J”m
Amy Baron, Boston, MA, USA
Andre Rosenthal, Jerusalem
Andrew Harvey, Birmingham, UK
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, Israeli Cttee. Against House Demolitions, Jerusalem
Angus Geddes, Havant, UK
Anne Manning, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Anne Martin, Commitment for Life, United Reformed Church, UK
Arash Alaei, Director, NRITLD & Pars Curative Researcher, Institute for HIV/IDU/STI prevention and care
Bassem Khader, Chappaqua, New York
Beate Zilversmidt, Gush Shalom, Tel Aviv, Israel
Bilha Golan, Beit She’arim, Israel
Carmel (Charlie) Attard, Engadine, Australia
Ceylon Mooney, Wheels of Justice/Voices in the Wilderness Memphis
Charles Shamas, Jerusalem
Chris Leadbeter, Ashford, Kent, UK
Daniel Bugel-Shunra, Port Townsend, WA, USA
David Airey, Arlington, MA, USA
David Bloom, Jews Against the Occupation, New York, NY
Dhakiyya Elli Anders-Gomm, Saffron Walden, UK
Donald Bustany, Los Angeles, USA
Doris Wagner, Corrales, New Mexico, USA
Dorothee Rautenauer, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Dr. Alla Shainskaya, Rehovot, Israel
Dr. Anat Matar, Tel Aviv University
Dr. Hala Espanioly, Upper Nazareth, Israel
Dr. Janina Altman, Haifa, Israel
Dr. Kees Wagtendonk, Amstelveen, The Netherlands
Dr. Meir Margalit, Israeli Cttee. Against House Demolitions, Jerusalem
Dr. Nina Mayorek, Jerusalem
Dr. Snait Gissis, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Dr. Uri Davis, Sakhnin, Israel
Dr. Yehiam Soreq, Herzliya, Israel
Edna Primoratz, Jerusalem
Elisabeth Sherif, Santa Fe, NM, USA
Elizabeth Freund, Jerusalem
Enrique Ferro, Brussels, Belgium
Eva Jablonka, Jerusalem
Gail Kent, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
Gail Murphy, Code Pink: Women for Peace, Washington, USA
Gila Svirsky, Coalition of Women for Peace, Jerusalem
Greta Berlin, Los Angeles Women in Black
Hagar Garti, Tel Aviv, Israel
Hess Moontasir, London, UK
Huseyin Oktay, Istanbul, Turkey
Ilan Cohen, Conegliano, Italy
Jacob Katriel, , Professor Emeritus, Technion, Haifa, Israel
Jake Terpstra, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Jan de Jong, Abu Tor, Jerusalem
Jimmy Johnson, Jerusalem and Chicago, USA
Joe Mowrey, Veterans for Peace Associate, Santa Fe, NM, USA
Joyce Livingstone, Israel
Kamiar Alaei, Director, NRITLD & Pars Curative Researcher
Katherine Hughes-Fraitekh, Arab-Jewish Peace Alliance, Albuquerque, NM
Kathleen Christison, Santa Fe, NM, USA
Khaled Duzdar, Co-Director, IPCRI: Israel/Palestine Center for Research
& Information
Leila Mosenson, Occupied Tel Aviv, Jerusalem & Territories
Lev Grinberg, Jerusalem
Lyn Adamson, Toronto, Canada
Marie Moser, Los Angeles (with Women in Black, Los Angeles)
Mark Elf, Jews Sans Frontieres
Marlene Newesri, New York, USA
Mary Lou Leiser Smith , Coord., Coalition for Peace with Justice, NC USA
Matityaho Shemoelof, Haifa, Israel
Menucha Moravitz, Ramat Gan, Israel (MachsomWatch)
Micah Leshem, Ph.D., Psychology Dept., Haifa University, Haifa, Israel
Michael Kent, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
Micky Fischer, Israel
Mimi Adam, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Miriam M. Reik, New York, USA
Molly Malekar, Director, Bat Shalom, Jerusalem
Nim Sothea, Bangkok, Thailand
Nomi Shir, Omer, Israel
Nurit Steinfeld, Jerusalem
Otniel E. Dror, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Paula Abrams-Hourani, Vienna, Austria
Paula Canarutto, Italy
Penelope Slygh Lichtenecker, Vienna, Austria
Pnina Feiler, Kibbutz Yad Hanna, Israel
Pnina Firestone, Jerusalem
Prof. Aharon Eviatar, Tel Aviv, Israel
Prof. Baruch Kimmerling, Hebrew Univ., Dept. Sociology & Anthropology
Prof. Bronislaw Wajnryb, Haifa Technion, Israel
Prof. Colman Altman, Haifa, Israel
Prof. Haleh Afshar, York University, UK
Prof. Igor Primoratz, Jerusalem
Prof. Jeff Halper, Israeli Cttee. Against House Demolitions, Jerusalem
Prof. Meir Gal, CUNY and NYU, USA
Prof. Tanya Reinhart, Tel Aviv, Israel
Prof. Victoria Buch, Jerusalem
Rama Ishaq, Jordan
Rayna Moss, Jaffa, Israel
Renee Bowyer, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Richard Ward, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Riva Bachrach, Israel
Roman Vater, Tel Aviv, Israel
Ronit Chacham, Jerusalem
Sami Abuhamdeh, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Shakhar Rahav, Albany, CA, USA
Smadar Carmon, Toronto, Canada
Sophie vom Scheidt, Berlin, Germany
Tamar Yaron, Kibbutz Hazorea, Israel and Canada
Taner Zorbay, Ankara, Turkey
Tanya Leadbeter, Brighton, Sussex, UK
Tarek Ibrahim, Adv., Co-ordinator, Arab Assoc. for Human Rts., Nazareth
Terry Boullata, Abu Dis, Palestine
Uri Ayalon, Tel Aviv-Jaffa
Veronika Cohen, Jerusalem
William Christison, Santa Fe, NM, USA
Yaacov Rosenberg, Jerusalem
Yehudith Harel, Herzlia, Israel
Yonathan (Jon) Anson, Beer Sheva, Israel
Yosefa Sartiel, MD, Tel Aviv, Israel
Yvonne Deutsch, Jerusalem