World intellectuals condemn Israeli occupation
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 3/26/2002

A group of eight internationally renowned intellectuals, including two Nobel prize award winners, denounced on Monday in Gaza the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

In a first visit of the kind since the start of the Intifadah II, September 2000, world renowned intellectuals visited the Palestinian territories where they were received by the famous Palestinian poet, Mahmud Darwish.

"We have to ring the alarm bell everywhere in the world to say that what is happening today is a crime that we can end, Portuguese Jose Saramago, literature Nobel prize winner, told reporters in Ramallah. He criticized the extension of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and deplored restrictions imposed by the Jewish state on the movement of Palestinians, including president Yasser Arafat who is confined since early December.

U.S. Russels Banks, chairman of the International Writers Parliament, said he himself felt like a prisoner when he reached by road Ramallah after crossing the check point of Kalandia.

For Nigerian Wole Soyinka, also a literature Nobel Prize winner, it is abnormal that the United Nations Organization has not deployed its peace-keeping soldiers in the Palestinian territories to protect the Palestinians against the military.

Saramaho compared the Israeli occupation to Auschwitz nazi concentration camps and answered to criticism by Israeli official and religious clerics by saying it is the duty of a writer to denounce injustice and draw attention to shocking situations.

The French man of letter Christian Salmon said:" When I was a teenager I was greatly impressed by talks of Jewish friends on the experience of the "Copouts " and how Israel had converted the desert ( Palestine) into Paradise, but today when I arrived together with my colleague I say that occupation converted the Paradise into a desert."

The delegation of the international parliament of writers, on a mission to the Palestinian territories from March 24 through 29, will be meeting Palestinian and Israeli authors and artists and peace advocates.

Before undertaking the mission, the group launched a peace appeal petition signed by 500 writers from over 30 countries who denounce "the mirage of ethnically pure states, the crazy logic of apartheid" against Palestinians and request a U.N.-supervised international protection of Palestinians. They will be reporting on their mission in a series of stories to be published worldwide.

Other renowned members of the mission are Breyten Breytenbach (South Africa), Dei Dao (China), Juan Goytisolo (Spain), Vicenzo Consolo (Italy), and Christian Salmon (the Parliament executive director).

Previous Stories:
  Robinson expresses concern over deteriorating human rights in Palestine   (2/14/2002)
  Human rights violations by Israel in occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, PA territories   (1/23/2002)
  Mahmoud Darwish's speech at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of al-Nakba (the Catastrophe)   (5/14/1998)
  Memories of a 1948 survivor   (5/12/1998)
  Palestinians prepare for mourning day on May 14   (5/11/1998)
  Memories of a veteran Palestinian fighter in 1948   (5/1/1998)
  Kufr Qassem 41 years later: survivors recall the cold-blooded massacre   (4/9/1998)
  Deir Yassin massacre 50th Anniversay   (4/8/1998)

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