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AEI - Open Windows News
Letter from Abdallah Abu Rahmeh AEI’s Teacher
From the Ofer Military Detention Camp
This letter from Bil′in′s
Abdallah Abu Rahmah was conveyed from his
prison cell by his lawyers. Please circulate
widely.
January 1, 2010
To all our friends,
I
mark the beginning of the new decade imprisoned
in a military detention camp. Nevertheless, from
within the occupation′s holding cell I meet the
New Year with determination and hope.
I
know that Israel's military campaign to imprison
the leadership of the Palestinian popular
struggle shows that our non-violent struggle is
effective. The occupation is threatened by our
growing movement and is therefore trying to shut
us down. What Israel′s leaders do not understand
is that popular struggle cannot be stopped by
our imprisonment.
Whether we are confined in the open-air prison
that Gaza has been transformed into, in military
prisons in the West Bank, or in our own villages
surrounded by the Apartheid Wall, arrests and
persecution do not weaken us. They only
strengthen our commitment to turning 2010 into a
year of liberation through unarmed grassroots
resistance to the Occupation.
The price I and many others pay in freedom does
not deter us. I wish that my two young daughters
and baby son would not have to pay this price
together with me. But for my son and daughters,
for their future, we must continue our struggle
for freedom.
This year, the Popular Struggle Coordination
Committee will expand on the achievements of
2009, a year in which you amplified our popular
demonstrations in Palestine with international
boycott campaigns and international legal
actions under universal jurisdiction.
In my village, Bil'in, Israeli tycoon, Lev
Leviev and Africa-Israel, the corporation he
controls, are implicated in illegal construction
of settlements on our stolen land, as well as
the lands of many other Palestinian villages and
cities. Adalah-NY is leading an international
campaign to show Leviev that war crimes have
their price.
Our village has sued two Canadian companies for
their role in the construction and marketing of
new settlement units on village land cut off by
Israel's Apartheid Wall. The legal proceedings
in this precedent-setting case began in the
Canadian courts last summer and are ongoing.
Bil'in has become the graveyard of Israeli real
estate empires. One after another, these
companies are approaching bankruptcy as the
costs of building on stolen Palestinian land are
driven higher than the profits.
Unlike Israel, we have no nuclear weapons or
army, but we do not need them. The justness of
our cause earns us your support. No army, no
prison and no wall can stop us.
Yours,
Abdallah Abu Rahmah
From the Ofer Military Detention Camp
Read previous articles:
-
Teacher in AEI’s Living in the Holy Land
project arrested
-
See for an interview AEI conducted with Abdallah
Abu Rahmeh:
http://www.aeicenter.org/sumud/stories_from_Palestine/Life_stories.htm
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