World speak to you “tonight on behalf of the “invisible people”, the victims of Israeli occupation, those thousands, many of whom I’ve had the privilege to represent; those who were never represented — women, children, the aged — all those striving for such simple goals as independence, liberty and the right to live as proud, free human beings. One of the first slogans of Zionism was: “We are giving to the people without land, a land without people.” That was the dream — a land without people. But in the Six Day War of 1967 they conquered a land with people. Describing this acquisition of Gaza, West Bank and Jerusalem, the late Prime Minister Lev. Eshkol said: ‘“‘What a beautiful dowry we've received, but the bride disturbs — « At the start of the occupation, thousands of Palestinians were driven off their land and their villages destroyed. Here I want to remind you of three such villages upon whose ruins I swore to defend the rights of those displaced and suppressed. The link between you and . these three villages is that the name of your country is used. On their ruins a beautiful park was erected, and it was called Canada Park, because a Jewish investor from Canada raised the money for it. Israeli children and tourists visit this place, but are not told that three flourishing villages once stood here, and that the people were driven out so as ‘not to disturb “the beauty of the dowry” for Mr. Eshkol and others; so as to conceal the “bride” — the Palestinian people. Only a few of us Israelis in those days were warning our people that this will bring catastrophe to Israel, that it.will bring disaster. The majority didn’t want to hear us. The deportation policy under the legal auspices of the 1945 Emergency Regulations started. The policy of torture _ during investigation started. The policy of collective punishment such as demolition of homes, started. The policy of curfews and penalties against whole cities started. Inhabitants of an entire East Jerusalem quarter were evicted in 48 hours to create a wide, beautiful access to the Wailing Wall. Now we have detailed accounts of how it was done, including such cynical comments as: “Perhaps some died under the ruins, perhaps not ....” Then the policy of expropriation of land started. I worked with the peasants of the majority of West Bank villages, trying to show the Israeli occupiers — my people —that it is unbelievable to deprive a people of their land. We failed. We struggled for years and failed, because every legal scheme and trick was used by jurists defending Israeli practices to deprive the Palestinians of their lands in the occupied territories. Two years ago, official figures show that more than 50 per cent of West Bank lands are now in the hands of the Israeli state and that 120 Israeli settlements are erected there. The Palestinians say: “We know Turkish and British occupation. But you : (Israel) are the most dangerous. Former occupiers came and went — you want to replace us.” A battle of survival is being waged. Israel cut off water for agriculture. Palestinians were denied all economic development. Not a single enterprise was permitted which competed with Israeli ones. Until the intifada, Palestinians served as a large market for Israeli products and as a source of cheap labour. But even as labourers, they must return each day to their Sowetos in Gaza and the Palestine’s intifada: - The ‘Ninth Wave’ in a 40-year struggle Felicia Langer’s name is known far beyond her country’s borders for her staunch defence of Palestinian rights in the Israeli-occupied lands. An eminent lawyer, Langer, 57, is a leading member of the Communist Party of Israel and author of several , books about the occupation. She spoke in Toronto Nov. 4, in her capacity as Vice-President of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, invited by the Law Union of Ontario. Her remarks are abridged here. West Bank — to camps‘in which now the third generation of refugees were raised. Those remaining in the cities were beaten and abused at nights; some, locked in their dirty premises by landlords fearful Palestinian tenants would be found by police patrols, were burned alive. The settlers became a knife in the heart of the Palestinians. We cannot say the settlements began with Likud. In the Jordan valley, all settlements were erected by the Labour Party, the same Labour Party which is a member of the Socialist International, as were some of the first settlements in the West Bank. Unionists were harassed, jailed and tortured. Thousands were deported under the 1945 . Emergency Regulations and all our efforts before the courts to have deportations cancelled failed. Sometimes when I hear about “legal defence” under the occupation I have to be a little. bit cynical. Occupation is governed by international law. The legality of an occupation derives from norms of international law — the Hague Convention, the Geneva Conven- tion. Humanity established norms in order to restrict the occupier, to show that occupation is a temporary phenomenon; that you have no right to annex, you have no title to the territories, you are only administering them, not more. Nevertheless, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and Syrian Golan Heights and is erecting permanent settlements, even towns, in the West Bank and Gaza. Therefore there was no rule of law in the occupied territories. The Palestinians started their struggle against occupation from the first day, and have struggled relentlessly all those years — until the second generation of Palestinians understood there is no way to comply with this situation, and were arriving before military courts at 16 and 17 years of age. All of a sudden I was a lawyer for the sons and daughters of those I defended in 1967. It was a striking phenomenon for me. - There were always waves of resistance and storms. Opposition was constant. But the authorities had to understand that the most powerful, the so-called Ninth Wave, must come because the people cannot bear this humiliation any more, and because they have the right, as do all people, to live free and liberated. And. it came. There is a date: December 9, 1987. It could have been another date. When it first came, the authorities were so involved with semantics, so involved in seeking a “proper definition”, they failed to see that a whole people had risen up against this terrible anomaly and injustice. They finally had to confess to our people and to themselves that they face "means the most terrible crimes are being committed by the Israeli authorities behind the smokescreen of this blackout. This intifada is marked by hundreds of Palestinians killed. And I want to warn you about a dangerous thing: people are becoming “‘used” to the murders. Almost every day Palestinians are killed who have no names, no faces, no pictures — faceless victims of all ages. Many children are victims of Israeli high-velocity bullets and of gas. How many women abort because of this terrible gas which is thrown into the huts in the refugee camps? And the funerals are held at night, without even the privilege of being buried as a human being. Defence Minister Yitzak Rabin, this Administrative imprisonment is such a creature that you can not defend anybody. Everything is based on secret material. You have no access to it. You are fighting with ghosts. These military courts serve as an arm of oppression under a cloak of legality. There is a prevailing state of apartheid in the occupied territories. Se SA re a re cis eos, aD rae a np re ite eh ann pag ty se prs EO EEE nothing less than a total uprising. The word, intifada (uprising) is now enriching the vocabulary of all those who struggle against foreign domination. It is now a universal word. And they will not stop until they win their independence. The intifada became more organized with each passing day. It became more general, more deeply rooted until it became a way of life in the occupied territories. We can say now that this uprising is erecting the infrastructure of the future Palestinian state in the occupied territories. I’m here to raise an alarm, because the blackout on orders given every area commander to deny the media access, bloody minister of the occupied territories, then gave an order to break bones, creating a wall of beatings in Ramallah, a shack of tortures in Nablus and many similar places where Palestinians are beaten, many to death. Palestinian hospitals are filled with wounded; we estimate 45,000 people. And many won’t go to the hospital for fear of arrest. I’ve visited the hospitals and talked to the victims. I was touched by their high spirits, and I was wondering why world public opinion is almost silent. Why is. there no outcry to stop the killings and maiming as an army confronts an unarmed civilian population? Palestinian women must fight to rescue gh j 6 e Pacific Tribune, November 21, 1988