Israel's Berlin Wall must fall

The UN General Assembly passed a resolution on Tuesday 21 October calling on Israel to stop building its apartheid wall along the West Bank. Israel and the United States voted against the resolution. The Dublin government was among the co-sponsors of the UN Resolution.

On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall fell. This was seen as an historic end to a stagnant approach to problem solving.

This anniversary has been chosen as a day of international demonstration in solidarity with Palestinian people who are suffering daily because of the apartheid wall that is being built in their midst. Family members are separated from each other. They are walled out of their land. They are prevented from accessing their water supplies. They are cut off from medical care and from attending school and college.

The apartheid wall violates articles 53 and 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

A demonstration will be held in Dublin on Sunday 9 November at 3.30pm. People are being urged to meet at the top of Grafton Street and help form a human solidarity wall of silence and light. Those attending are asked to bring a torch or candle and to dress in black for the one-hour silent statement of support for the worldwide campaign to demolish the wall.

* Meanwhile, the Israeli daily, Haaretz reported last week that Irish Foreign Minister Bran Cowen had advised the Israeli government that he was leaving Israel off his Middle East itinerary in protest at its practice of boycotting foreign officials who meet Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Haaretz reported that the decision "disappointed the Foreign Ministry, since Ireland is to assume the European Union presidency in the first half of 2004".