Yesterday, October 24, a conference on the perspectives of the solidarity movement with the Palestinian people?s resistance struggle was held at the premises of the Austrian-Arab Cultural Centre in Vienna, Austria.

The conference was organised in the framework of the Stop the Wall Campaign in order to discuss how the Palestine solidarity movement in Europe should further develop against the background of recent events in Palestine. The apartheid wall and its effects on the Palestinian population was a major topic as well as the Gaza pullout of Israeli troops and settlements and the latest wave of repression against the resistance movement.

Keynote speakers included Maren Karlitzy, Coordinator of the Palestinian Campaign against the apartheid wall in Europe, Fritz Edlinger, Secretary General of the Society for Austrian-Arab Relations and Margarita Langthaler, Coordinator of the solidarity trip to Palestine ?Cracks in the Wall?, organised last August by the Austrian-Arab Cultural Centre and the Antiimperialist Camp.

The keynote speakers pointed out the disastrous effects of the apartheid wall and the Israeli occupation policy on the Palestinian population and agreed that the Gaza pullout does not mean in any way the end of the illegal and inhumane occupation of Palestinian land. To the contrary, as was stressed by Mr. Edlinger, the Gaza pullout is nothing more than an attempt to strengthen Israels alleged peace-seeking imagine in the Western world, while land robbery, settlement expansion, occupation, oppression and violence continue at even increased pace in the Westbank.

Ms. Karlitzy stressed that solidarity with the Palestinian people has to commence in each and every?s daily life, pressurizing the European governments to quit their current policy of support to the Israeli government. Ms. Langthaler called for sustained and holistic solidarity action in Europe fostering the unity of the Palestinian national liberation movement against the attempts to delegitimize it as terrorist.

The keynote speakers as well as the audience agreed to seek coordination of solidarity actions in the framework of the forthcoming international week against the apartheid wall scheduled from November 9 to 16, 2005.

The conference was attended by more than 70 persons. It was accompanied by a photo exhibition by Philip-Jaime Alcazar, a young and ambitious Austrian photographer who had been travelling and working in Palestine during last summer.

Austrian Arab Cultural Centre
Arab Palestine Club
Antiimperialst Camp
October 25, 2005