Finding Heart and Courage: An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama,

I found your book 'Dreams
from my Father' a moving and inspiring story of your own struggle
to find your identity and purpose in life. You found it for sure, and
today carry the hopes and dreams of so many people in our world.
We pray for you and your family. We wish you all
good health and happiness. You carry so much responsibility.
We hope you will change the policies of USA (both domestic and Foreign)
to people centred policies, based on the values and ethics which you
try to live out in your life.

Reading your book I was inspired
by your involvement (during Sophomore year at University) in the South
African anti-apartheid Divestment campaign. Your own words -- 'I found
myself drawn into a larger role - contacting representatives of the
African National Congress to speak on campus, drafting strategy, I noticed
that people had begun to listen to my opinions.' -- encouraged
me to share with you the following opinions, and experiences,
of many of the people I met during my most recent visit to Palestine/Israel.

Earlier this month, I attended
the 4^th Bil'in International Conference on Popular Nonviolent
Resistance held in Bil'in, near Ramallah, in the Israeli occupied
Terrority of Palestine. Here, all the Palestinian people
are asking of you, President Obama, is to listen to their opinions
and use your position to help end the racist, apartheid policies of
Israel, which continue to cause so much pain and suffering to them.
Each week, for the past four years, the villagers (after prayers in
the Mosque) walk to the Wall which has annexed much of their land, and
cuts them off from their farms and olive groves, and their ability to
make a living for their families. As you know, under International
Law the Apartheid wall is illegal but Israel continues to ignore International
Laws (and some 62 UN resolutions) and annex more land from the Palestinians,
all the while demolishing Palestinian homes, building illegal settlements
both in East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, and laying Siege to the Gaza
strip (one and a half million people), thus breaking the Geneva Conventions
and committing crimes against humanity.

To visit Palestine is to walk
with a people whose lives are being made unbearable by Israeli Policies
of ethnic cleansing. Each year when I visit I ask myself 'how
can the Palestinians bear so much suffering and still have hope?' The Philosopher Karl Jung says 'Go into your grief for there your
soul will grow'. Being privileged to walk alongside the
Palestinian people, one sees so much soul. Many are materially
poor having been made refugees and often pauperised by Israeli occupation
and siege, but their dignity, courage, and persistent resistance to
injustice is awesome to witness. It reminds me of the magnificence
of the human spirit and, I feel humbled to be welcomed as a friend of
the people of Bilin, Ramallah, Gaza, and Palestine. I wish that you President Obama would go and walk with them as you walked
in spirit with the people of South Africa in their great and inspirational
anti-apartheid movement.

Walking every week in the peaceful
protest to the Apartheid wall, are Israeli activists and Internationals.
It takes great courage to come from Israel to the occupied terrorities
and oppose your own Government's Policies and I pay tribute to the
Israeli peace activists who continue to do so, often at the cost of
punishment by the Israeli Government. Yet, they come, and here is the
hope that not all Israelis support their Government's racist and apartheid
policies of siege, occupation and militarization of both Israel and
Palestinian villages and towns. I also pay tribute to the Internationals
who put their lives daily on the line to stand in solidarity with the
Palestinians. Last month in the Village of Nilin, one young man
from your own country of America, Tristan Anderson, was targeted by
Israeli soldiers, and hit in the head with a gas canister. He
is currently in intensive care, and we all hope he will recover.

At the Bilin Conference an
Israeli asked me 'how can we touch the hearts of the Israeli people'
so they can change their Government's policies?' I believe
there is so much fear amongst the Israeli's of ethnic annialiation
but this fear can be dissolved by the politics of the heart. Israel
should not be afraid of the Palestinians or Arab world. They are not the enemy and this can be borne witness to by the Israelis
who come to stay in this village and who are taken care of, with such
love, by the Bilin villagers. The Israeli people must make
friends with the Palestinians and indeed the whole Arab world, and take
seriously the peace agreement offered by the Arab countries. There
will never be a military or armed struggle solution to the Israeli/
Palestinian conflict, as it is a political problem with a political
solution. What is lacking is a real political will, on behalf
of the Israeli Government, to enter seriously into all inclusive unconditional
talks.

During the peaceful protest
to the wall, we were assaulted by the Israeli soldiers with teargas,
and rubber bullets. Many of us were overcome with the teargas
and others seriously hurt with steel tipped rubber bullets.
On 17^th April, 2009, at this wall, one of the protesters,
Bassem Abu-Rahma, was hit in the chest with a teargas metal container
and killed. He was a young man from the village much loved by all and
his death caused great pain and anger particularly amongst his peer
group. I marvelled at the skill of the Village Leaders
and Muslim women, who kept reminding the young men that they must keep
their protest peaceful, but the atmosphere felt like a pressure cooker
with the lid about to blow. How much longer must this injustice
to Palestinian people be allowed to continue unchallenged by your administration?
If you do not insist upon Israel Upholding its International responsibility
immediately, this anger will grow and the daily humiliation of Palestine,
by Israeli injustice and soldiers will push more people towards retaliatory
violence. (As one of our great Irish poets W.B. Yeats wrote
'too long a sacrifice makes a stone of the heart').

I appeal to you President
Obama, to change USA Policies and stop supporting through military aid,
etc, Israelis occupation of Palestine, and to move immediately to help
lift the siege of Gaza and say to Israel 'enough is enough'.

In the meantime I support the
Bilin committee's strategy of BDS in an attempt to get their freedom
and rights. You, as a supporter and activist for South Africa's BDS
campaign know it succeeded in ending Apartheid as Nobel Peace
Laureat Archbishop Tutu often reminds
us. Such a strategy can work for Palestine too. Some South
Africans Anti Apartheid leaders when visiting Israel have said it is
much worse than the days of Apartheid in their country.

However, I believe President
Obama, you can do so much more than those of us who support the BDS campaign.
You can bring your experience in your own struggle for peace and freedom to help solve
this problem.

Love and hope gives us all
courage and belief that peace and freedom is possible.

God bless you and your family.

Mairead Maguire
Nobel Peace Laureate