Thank you Nitin and the Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia, who has taken the lead in organizing this very important lecture, and thank you for your solidarity and work as a central part of the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights.

As you know, the present Aqsa Intifada has been going now for over 10 weeks. Over 320 people have been killed, all but 32 of them are Palestinians. One third of all those killed are children under the age of 18. As we speak, clashes are still going on between Palestinian kids refusing Israeli occupation and Israeli army claiming to be restraining but still shooting to kill. People in the United States do not get a real opportunity to know the gravity of the human and political situation, as Israeli settlers, military officials and Palestinian gunmen get entangled in the fights and obscure the fact that this Intifada remains fundamentally an uprising of Palestinian civilians against the Israeli occupation. It is an uprising of people throwing stones against Israeli army to express yet again their refusal of Israeli oppression that has been ongoing for over 50 years and their determination to reach some justice. The US media, for all its effort, does not explain the gravity of the occupation that has been institutionalized, rather than removed, with the Oslo peace process.

This Intifada has taken the whole world by surprise. After all, the Palestinian and the Israeli side have been talking peace for over 7 years. Arafat and Rabin have shook hands in the White house lawn on September 13, 1993, and both leaders have signed a peace interim agreement that should have allowed the Palestinians and the Israelis to learn to live with each other in peace. Yet, people in the United States do not know that the Peace interim agreement, referred to as Oslo agreement, rather than sow the seeds of peace actually sowed the seeds of mistrust, of deeper oppression, and lead to the anger that is being expressed in the West bank and Gaza Strip.

Since 1993, more Palestinian land has been expropriated, over 40 new settlement outposts have been build, and more than 30,000 new housing units have been built in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip. According to numerous international resolutions according to the 4^th Geneva convention that applies to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israeli settlements are illegal and Israeli settlers have no right to live in the occupied areas. Yet the number of settlers increased by 80% between 1993-2000. Today a total of nearly 400,000 settlers living in East Jerusalem and the WBGS (by 2000). Meanwhile over 400 km of bypass roads have been built and Palestinian land has further fragmented into small unconnected bandstands. The maps at the entrance of this hall should have provided you with an idea of what the territorial reality of the peace process: fragmented Palestinian enclaves which cannot form any basis for any Palestinian state, let alone a viable one. Needless to say that as economic situation of the Palestinian people, just as their land, has deteriorated over the past 7 years. Oslo did not provide the basis for the creation of a Palestinian state, a right for which Palestinians have struggled for over 50 years, a right enshrined in UN resolution and international law

Palestinian suffering however is not only linked to what has been going on in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It is intrinsically bound to the history of Palestinian suffering that is a result of Israel persecution that has been going on for over 50 years. Over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their land, with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Today these refugees number over 3.8 million persons living in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and other countries (2/3rds of which live outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip). These people have witnessed two exoduses, the first in 1948, the second in 1967. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 has further aggravated their plight. The Oslo process did not talk about their fundamental right to return, restitution and compensation. Yet these are rights guaranteed by the UN resolution 194. Without a just and fair solution to the Palestinian refugees there can be not sustainable or viable peace in the area.

No one knows how long this Intifada will continue. For some people, this Intifada is reminiscent of the 1987 Intifada, the famous uprising whose anniversary was just a few days ago, and which brought to the attention of the world the plight of the Palestinian people. Yet the number of people killed in this Intifada in less than three months out-weighs the number of those killed in the first year of the 1987 uprising. The human violations and damages are outrageous and must stop. Many fear for the life of civilians, both on the Israeli and the Palestinian side, the cycle of violence must end before it takes with it all those seeking to live in dignity and peace.

People in Palestine have clearly said that they want an end to the occupation, the retreat of Israel to 1967 borders and the establishment a viable contiguous Palestinian state. The question remains whether this will be possible. The United States and people living in this country have a central a role to play in helping the foundation of peace in the Middle East to be built, or not.