Jan. 5,—Today Helga Zepp-LaRouche made a key address to the International Peace Coalition. Excerpts follow:
“I will give you my view that on the one side, the situation is getting more horrible in Gaza itself simply because the conditions accumulate, and now with the rainy season and the cold weather, there are reports which are absolutely unbelievable. People are sitting in the rain without tents which function, nothing to eat; you all know these reports. I think that, therefore, the Christmas message by Pastor Munther Isaac from Bethlehem, who cried out about the silence of the governments and the silence of the churches, needs to be spread far and wide. I would urge people to use the video from that Christmas sermon to really get it around as a reminder of the conscience that people should have.
“Now, the danger naturally is that the situation after the assassination of the Hamas leader in Lebanon and the two bombings of the site where in Iran the fourth anniversary of the assassination of General Soleimani was celebrated, where 84 people were killed and 220 or more were wounded. Clearly there are some people who want to widen this situation into a Southwest Asian war, but the moment it involves Iran, and if Iran would react, there is decades-long knowledge that this has the implication of leading to a global war….
“The situation in Ukraine is also extremely dangerous. You have the new Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski who was so jubilant about the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines that he sent a message to the Biden administration after the news of the pipeline being blown up came out, he said, "Well done, America!" So, this same Foreign Minister is now demanding that Ukraine should get more long-range missiles, so they can hit more deeply into Russia. Naturally, the Ukraine situation is de facto over, from the standpoint that it is generally recognized that there is no way the Ukrainian military or population can continue this war with any hope of winning it, so therefore, those who are pushing Ukraine to continue are really driving these people into complete slaughter, which is also has the danger of an escalation at any moment.
“Professor Jeffrey Sachs from Columbia just put out a statement saying that the Israeli behavior is risking the existence of Israel, because it leads to all the world uniting against Israel. Even The Economist, which is the mouthpiece of the British Empire, says Israel is threatening its own security, and Netanyahu has to go.
“All of these things are signs of an escalation and urgently require an intervention of the international peace movement.
“I think it is extremely important that the South African government has taken the moral leadership, which obviously the West is no longer capable of providing, by bringing the case of genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice. Already next week on January 11 and 12, there will be a hearing.
“At this meeting of religious leaders we had yesterday, we decided that we would appeal to all of you today in this meeting and fold it into our activity, to try and get the maximum attention and support to this hearing. Because this is definitely a situation where the limelight of the world can be brought to the situation. The Israeli government has said that they will be there, because they also have signed the Genocide Convention, but that they will completely deny any responsibility and call anyone who repeats this as being anti-Semitic, but I don’t think this will wash. Because the news about what has happened so far is so overwhelming and spreading around the world, that I think this South African legal intervention is extremely important. This morning we learned that there was a whole other group of peace organizations that also asked for other governments and other organizations to support the South African government in their calling for declarations of interventions to be written by organizations and countries either before the hearing on Jan. 11th and 12th, or afterwards.
“So, I think we should all be geared up to first of all try to help to get more support from other countries and organizations, but also take the news next week that we spread this and really try to shift the opinion on the situation for good….
“[G]ive people some hope. Because, we have to have a perspective of a future for all of humanity.
“And the fact that the BRICS countries have enlarged into the BRICS-10 and are going to have many more members over the course of this year, the Global Majority is moving in the direction of forming a new economic system, but we absolutely have to get the West to join with the New Paradigm and stop opposing Russia, China, and the Global Majority as enemies, because they are not. It would be very easy to remedy the situation, if this geopolitical confrontation would be replaced by a spirit of cooperation….
“[W]e must have a vision for the reconstruction not only of Gaza and the entire Palestinian land, but to have a plan for a coexistence in peaceful development between Palestinians, Israelis, but also the entire region. That can only come through economic development.
“The new name for peace must be development, as the encyclical Populorum Progressio of Pope Paul VI already said in 1967. …W]e have this support operation for the South African government motion in the International Court of Justice, but also that you help to spread the idea of the [Oasis Plan as a hopeful future for the entire region.”
Then Zepp-LaRouche introduced a short video on the solution for Israelis and Palestinians.
