All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. (Part 1, Article 1 of the 1966 United Nations (UN) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights )

I have decided to start with this Article of the 1966 Covenant because a political commitment should be based on values and principles rather than on a particular people or group.

In the Middle East, which in the past has been colonised by several European states and later put under United States (US) imperialist hegemony, most of the countries are in a situation of domination and dependency which oblige them to obey the ruling forces of the world, thus depriving their people of 'economic, social and cultural development,' which the right of self-determination recognises for them.

We are living in a regional environment in which no country is able to implement this right, including the state of Israel which remains dependent on the interests of the US. Obviously, the Palestinian people are also denied this right of self-determination, as well as the right to live in dignity and almost every fundamental right assigned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) stating that human rights should be protected by a ?rule of law? in order to not push humans to revolt against oppression and dictatorship.

Today, this right to resist oppression is denied and identified with ?terrorism?. Personally, I strongly condemn and reject any attack against civilian targets, wherever it is, precisely in the name of my respect for human rights. Such attacks play into the hands of the globalising forces fighting the worldwide ?war against terrorism?, which as everyone can see, identifies terrorists and terrorist regimes in only one part of the world, a part which was, and continues to be, a victim of colonialism, slavery and imperialism.

This is the reason why the struggle of the Palestinian people is of concern for the anti-globalisation movement: the Palestinian people have been victims not only of colonialism and imperialism, but, today, also of global neo-liberalism. The human rights of the Palestinians are violated; their culture and history are denied or ignored; Palestinian society is condemned to live in fear and under the control of the Israeli army and police forces, a power that is becoming less and less limited; water and land resources are stolen under the pretext of security. However, everyone knows well that all these measures are taken in order to make the life of the Palestinians more and more difficult and unbearable, forcing them to leave their lands ? a silent but forced transfer, although described as passive. If one looks at Israeli society, it is obvious that it also suffers from neoliberalism, in addition to the strengthening of nationalism ? the systematic violation of the human rights of the non-Jewish population inside Israel ? Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Bedouin population as well as migrant workers. The growing centrality of the military and police forces in Israeli society is becoming more and more obvious. These are all characteristics of a world that we reject, but while many of us share these analyses developed by experts, we are quite impotent.

We can express our solidarity and work with Palestinian as well as Israeli NGO?s that are fighting against the Occupation; we can write reports and testify before the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. We are doing it, and we will have to continue doing it and even develop new forms of action. Today, however, it seems that against this neo-liberalism, we need to go further and create alternative paths for effective engagement. Despite a great number of reports to the UN, Europe and the US, and despite numerous visits of elected officials from many countries, nothing has been able to affect Israeli policies of colonialisation, occupation, closure and mass arrests. It seems that the principles of the UN have become obsolete, which obliges us to ask if there is any future role for the international institutions of the UN.

A completely different logic is at work: the logic of the World Trade Organization (WTO), in which the tools of the United Nations are becoming irrelevant, nonexistent, even when we take into consideration that the WTO body in charge of conflict resolution does not use any of the UN legal references. In the cases of Palestinians? agricultural lands and water, the only way for their concerns to be heard globally is to address the WTO institutions, whose primary task is to evacuate all the rules that contradict neo-liberalism.

What can Palestine do concerning the WTO when it is not even a member of that institution? It is not difficult to predict how, in the framework set by the WTO, the Israeli state will totally freeze any economic exchange between the West Bank and Gaza and how it will completely strangle the economy of the Palestinian state and its commercial relations with other countries. As anti-globalisation fighters, the framework of our struggle is changing ? a new dimension has to be added to the old strategies, and the new must be articulated with the old.

It is our duty to demand and to work on radical changes in international law and the UN structures, specifically for the integration of the responsibilities of the WTO into the UN system. In that sense, as activists against globalisation, we have to refuse to accept any of the decisions taken by international bodies at the expense of the rights of peoples as well as the rights of individuals.

The UDHR will serve as the program that will orient our demands. Through a total transparency of our own functioning and the establishment of internal as well as external mechanisms of accountability and control, we will be able to use this base of the UDHR to effectively enact change.

I believe that this connection between the state of Israel and global institutions such as the WTO represents the present challenge confronting the Palestinian people in their struggle for an economically viable, independent state with secure borders next to the state of Israel. This is not only a challenge for the Palestinians, but also for the activists against neo-liberal globalisation, who are in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and with the worldwide struggle for the right of selfdetermination for every nation and all peoples.