On 7 October a new cycle of terror and unprecedented armed violence began in Middle East. One thousand two hundred Israeli civilians lost their lives in terrorist attacks organised by Hamas on Israeli territory and tens of hostages are still being held. The immediate military response launched by B. Netanyahu’s colonial far-right government adds war to war, chaos to chaos, death to death: more than 14,000 to date, according to Gazan sources, including a massive number of children.

No crime can right another crime. The war between Israel and Hamas is the symptom of the failure of a political solution, but also the denial of one, despite the courageous demands of the families of the Israeli hostages who are demonstrating in Tel Aviv. Building this political solution, which is inseparable from an immediate ceasefire and opens up the prospect of a just and lasting peace, can rely on the men and women who are ready to be its architects.

On the Israeli side, the figure of peace has often come from former soldiers. On the Palestinian side, a well-known figure who has been imprisoned for 21 years in Israeli jails embodies the prospect of peace: Marwan Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Why this man? Approved by his people, faithful to the convictions of the Palestinian national movement, critical of the deadlock following the post-Oslo period, he has shown on several occasions that he could be the driving force to achieve a two-state solution, within the framework of the UN resolutions and the 1967 borders.

All diplomats and experts on the situation in Middle East know that the immediate release of the man who has been called « the Palestinian Mandela » is one of the keys to the political solution that the Palestinian and Israeli peoples need if they are to live in peace.

To begin building at last a just and lasting peace, let’s demand an immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages to their families, and mobilise to ensure the release of Marwan Barghouti and all other Palestinian political prisoners.