Rawan Abdul Nabi's speech, Sydney

And while our government contemplates going to war in our name, we must recognize that the plight of the Iraqi people and that of the Palestinian people are inseparable. Inseparable because of the hypocrisy and double standards of how the two peoples are treated.

Both peoples have suffered campaigns of war and injustice against them. Both Iraqi and Palestinian civilian populations are dying everyday from the effects of war and economic sanctions imposed on them. These effects include malnutrition, disease, displacement and death. And in both communities, it is the children who have suffered the most and will continue to be hit the hardest, if we in Australia allow our government to go off to another deadly war.

The hawks of war, Bush, Blair and Howard are demanding that Iraq comply with United Nations resolutions or "face the consequences". Already Iraq has been punished for years for its so-called non compliance through a genocidal campaign of economic sanctions that has crippled the civilian population. By all accounts from international relief agencies, this is a humanitarian diaster. A chronology of genocide.

If the international community is so concerned about the compliance of UN resolutions, why is Israel treated so differently? For decades, Israel has defied countless UN Resolutions and breached international human rights standards and law. Yet do we hear the leaders of the world calling for regime change in Israel? Do we see the so called moral leaders of the world imposing an economic blockade on Israel for its flagrant breach of human rights and UN resolutions. The hypocrisy and double standards is what we must face up to today. Without this acknowledgement, real justice and freedom for the Palestinian people, for the Iraqi people will never be achieved.

We know well the evil deeds of Saddam Hussein. We condemn his murderous rampages against the Kurds and any dissenting Iraqi voices. But what of the evil deeds of the Israeli leader Ariel Sharon, by international standards, a war criminal. While Saddam might be known as the butcher of Baghad, equally, Ariel Sharon is known as the butcher of Beirut. A man who by his own country's commission was found indirectly responsible for the brutal and vicious massacres that killed up to two thousand Palestinian refugees in the camps of Sabra and Chatila in Beirut in 1982. A serial war criminal who was at it again in the Jenin refugee camp earlier this year.

While Israel defies and breaches human rights declarations, Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter and Security Council Resolutions and continues its illegal occupation over the lives of the Palestinian civilian population through the daily humiliation of check points, land grabs and the brutalities of state terrorism, we are more than happy to go off and further devastate the Iraqi people's attempts at living. For 35 years, Palestinians have suffered military control over their lives. When do we as Palestinians get the international community's urgent attention ensuring that our human rights are a priority, and that weapons of mass destruction are not used against us? When do we get our freedom? When do our children get the chance to live their lives without Israelis aiming their guns at the heads and their hearts?

In Iraq, like in Palestine, it is the children who continue to suffer. Why do we deprive them of their humanity and rights. Since 1991, it is estimated over 1.25 million Iraqi people have died as a result of the war and sanctions. Half a million of those have been children. When Madeleine Albright was asked whether it was worth killing a half a million children, she agreed in 1996 that yes it was worth it. Do we here in Australia think it is worth killing another half a million children?

In Palestine, over 350 of the 2 200 Palestinians killed have been children and thousands more have been disabled. More than half of children under the age of 5 suffer from chronic and acute malnutrition.

Both Iraq and Palestine were known in the Arab world for having the most educated peoples. Today the story is very different. In Iraq, schools and universities have been forced to close. People simply can't afford education when they can't afford to eat. And in Palestine, schools are continually being closed, shelled, and used as detention centres and army barracks by the Israeli military. Over 2000 children have been wounded on their way to school.

Another war on Iraq will ensure more death and destruction. What will happen when the world's attention is turned away towards an unjust war against the Iraqi people? Ariel Sharon has refused to rule out a forcible expulsion of the Palestinian populations of the West Bank and Gaza. The Israeli government and army have a proven track record of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide. While the attention of the international community has not stopped Israel's settlers, occupation army and government's violence against the Palestinians, it has tempered it. So we must be ready, in the event of a war against the Iraqi people, to help the Palestinian voices speak out. This is a humanitarian and moral struggle. We have to commit ourselves to truth and justice, to supporting the rights and humanity of Iraqis and Palestinians.

We must demand of our government that we will not agree to the bombing of the Iraqi civilian population in our name.

We demand that the Australian government call on the Israeli government to end the apartheid imposed on the Palestinian peoples.

We demand that no country should be treated above the law, and that if Iraq and other nations are ordered to comply with Security Council resolutions, then countries like Israel should not be exempt from their moral responsibility to implementing countless UN resolutions.

We demand an end to the suffering of the people of Iraq by the government withdrawing its support for and active participation in the economic blockade of Iraq.

We call upon the Australian government to stand up for justice and humanity, and put an end to the hypocrisy and double standards in its foreign policy. Let's be independent.

We call on the Australian community to stand strong in the name of freedom and justice for the Iraqi and Palestinian peoples.