KUALA LUMPUR, March 28 (Xinhuanet) -- An International Conference on Peace in Palestine kicked off Monday with a UK-based Palestinian scholar making an impassioned plea for the international support to the Palestinian people.

    "Today, there is no cause in the world that is as just and as true as the Palestinian cause and it deserves the support and the sympathy of those who support the right for dignity and humanity,"Azam Tamimi, director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London, said at the first of many panel discussions on finding peace in Palestine scheduled during the three-day conference in Putrajaya, the Federal Administrative Center.

    Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will attend the official opening of the conference Monday evening, which was organized by Peace Malaysia, an umbrella body of local non-governmental organizations.

    Azam said that the starting point for peace in his homeland wasfor an admission and acknowledgment that the Palestinians had beenthe victims throughout.

    Speaking in front of more than 400 participants comprising local and foreign supporters of Palestine, he said: "Peace in Palestine begins with you supporting the right of the Palestiniansto free themselves, to struggle for their freedom and not to be dictated on how to do it."

    There was no denying, he said, that the Jews were victims too but they had not been the victims of Palestinians or Muslims.

    "They have been the victims of the societies that expelled themfrom Europe. Therefore the Palestinians should never be forced to surrender their rights, their lands and their homes in order to solve somebody else's problem," he said.

    Azam said that Palestinians were willing to live with the Jews as long as it was based on justice and human dignity, with the Jewish people not seeing themselves as a super race while the Palestinians were dehumanized and humiliated.

    The international community has appealed to Palestine and Israel to settle their dispute through negotiations on the basis of UN Security Council Resolutions particularly No. 242 and No. 338, the land-for-peace formula, roadmap peace plan, which providefor establishing an independent Palestinian State alongside with Israel. Enditem