FOR-Israel/Palestine - Stop the Violence!

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it ... Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The carnage in Israel and Palestine goes unchecked. Random suicide bombings occur in Israeli malls, restaurants, busy street corners, checkpoints. Palestinian cities are under siege by the Israeli Defense Forces; F-16s, helicopters, and missiles terrorize at will. Water tanks are broken, electricity and phone lines cut, people cannot leave their homes. Palestinian men between 15-40 are being rounded up. Even the Red Cross has no access to the wounded. The Ramallah hospital was forced to bury its dead in a mass grave dug in the parking lot because access to and from the hospital is denied by the IDF; even medical aid vehicles and ambulances and personnelare being attacked and turned back.

We condemn in the strongest terms those who kill and terrorize, whether suicide bombers or government-sanctioned, uniformed bearers of weapons. Little of the violence can even be called revenge. The suicide bomber may have legitimate grievances, and may think of his or her act as justified by previous violence and killing; yet the target is not the perpetrator of violence but rather innocent persons. The Israeli government may likewise be responding to outrageous violence, but its collective punishment mostly affects the innocent. It is a ghasty ricochet of violence back and forth, with most of the victims being bystanders.

We praise in the strongest terms the peacemakers whose work is mostly unreported on by the media. We include the Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved Families for Peace comprised of the Parents' Circle in Israel and the National Movement for Change in the Palestinian Authority, all relatives of those killed in the conflict. They joined together to exhibit 1050 flag-draped caskets, first in Israel and then in Boston, Washington D.C. and New York City. In the midst of their grief, these families called on the UN, the US, and the European Union to demand an end to all the violence and a return to negotiations to end the conflict; Rabbis for Human Rights, who write, "Slavery takes many forms and Pharaoh appears in many guises. Today Israelis are enslaved by fear and anger... Israelis and Palestinians have each suffered so much that they can only see themselves as victims and the other as Pharaoh. Pharaoh dominates when our own anger and fear render us incapable of recognizing the image of God in every human being;" the more than a thousand Israeli soldiers who, on principle, refuse to serve in the occupied territories. And the Israelis and Palestinians who work side-by-side to rebuild homes and replant trees bulldozed by Israeli authorities; Palestinian groups such as the Center for Rapproachment, Wi'am, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, the International Solidarity Movement and the Center for Conclict Resolution and Reconciliation.

Violence on the scale and duration that is occurring in Israel/Palestine could not continue without the financial, military, diplomatic and moral support of the United States. As residents of the United States, we feel it is necessary to acknowledge our nation's role in the violence. The United States has aided, both financially and through the power of its United Nations Security Council veto, a situation in which Israel has occupied and built numerous settlements on Palestinian territories while Palestinian civilians are denied international protection. The inhabitants of the territories have not been accorded dignity or self-determination.

The United States has supplied arms on a massive scale throughout the region and to Israel in particular. The US has provided the funding and weapons that have perpetuated the occupation and settlement expansion, which stand as roadblocks to peace and are in clear violation of US law which stipulates that military aid is required to be used only for defensive purposes and not to sustain an illegal occupation nor in violation of fundamental human rights and international law.

We oppose US arms sales and aid to the region. Our country should rather work with Israel and the Arab states to de-fund this bloodbath and fund the peacemakers who seek to bring healing. Furthermore, the United States and other wealthy nations should take up Martin Luther King's proposal shortly before he was killed: begin a new "Marshall Plan" in the region to dry up the pools of misery and poverty in which desperation and violence thrive.

People on both sides of the conflict are realizing that the current path is a tragic dead-end. Israeli Rear Admiral Ami Ayalon (retired) and the Saudi Initiative approved by the Arab League have made parallel proposals for a just peace. They are hopeful starting points for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. We, like they, support a solution which provides for an immediate end to the violence; sovereignty and security of Israel within its 1967 borders; withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank; sovereignty and self-determination for the state of Palestine; the right of return for refugees who fled their homes during the war; Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states; and respect of the human rights of all people both, in Israel and Palestine. We call on the government of the United States to apply all its influence in creating such a solution.

Richard Deats Editor,
Fellowship Magazine
Box 271
Nyack, NY 10960
845.358-4601.
Fax 845-358-4924