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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (18424)	12/11/2002 4:34:57 PM
From: Elmer Flugum	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23908

An Open Letter to American Jews from A Jewish Voice for Peace Are you uncomfortable with Israel's actions in the last two years? If so, this is an invitation for you to join the growing number of Jews who have come to realize that current Israeli policies towards the Palestinians are simple morally wrong--and a disaster for the long-term interests of the Jewish people. Of course, the Palestinians have also committed terrible deeds themselves and we know that it is tempting just to blame them for the conflict. But we need to resist that temptation. Why? Because that path will only perpetuate the intolerable violence committed by both sides. Instead, our moral responsibility as the overwhelmingly stronger party, should be to try to stop our part of the cycle of violence. This means withdrawing completely from the Occupied Territories, allowing the creation of a viable Palestinian state and negotiating good faith solutions to the other outstanding issues--sovereignty over Jerusalem's holy sites, refugee rights, etc.--all of which were close to being resolved at the Taba negotiations, before Sharon's election. Do we need to trust the good will of the Palestinians in order to do what we know is right? We don't think so. This is because the official Palestinian position since 1988 has been that they recognize Israel's right to exist in peace and security within its 1967 borders, as long as the Palestinians are also allowed to create their own state. Furthermore, in March of this year the entire Arab League, including the Palestinians, unanimously adopted the Saudi proposal of Land For Peace, based on UN Resolution 242, which would have given Israel a permanent peace, real security and full normalization of relations with all its Arab neighbors. But Sharon simply ignored this historic chance to end the Arab/Israeli conflict once and for all. What would be the consequences of simply accepting this long-standing offer? There are two possible dangers that withdrawing from the Occupied Territories might pose. One is that a Palestinian state would be a military threat to Israel. But Israel is, many times over, the strongest military power in the region and the Palestinians have long agreed that their future state would be non-militarized, no foreign forces hostile to Israel would be allowed in, and international (even Israeli) monitors could be stationed on Palestinian land in order to verify these conditions. So a Palestinian state would pose no military threat to Israel. As for individual acts of terrorism, they would at the very least, be greatly diminished once the Palestinians felt that some semblance of justice had been done. If the Palestinians feel that they have something to lose, then they will not support the more extreme elements in their society. In fact, this already happened during the first few years after the Oslo Accords were signed, when there was a real sense of hope among the Palestinians that they would end up with their own state. Attacks against Israel only increased when it became clear that things were only getting worse under Oslo, that settlements were growing rapidly, and that their hope for self-determination had just been a mirage. Ending the occupation may or may not stop all the violence immediately but it certainly is the essential precondition for a peaceful solution, and would have immediate positive results. We know it is hard to move past the understandable fear for the safety of our people, but in this case, "the best defense is not a good offense". Israel's policy of more repression and more force has not, and never will, increase Israel's security. Only a just solution to the conflict will ever bring real peace and security to the people of Israel. A very cogent eight page paper outlining why this is the case is available at no cost by writing to: A Jewish Voice For Peace at: jvp@sonic.net [ jvp AT sonic.net ] or to: PO Box 13286, Berkeley, CA 94712 USA Just ask for a copy of: "From Jew to Jew: Why We Should Oppose the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza".