Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
01.24.09 - 4:20 PM
An Open Letter to President Obama: Support Peace for the People of Gaza and Israel
Please add your name to this letter, and then ask your like-minded friends to do the same. Jewish Voice for Peace and Just Foreign Policy are aiming to deliver this letter on February 23.
Comments are closed
18 Comments so far
Show All"Back up talk with actions. This includes monitoring arms smuggling into Gaza and U.S. military aid to Israel. These
weapons are killing mostly children and civilians."
The tone of the letter seems slightly anti-Israeli, but at least it does call for the violence to stop ON ALL SIDES.
However, I do agree with the letter's suggestion that the US enforce weapons inspections on Gaza. That would be a good way for Obama to show he cares about furthering the peace process.
Criticism of Israel's policies does not constitute bias.
Arabs are already perfect, and need not change anything at all.
Joehope - Just once, be hopeful. This is a good letter. I modified the introduction to my friends and family, and sent it to a bunch of people. I'm not Jewish, but I am supportive of all the marvelous Jewish groups in Israel and in the U.S. and elsewhere who really want peace between the two peoples.
I also belong now to palestinian mothers, and I'm not Palestinian or Muslim, but there's a petition there to the BBC, signed by lots of people to try to get the BBC to change its decision to not run an ad for aid to the children and suffering people of Gaza.
Our work as people of this earth, as I see it, is to take every opportunity we are able to take to help each other achieve peace, understanding, mutual respect, and to have compassion for those who are caught in the crossfires of war and conflict because so many leaders of all kinds seem to need to grab weapons first before they talk to each other or grab weapons because they are too immature to talk with each other at all in a truly meaningful way and somebody gets their back up.
So sign the letter already, if you haven't, and help out the world.
with affection, even though sometimes you drive me nutz, JoeHope ... and peace ...
/ceeM
They want Israel to accept Hamas truce terms and the Saudi view of peace. I don't see anything that calls upon Palestinians to alter their behavior. I don't see anything that addresses Israeli security. It may be convenient for anti-Israel acitivists to ignore the role of Syria and Iran in this conflict, but I can't see how anyone who is pro-Israel will consent to do the same.
I'll pass.
JJ Doyle, you make some excellent points. I also noticed the the letter had a strong anti-Israel bias.
But wouldn't you agree that the US performing weapons inspections in Gaza is a positive step for Israeli security? It would also lend more legitimacy to Israel's efforts to disarm Hamas.
Israel has always been unwilling to have American troops stationed in Israel. They ought to stick to that plan.
The whole idea of a "Jewish State" is inherently racist.
orcan,
Israeli Arabs don't agree with you.
A poll commissioned by the Israel Democracy Institute in 2007 found that 75% of Arab-Israelis would support a constitution that maintained Israel as a Jewish state with equal minority rights:
A vast majority of Israeli Arabs would support a constitution that maintained Israel's status as a Jewish and democratic state while guaranteeing equal rights for minorities.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/853564.html
"Israeli" Arabs like oxymorons, then?
The Arab League and the OIC however, are beacons of fraternity and good will.
A single state in which the two sides could live in peace would be best, idealistic and difficult, but the best. If we all can't live with each other and must have real walls to separate us, we are in speedy decline. Both sides could make one strong, secure state. This would be very difficult but the nay-sayers need the discipline.
I make no pretense to know the depth of the issues here, but what I do know is that Richard Holbrook(e) and Hillary Clinton are no answer to this international complexity.
As far as I can tell they are both racists and I mean this in the most PC sense.
There are huge issues involving how Islam interfaces with the West, not the least being our various Monetary Systems.
I am no believer in the so-called "Clash of Civilizations."
I find it curious that Obama has simultaneously asked former Irish Defender George Mitchell to enter the fray where Tony Blair had months to do something and did nothing. Except to sit on the sidelines as Israel RAPED AND PILLAGED GAZA.
I happen to be an Empath. I also study statistics. Watch the Mitchell/Blair condundrum here. A two-state solution? What if we say, "Tear Down That Wall"?
We need to tell USAns again and again that Palestinians are people too. We owe it too ourselves. They have withstood being beaten down for now near a century. Israelis also need to understand this. If we do not acknowledge the least of us we are corrupt.
In this WINTER of our Discontent, what is your alternative? As a Jew I am open to your transnational view. Israel is an International Pariah. It has no Constitution and it has no declared borders.
We need to review the status of International Law. To do this I give you Mrs. Roosevelt, Eleanor. Israel needs to reinterpret itself. The Palestinians do not. They have suffered the Depradations of the West while they are also of the West. We, America, the United States, are GUILTY. The Congress is guilty.
Start with the borders of 1967 and work it from there. Or else go back to the Bible and the Koran and see what comes from that.
Welcome to the 21st Century.
Peace to all. I wish George Mitchell the best. May he overcome.
-30-
I just signed the letter, just about the least we can do although I see our resident zionists say it's too "anti israel" for them. I signed the letter, in spite of the fact that the letter was too equivocal in its assumption that Israel wants peace under any conditions short of the comprehensive genocide of the palestinians.
only when the jewish world turns to stand with rachel corrie and their palestinian brothers and sisters will the monstrous and devouring entity which is the state which calls itself "israel" finally disappear.
I can't sign it because I voted for Cynthia McKinney. When the illegal occupiers of Palestine--the whole of Palestine--dissolve their artificial "state" and just agree to live under one common government with everyone else in the immediate region, there will be peace. And until that happens there will be no peace.
Why does the Arab face not have say, "I refuse to sack churches and synagogues, participate in Arab Muslim Master Race cleansing programs, and do not endorse terrorism against civlian populations" ?
Enduring "Progressive" (Pro-Arab) delusion 102:
The US or the UN will cripple the Israeli defense effort, while the Arab war effort goes on.