Brit Tzedek v'Shalom  Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace

                Bring the Settlers Home

Socialist International Statement

Women Living Under Muslim Laws

Arab Peace Movement Is Needed

Gush Shalom Draft Peace Treaty

Gush Shalom

Gush Shalom is the hard core of the Israeli peace movement.

Often described as "resolute", "militant", "radical" or "consistent", it is known for its unwavering stand in times of crisis, such as the al-Aksa intifada.

For years now, Gush Shalom has played a leading role in determining the moral and political agenda of the peace forces in Israel, as well as in breaking the so-called "national consensus" based on misinformation.

 

Workers Liberty: A New Round of Middle East Bloodshed

Americans for Peace Now: Security Through Peace

Yosi Sarad, leader of Meretz, calls for an American-led peace force 

Sylvana Foa "Letter from Israel: The Filthy War" Village Voice 

Dan Brook, "Israel, Palestine and Justice"   AlterNet

Both sides and their supporters are responsible, even if not equally so, and both sides and their supporters are acting irresponsibly. Both sides have legitimate concerns (e.g., independence, safety, justice), but use illegitimate methods (e.g., dehumanizing the other, violence against civilians, collective punishments). So while I strenuously oppose the violent and brutal methods of both sides, I’m entirely sympathetic to the legitimate concerns, fears, and grievances of both sides.

Amos Oz "Two Middle East Wars"

Two Palestinian-Israeli wars have erupted in this region. One is the Palestinian nation's war for its freedom from occupation and for its right to independent statehood. Any decent person ought to support this cause. The second war is waged by fanatical Islam, from Iran to Gaza and from Lebanon to Ramallah, to destroy Israel and drive the Jews out of their land. Any decent person ought to abhor this cause.

A Bold Plan to Solve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Amman/Brussels, 10 April 2002: The international community must radically revise its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or risk the Middle East sliding further into chaos. Previous approaches to the current violence and to the peace process itself have all been incremental: start with a ceasefire, build trust, then come to the hard political issues last.

But with all-out war now the backdrop, and mutual hatred so intense, that approach cannot work. However hard the U.S. and others now push, a security-first, step-by-step approach will not succeed. Even the Mitchell Report and other initiatives that might once have stabilised the situation are increasingly detached from realities on the ground

A new International Crisis Group report, A Time to Lead: The International Community and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, details an ambitious new agenda to end the violence while moving boldly to a final settlement. It turns the old approach on its head, arguing that - while every possible effort must be made to stop the violence now - a real and lasting ceasefire can only be achieved if the parties see laid out on the table the terms of a political settlement fair to each of them, and know that there is massive international backing for that plan.

ICG calls on key international players, led by the U.S., to move immediately to identify all the key terms of a just final settlement, put maximum pressure on both sides to accept that settlement, and put in place machinery to make the agreement stick, including a Contact Group (whose core members would be the U.S., EU, Russia, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UN Secretariat), and an on-the-ground Implementation and Verification Group to monitor a ceasefire.

ICG President Gareth Evans said: "A genuine political solution is a pre-condition for security, not its consequence. Washington must now lead the way with a commitment to a very specific final political settlement plan, not just a process that might produce one."

The plan which the Contact Group should pressure the parties to accept would be based on the Taba negotiations in early 2001: its five key elements - two states based on the 1967 lines, with equitable land-swaps, Jerusalem as the capital of the two states, Palestinian and Israeli control over their respective holy sites, security guarantees and a solution for the refugee issue - are set out in the ICG report.

ICG's Middle East Program Director Robert Malley said: "There is both an opportunity, and a responsibility on the part of the international community, led by the U.S., to move right now to a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Focusing solely on security issues or moving towards another interim political solution has already been tried - and has failed. There is another way forward, and this report spells it out."

Peace: A Middle East Dialogue

Mid-East Web

Paul Rogers "Israel’s strategy: the impotence of arms"   Open Democracy

The real purpose of Israel’s military assault on the Palestinian Authority is to systematically destroy its ability to function as a state. By pursuing the logic of force, Ariel Sharon’s government is putting Israel’s security at serious risk.

Palestinian Opinion Pulse

The Jerusalem Media and Communication Center is the first institution in the Arab world to conduct public opinion surveys methodologically and continuously. The main aim of the JMCC with those regular opinion polls was to enhance public participation in the decision-making process by making the public's views available to decision-makers, and, also, to enable academics, researchers, and others to use scientifically collected data in their studies and policy projects.

The first public opinion poll in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was conducted by the JMCC in February 1993. Since then, over seventy extensive surveys were conducted on issues, including those pertaining to the peace process, democratization, international relations, economics, political socialization, gender, political partisanship, the media, and social issues.

Yossi Beilin "It Is a Mistake for Sharon to Crush Arafat and PLO" New Perspectives Quarterly
 

Bellin was justice minister in the Israeli government of Ehud Barak and a key architect of the Oslo Accords.

Naccha Cattam, "Leftist Jews Gaining Strength in Support of Palestinians" Forward

Accused of One-Sidedness, Fledgling Groups Say They Are Acting in Israel's Best Interest

Jerusalem Media and Communications Center

Anti-Semitism in the Arab World

David Aaronovitch "Israel Has the Right to Exist, but the Duty to Concede"   Independent (UK)

Amnesty International, Israel, the Occupied Territories, and the Palestinian Authority

         Link to AI reports

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists, JOINT STATEMENT  ON ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES, April 7, 2002

Meretz USA

Peace Now

Peace Now (Shalom Achshav), the largest grassroots movement in Israel's history, was founded in 1978 by 348 reserve officers of the Israel Defense Forces. Experience had convinced them that while Israel must always be ready to defend itself, violence is not the answer to the age-old conflict in the Middle East.

Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information

The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)

This Islamic fundamentalist group was formed to fight the idea of compromise over Palestine/Israel. Its charter declared that all of Palestine belongs to the Moslems, that it can only be liberated by Jihad - holy war, and that the program of Zionism was to expand and take over Arab countries one by one. This Zionist program, according to the charter, is set forth in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (an anti - semitic forgery).

Middle East Historical and Peace Process Documents

Combatants Letter

Israeli Defense Force soldiers who have refused to serve in the occupied territories.

Courage to Refuse

 A web portal to unite international supporters of the Israeli Refusers.

Americans & Palestinians for Peace

AMPAL condemns any act of violence against Israeli or Palestinian civilians.

AMPAL calls for immediate international protection for Palestinian civilians and to end the perpetration of war crimes with impunity.

AMPAL believes in the creation of an independent Palestinian state and supports all peaceful efforts to achieve this goal.

Not In My Name

A Jewish peace group that was formed in November 2000 to work for a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

We believe that the first step toward attaining peace must be for Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

We call ourselves "Not In My Name" because we feel that the State Israel often claims to act in the name and interests of world Jewry, but that these actions do not reflect our Jewish values and beliefs

 

Nathan Gardels, U.S. Wrong to Back Sharon",   New Perspectives Quarterly

Brzezinski:  In the longer term, what worries me is that the Palestinians are being turned, largely thanks to the efforts of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, into something like the Algerians: people absolutely determined to wage urban guerrilla warfare brutally, ruthlessly, at any cost and at enormous self-sacrifice.

At the same time, the Israelis are becoming like the white supremacist South Africans, viewing the Palestinians as a lower form of life, not hesitating to kill a great many of them and justifying this on the grounds of self-defense.

The reactions on both sides are all out of proportion. It is a very sad spectacle. Ultimately a spectacle of failure of American strategy...

 We can't ignore the fact that no country in the world endorses what we are doing or endorses what the Israelis are doing. That means that in some fashion either the whole world is seized with some total misunderstanding of the situation or that the course that is being pursued by Sharon with tacit American accommodation is not productive or conducive to peace.

AFL-CIO Statement on Middle East

Arab Human Rights Netcenter Home

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