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The Rev. Michael P. Thomas & the Rev. Susan P. Thomas
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer
P.O. Box 14076 - Old City
91140 Jerusalem, via ISRAEL
Office: +972 (0)2 627-6111
Home & fax: +972 (0)2 628-1049
Handy number: 054-378-057
OPEN LETTER TO US SECRETARY OF STATE, GENERAL COLIN POWELL
from Members of English-Speaking Christian Communities in the Holy Land
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
U.S. State Department
2202 C Street NW
Washington DC 20520
Dear Mr. Secretary,
... No one can remain indifferent to the injustice of which the
Palestinian people have been victims for more than fifty years. No one
can contest the right of the Israeli to live in security. But neither
can anyone forget the innocent victims who on both sides fall day after
day under the blows of violence. Weapons and bloody attacks will never
be the right means for making a political statement to the other side.
Nor is the logic of the law of retaliation capable any longer of leading
to paths of peace.
John Paul II (January 10, 2002)
We, the undersigned, have experienced and can attest to the truth of
these words of Pope John Paul II. We are members of several
English-speaking Christian communities in the Holy Land who have been
living in Israel and in the Occupied Territories. Our length of
residence ranges from six months to twenty years. We represent a number
of English-speaking nationalities, predominantly American but also many
others, and a wide variety of backgrounds and professions. We include
students and professors, parents and clergy, US government/ USAID
personnel, heads/personnel of American and other non-governmental aid
agencies, international diplomats, officials working for UN agencies and
health and education professionals.
We are writing to you out of a deep concern and urgency. The violent
and horrible events in this land have escalated in recent weeks.
America is deeply involved in this conflict both as a broker of the
peace process and as a supplier of weapons of death and destruction.
The increased violence has underscored the failure of successive
American administrations to implement defined policies for the
resolution of this conflict.
Twenty-five years have passed since President Sadat visited Jerusalem
and opened the way to the Camp David peace process. Camp David was
eventually succeeded by the Oslo Accords, then the Wye River Agreement,
and more recently by the Mitchell and Tenet reports. None of these
agreements have been implemented. A generation of Israeli and
Palestinian youth has grown up observing the lack of political will of
the United States government to implement our defined policies for the
Middle East. Moderates on both sides of this conflict have been
marginalized and discredited by the failure to bring about a just and
lasting peace. Both the Israeli creation of “facts on the ground”, and
the terror attacks against innocent civilians, have succeeded in
delaying the timeframe and in presenting further obstacles to the search
for a just and lasting peace.
The US government has accepted such negative developments with apparent
equanimity. It has capitulated to the demands and excesses of the
extremists and radicals on both sides who have no interest in peace and
reconciliation. To date, it has failed to address the major cause of the
problem - the oppressive and illegal occupation of the West Bank and
Gaza The legitimate human and civil rights of the Palestinian people
and their right to their own national homeland have been denied - rights
that most peoples of the earth enjoy and take for granted. Palestinians
daily face the expropriation of their land and the unrelenting
construction on this land of Israeli settlements and settlement roads.
Over the last 18 months ordinary Palestinians have also suffered under
the Israeli 'closures' and military siege, which have cut them off from
their places of employment, study, basic health-care and families.
During this period, our Christian communities have seen the horrific
effects of the work of suicide-bombers and other militants on the people
and cities of Israel, and some have narrowly escaped injury in such
incidents. Some among us, however, can also testify to having personally
eye-witnessed a wide range of violations of Palestinian basic human
rights and personal freedoms by the Israeli authorities, including:
- house demolitions with families made homeless;
- uprooting of ancient olive and citrus groves on which multiple
families are dependent for their livelihoods;
- families cowering in terror as US-manufactured missiles shower down
indiscriminately on civilian areas from US-manufactured Apache
helicopters and F-16 bombers, or from Israeli tanks;
- shelling of buildings right beside foreign diplomatic and UN offices
in Ramallah and Gaza, recklessly endangering their international and
other staff;
- indiscriminate shootings by IDF soldiers at checkpoints of civilians,
including children, women, the elderly and the disabled; as well as
firing of tear gas at such people crossing the checkpoints on foot by
young, seemingly bored or frightened IDF recruits;
- severe harassment and physical abuse of Palestinians of all ages at
such checkpoints;
- inappropriate handling of young Arab women at these locations;
- regular obstruction of teachers and students trying to reach schools
and universities;
- harassment and obstruction of ambulances trying to carry emergency
cases to hospital and blocking of UNRWA and other humanitarian relief
operations.
Similar incidents of this kind have been widely reported on by almost
all the main Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights and
humanitarian organizations.
All the members of our Christian communities unequivocally condemn and
reject terrorism and violence as a means of advancing the political
cause of the Palestinians, and fully recognize the right of the Israeli
people to live in peace and security in their own state. Our experience
here also helps us understand why, in their desperation, some young
Palestinians see no other options available to them and nothing for them
to live for. The US Administration has focused predominantly on the
admittedly horrific and unacceptable violence of the Palestinian
militants against Israelis but it has given insufficient attention both
to the causes of Palestinian militancy and terror, and the daily terror
and war that Israel is inflicting with impunity on the largely civilian
Palestinian population. This has, not surprisingly, led to the emergence
of a strong sense of moral outrage on the part of the majority of Arabs
and Muslims worldwide. It has also generated a major questioning among
millions of people of conscience internationally of the credibility,
impartiality and moral authority of the US government and its policies.
This in turn has contributed significantly to the hostility felt by many
people internationally towards the US, its government and its citizens.
There is an urgent need for the resolution of this conflict. There is a
solution possible, but it is neither a military one, nor a terrorist
one. The parameters of the solution have been clearly delineated and the
vision spelled out by you yourself, Mr. Secretary, in Louisville, and by
President Bush at the UN. They are expressed in US-sponsored Security
Council Resolution 1397, a very welcome initiative indeed; and also in
the proposals recently set forth by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi
Arabia and, most tantalizingly of all, in the Taba talks that ended in
January last year, which brought the two sides to the brink of an
historic breakthrough on most of the highly complex and deeply
entrenched of the issues dividing the two sides. It is no longer
appropriate to discuss proposals about interim solutions or
arrangements. These interim policies have been the framework under
which Israel has extended and expanded its illegal presence in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip. The US government has been a proponent of a
two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now is the time
for the US government to operate within the rubric of the United Nations
and to finalize a settlement to this conflict in accordance with
Resolutions 242, 338 and 1397. This is a period in history that
requires clear policy definition, firm political will, and consistency
in action by the US government. The US government needs to display a
type of “tough love” that links funding assistance with policy decisions
that express its concern for all the peoples of this land.
We welcome General Zinni to Jerusalem and recognize the very severe
obstacles he faces. We express the fervent hope that he will continue to
receive the firm political backing, and strong, balanced mandate he
needs from the top levels of his Administration in order to broker a
just and lasting peace. It is the consensus of the undersigned members
of our Christian communities that the only way to achieve success will
be a firm, even-handed approach exerting equal pressure on both parties
to halt the violence and provocation. From what we have observed, the
presence of international observers is crucial for achieving this halt
to violence and facilitating the return to negotiations. Necessary also
is a simultaneous move to develop the political dimension, through the
implementation of the Mitchell Report and the resumption of final status
negotiations. To demand that President Arafat deliver a unilateral
cease-fire while the closures remain firmly in place and Israeli
military offensives and provocation continue, cannot and will not
succeed. In the interests of the Israeli people who are suffering so
much from the conflict, the United States must also persuade the Israeli
Government to play its part, by implementing parallel measures to lift
the military and economic siege and by progressing toward finalizing
negotiations. Consistency of will to move beyond the rhetoric of US
policy and to implement its stated goals will restore the credibility to
the peace process and to the role the US government seeks to play as the
honest broker of the peace process.
As people of faith, committed to the struggle for peace, justice and
reconciliation, we have a deep love for this Land and for all of its
people. Our experience here convinces us of the basic truth expressed in
the words of John Paul II, and we appeal to all sides in this present
conflict to come to this same recognition: One against the other,
neither Israelis nor Palestinians can win the war. But together they can
win the peace.
Signed:
Members of English-Speaking Parishes in the Holy Land
25 March 2002
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