Action Alert! Demand US Urge Israel Declare a Cease Fire!
DEMAND US URGE ISRAEL DECLARE
A CEASE FIRE
END THE ASSAULT ON GAZA AND LEBANON!
Take Action Now!
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom urges its members to take action now regarding the escalating violence in the Middle East. We demand an end to the violence and negotiations under U.N. auspices.
The massive humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and the war between Israel and Lebanon calls for our immediate attention. The civilian deaths are rising as the United States Government remains complicit in Israel’s attacks. The Israeli Army is using weapons provided by the United States to carry out this aggression, and US support of this assault is allowing Israel to act without accountability to international law, The Geneva Convention, the Road Map to Peace, or any previous treaty or negotiation.
We must oppose our government's unquestioning support of Israeli policies. This recent escalation of violence and civilian casualties is a direct result of 39 years of occupation of Palestinian land. We must demand that members of Congress, the State Department, and the President end our military support of Israel on the basis of its consistent violation of human rights and international law. Our leaders must demand that Israel end attacks on civilians, end attacks on infrastructure and immediately cease all human rights violations.
Israel is using weapons supplied by the United States to target Palestinian and Lebanese civilians and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in violation of the US Arms Export Control Act and the Geneva Conventions.
The mainstream media coverage of this crisis is unbalanced and biased, and we must change the discourse and work to influence the general public through our media outlets. Visit http://wilpf.org/letter-editor/ to write a letter to the editor of all your local papers, and be prepared to challenge radio and television talk show hosts on their language.
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I am mystified by the failure of the mainstream media to acknowledge that Israeli military actions in the Gaza and southern Lebanon are targeting civilians and other non-military targets. The destruction being wrought on the Palestinian people, and now the Lebanese, has largely been ignored while all attacks - whether on soldiers or civilians - carried out by a Palestinian militant receives significant attention.
The silence of the vast majority of the mainstream media and political leadership in the USA regarding Israel's actions and the blind-eye taken toward Israel's continual failure to respect the United Nations' resolutions to withdraw from the Occupied Territories, makes a mockery of any concern regarding human rights and international law.
I ask that [THE NAME OF NEWSPAPER] provide more balanced coverage of the situation in Palestine, and offer a forum for legitimate debate on the issues at hand. Years after an atrocity, the people of the world look at themselves and ask '…why were we silent?' It is not too late to preempt that question.
Sincerely,
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1. Call, email, fax the White House:
White House comment line: 202-456-1111
Email: comments@whitehouse.gov
FAX: 202-456-2461
2. Call or email the State Department:
Phone: 202-647-5291
Website: http://contact-us.state.gov
Demand that the U.S. be accountable for its violations of the US Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act and urge that military aid to Israel be cut off.
3. Write Letters to the Editor
4. Join sister activists in protests in front of federal buildings, Israeli consulates, and Israeli embassies.
posted by C.J. Minster at
3:11 PM
4 Comments:
It saddens me to see how blatant your misunderstanding of this situation is. I completely understand that your liberal views are correct in condemning aggression, but it is Hezbollah that began this aggression. Israel is simply responding to an attack, trying to inform civilians to leave a terrorist infested area of southern Beirut.
A peaceful Middle East would be the best interest of the entire world. But with whom is that peace going to be? You can't say you're going to be at peace with your neighbor, but let an enemy live within your region.
Israel is not at war with Lebanon, but with the insurgents who would blow us up as quickly as they eat breakfast. Imagine for one moment what would happen to some terrorist organization sitting in Juarez Mexico was launching rockets into an El Paso neighborhood. I'd like to see restraint then. I'd like to see what your reaction to that would be?
You are wrong. You should travel to the region and gain an understanding before spreading this nonsense.
By
Anonymous, at 5:03 PM
I've been to the area and witnessed the destruction wrought by nearly 40 years of the illegal and cruel Israeli military occupation. If only Israel had been wise enough to consider trading the many WOMEN and CHILDREN being held without charges in its prisons for the captured Israeli soldier, this latest madness could have been avoided! I commend WILPF's principled demand that the US urge Israel to end its current assault on Gaza and Lebanon!
By
Anonymous, at 9:17 AM
What a shame that anonymous starts the comment by speaking of CJ's "liberal views". Killing civilians and bombing roads and bridges should be condemned.
My reaction is that Israel, the United States, all Arab countries and the UN should immediately ask for an international peace keeping force. This is something the US and Israel have opposed.
I have traveled and was in the area this last October. It is not nonsense to ask for a Cease Fire and that civilians not be targeted.
Marlene Santoyo
WCUSP,WILPF, Philadelphia
By
Marlena Santoyo, at 10:50 AM
I do not understand why it is nonsense to ask for a cease fire, it is only reasonable at this time to ask for a cease fire from all parties, and to resume negotiations, even when there is a full out war there must be afterwards negotiations, so why not start with negotiations now and prevent further loss of life. All prisoners must be released.
I am very upset to learn about the state of the Palestinian children. Between the onset of the current intifada in Sept 2000 and the end of June 2004 the conflict claimed the lives of more than 700 children, the vast majority (595) are Palestinians of these 51 were killed during Israeli extra-judicial assassination attempts on Palestinian activists. During this same period more than 10,000 Palestinians children have been wounded. Families are starving in Gaza, many children and women are in Israeli jails now. This fueled the war in Lebanon. Israel must treat Palestinian in Gaza with human rights considerations.
The war must de-escalate and we must call for an International Conference. In the end Palestinian and Israelis Jews with have to co-exist and we must start now to
work for this coexistence there is no future in the annihilation of one side over the other. For the safety of the all planet we must work for peace now.
Odile Hugonot Haber
WCUSP National Board Representative
Convener, WILPF International Middle East Committee
By
Anonymous, at 11:43 AM
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