Monday, March 19, 2012

My letter to the New York Times RE "To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements"

To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements by Peter Beinhart
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/opinion/to-save-israel-boycott-the-settlements.html?_r=1

Dear Editor,

"The one-state idea may invite the Israeli government to embark even more vigorously on policies that drive away the Palestinians — ethnic cleansing, in so many words — to preserve the “Jewishness” of Israel." Jordan Times Editorial March 18 2012 Solution Needed http://jordantimes.com/solution-needed

Boycotting Israel's burgeoning Jews-only settlement projects in the illegally occupied territories and many other frankly shocking instances of Israel's state subsidized institutionalized bigotry and injustice is a very good idea... BUT it is not such a good idea to do it in order to bolster the supposed "Jewishness" of Israel.

Religion should be a personal private matter, not a tax payer funded preference- and a refugee's natural and legal right to return needs to be respected on a universal level, not limited to people of one religious back ground or another.

A fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the Israel-Palestine conflict really is the best way and the only way to build a lasting peace, a durable and legendary peace based on full respect for universal basic human rights, the rule of fair and just laws, accountability, true equality and real democracy for all the people of the Holy Land.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab


NOTES
"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."Eleanor Roosevelt

The Arab Peace Initiative requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well

"This [Israeli] occupation humiliates us, destroys our economy, causes demographic changes and deprives millions of the freedom of movement and their right to decent lives, in addition to the confiscation of land... These are the main ways Christians are persecuted in Palestine." Faysal Hijazeen
The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Growing Gardens for Palestine

a personal blog

...To Return

A Spider Silk Cape... a series of three poems by Anne Selden Annab in Growing Gardens for Palestine

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