My letter to the Washington Post RE David Ignatius: Bombing or the bomb? For Israel, military option is still on the table.

Palestinian Sunbird painting by Ismail Shammout

RE  Bombing or the bomb?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-for-israel-military-showdown-with-iran-remains-an-option/2012/06/29/gJQA0aePCW_story.html

Dear Editor,

Iran is the wrong priority and a distraction right now. Israel, a sovereign and well defended nation state needs to seriously focus in on empowering peace and Palestine- for everyone's sake: 

A fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the Israel-Palestine conflict will create an entirely new paradigm for the entire region.

Support and invest in a just and lasting peace based on full respect for international law and basic human rights- end the very real plight of the Palestinians, and Iran will have no choice but to rethink its current trajectory and investments.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
"Finally, would it not be fair to ask one-state advocates if their talents, energies and time have been diverted from the fight to achieve freedom for Palestine? Haven't they fashioned, instead, yet another tool that will preserve the status quo and prolong the occupation? "  Due Diligence: Questions for the One-Staters Ziad Asali of the American Task Force on Palestine

"Activists living in a self-imposed ghetto need to understand that the Palestinian issue is not about them or their intellectual and emotional comfort. It is about real people who endure losses every day the conflict continues."   Ghaith Al-Omari The perils of alienation over Palestine

"Far too much discourse in the Arab world surrenders to Islamists the rhetoric, traditions, civilizational heritage and symbols of Islam. But the Islamists do not and cannot define Islam. And they certainly cannot define an enormously heterogeneous Arab world. A vision of citizenship, on the other hand, can and must." Hussein Ibish After Morsy's win, counter Islamists with citizenship

Palestinian Refugees (1948-NOW) refused their right to return... and their right to live in peace free from religious bigotry and injustice.

"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