Sunday, November 25, 2012

My letters 11-25-2012 RE Rubin's Worldview: The forgotten man: Abbas & Two-State Solution on the Line by Jimmy Carter and Gron Harlem Brundtland

A Palestinian boy looks from the rooftop of a destroyed house in Gaza City, Sunday, Nov. 25, 2012. A leading Islamic cleric in the Gaza Strip has ruled it a sin to violate the recent cease-fire between Israel and the Hamas militant group that governs the Palestinian territory according a religious legitimacy to the truce and giving the Gaza government strong backing to enforce it. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

RE Worldview: The forgotten man: Abbas
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20121125_Worldview__The_forgotten_man__Abbas.html

Dear Editor,

Rubin is right that Israel has been undermining secular and non-violent efforts for Palestine, but Rubin should have used the word Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem, as shorthand for Israel's official voice.  Jerusalem is not internationally recognized as Israel's capital. All embassies in Israel are in Tel Aviv.

Rubin should have also found a more compassionate and enlightened argument for why a two state solution matters- both for Israel and for Palestine: Arabs outnumbering Jews did not stop Zionism from taking root in historic Palestine, and demographics have not ever helped provide more jobs and more security or more respect for Palestinians over the past sixty years.  Demographic research might be used to help create policies supposedly more in tune with majority populations, or to help protect minority rights- but demographics tallies and totals and calculations do not automatically ensure fair and just laws... or peace.

A fully secular two state solution to once and for all end the Israel-Palestine conflict will help stop injustice, religious rage, extremism, intransigence, terrorism and cruel policies created to demonize and destroy targeted demographic "threats".  Religion should be a personal, private matter- not a state funded mandate.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

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RE: Two-State Solution on the Line By and
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/opinion/global/brundtland-carter-two-state-solution-on-the-line.html?ref=global

Dear Editor,

Does Jimmy Carter have the clout to help convince America not to punish Palestine for going to the United nations in hopes of granting “non-member observer state status” to Palestine... we can hope, but don't count on it.  Bad tends to shift to worse when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict, with Palestinian men, women and children bearing the brunt of the pain and suffering at every turn.

Palestinian refugees (1948-NOW) have been cruelly refused their right to return... and their right to live in peace free from religious bigotry and injustice.  Day by day Israeli extremists and now Islamists have been turning the Israel-Palestine conflict into a religious war and an excuse for more and more bigotry and hate. 

Israel's Jews-preferred settlements and anti-Palestinian checkpoints and that horrible land grabbing 'security" wall can and should be dismantled ASAP.  Full respect for international law and basic human rights would go a long way towards building momentum for peace with a two state solution to once and for all end the Israel-Palestine conflict- for everyone's sake.  

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES


The Golden Rule... Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

The Arab Peace Initiative

"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 Office of International Religious Freedom ( http://www.state.gov/j/drl/irf/)   Given the U.S. commitment to religious freedom, and to the international covenants that guarantee it as the inalienable right of every human being, the United States seeks to:
Promote freedom of religion and conscience throughout the world as a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries

".... it being clearly understood that nothing
          shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious
          rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine..."

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