Sunday, January 6, 2013

My letter to the Wash Post RE Preserving the two-state solution & In the Gaza Strip, children bear psychological scars of conflict with Israel

....With Palestine
RE: Preserving the two-state solution
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/preserving-the-two-state-solution/2013/01/04/c155b58e-569c-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_story.html
& In the Gaza Strip, children bear psychological scars of conflict with Israel http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-the-gaza-strip-children-bear-psychological-scars-of-conflict-with-israel/2013/01/03/28617be0-5365-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_story.html

Dear Editor,

As things are I think it is obvious that the plight of Palestinians and the angst of Israelis is bound to get exponentially worse, burgeoning onto a one state war scenario much more crazy and cruel and unstoppable than what is going on in Syria right now. 

Thus it is good to see an intelligent and well argued op-ed asking Obama to preserve the two-state solution and a negotiated resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is also good to see that the Washington Post has not forgotten Gaza, and the terrible suffering there. 

Ziad Asali of the America Task Force on Palestine wisely points that "The only way to honor our tragic histories is to create a future for our children free of man-made tragedy. This means making peace fully, completely and without reservation, between Israel and Palestine."

There are clearly many different motivations and excellent reasons (on all sides) to support diplomatic efforts to stop the Israel-Palestine conflict with a fair and just negotiated settlement firmly rooted in international law and fully respecting basic human rights- for everyone's sake. 

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
1) If Palestinians don't work to create their state, they will never have one
2) Peace depends on reasonable people on both sides compromising in order to reach an agreement based on the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Few places in the region contain a population so traumatized, a youth so obsessed with conflict...

ATFP's Ziad Asali & Ghaith Al-Omari: Salam Fayyad's bold effort to build Palestinian institutions could soon collapse -- unless Israel and the United States spring to action.


The Arab Peace Initiative

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

"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..."

American Aid Helps Lebanon Replant Its Cedar Forests 

January 6, 2013 is the 130th anniversary of Kahlil Gibran's birth...Sign the Petition for a Kahlil Gibran U.S. Postage Stamp

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