My letter to the NYTimes RE: If Not Now, When? By Roger Cohen

This year, the joy of harvest bears a bitter taste for many Beit Jalaians, who fear it could be their last time harvesting olives from the land.   Israel has already annexed 22,000 dunums of Bethlehem and Beit Jala land to build illegal settlements, including Gilo, Har Gilo and Har Homa.. Fear of Annexation Turns Olive Harvest Bitter

RE: If Not Now, When? By ROGER COHEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/opinion/cohen-if-not-now-when.html?ref=international&_r=0

Dear Editor,

Roger Cohen has based his career on insisting that Israel has to be Jewish- and he wants the world to base peace talks on that too.  No thanks.

Yes to peace- and yes to a negotiated settlement to once and for all end the Israel-Palestine conflict, but PLEASE stop coercing taxpayers here and there into funding institutionalized bigotry... and religious fantasies & fanatics.

Israel is indeed strong- strong enough to survive just as America did when we ended slavery and Jim Crow laws. Strong enough to make peace with Palestine and to work with Palestinians to determine firm borders and fair polices.  Strong enough to overcome a very troubled and tortured past in order to move forward for everyone's sake, regardless of supposed race, religion or gender.

Yes to peace- a just and lasting peace.

Sincerely,
Anne Selden Annab

NOTES
CSM: Israel increases rate of home demolitions as peace talks chug along- Human rights activists say home demolitions show that protection for Palestinian human rights is missing from the peace process.

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"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

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Article 1

• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

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The Arab Peace Initiative

1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.

2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:

I- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.

III- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

3. Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following:

I- Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.

II- Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.