Terror In Jerusalem Following Killings In Gaza

by RABBI MICHAEL LERNER

01/29/04: The ten people killed on a bus in Jerusalem were innocents. Their murder by a crazed suicide bomber will not free the Palestinian people or bring them one step closer to a decent life. I absolutely and unequivocally condemn this and all acts of terror and violence. 

Yet why does the Western media not notice that this took place immediately after Israel killed nine people in the Gaza Strip? Those killings by the Israeli army did not bring Israel one step closer to security. 

Nor does the construction of a Wall in the middle of the West Bank bring Israel an inch closer to security. By splitting villages in half, enclosing thousands of Palestinians within Israel who want to be part of Palestine, and further making Palestinians feel that they are living in the modern equivalent of ghettoes not unlike those that once oppressed Jews, the Wall becomes more than a disgusting reminder of the walls that were once built by regimes like that of Eastern Germany in Berlin--it is also a new and real reason for Palestinians to feel oppressed by the state that claims to be the state of the Jewish people and to act on our behalf.

Stop the killings! Yes, you, dear reader. Because it is in our hands to do so, if we take the steps that we could. If every one of the 45,000 people who get this were to send this communication to everyone that they know, either on email or snail mail, and urge them in your own name to take the steps that I'm going to suggest in the next paragraph, you'd make a dramatic impact on stopping the killings:

Here is what you could actually do:

1. Go to the Teach-In to Congress for Middle East Peace April 25-27 in Washington D.C. (details at http://www.tikkun.org/index.cfm/action/teachin2004 ). If Congress felt a huge pressure to support the Geneva Accord and to take dramatic steps to insist on an end to the  Occupation, that would shift American political dynamics. Yes, it is Sunday April 25th (that afternoon we'll also have time for people to participate in the March for Women's Control Over Their Own Bodies, and hope that some of the people who are coming for that march will stay til Tuesday) and will go to Tuesday (the day Congress gets back into session and we will have meetings with Congresspeople). If you absolutely can't come, then get a group of people together to meet with your Congress person AND your two US Senators now. 

2. Go to every meeting and talk of all the main candidates for the presidency in all the political parties, and insist that they endorse the Geneva Accord or at least the principle that the Occupation must stop completely, the Wall should be dismantled, and the Palestinian refugees should be given compensation for their suffering and loss of land, and that Israeli should be allowed to live in peace and security alongside a Palestinian state. Don't let the candidates get away with empty phrases about ending Palestinian violence first--it won't happen, and it's just a dodge. The U.S. must play a leadership role in stopping this endless cycle of murder and destruction.

3. Read my book _Healing Israel/Palestine,_ create a study group in your synagogue, church, mosque, neighborhood, or just among a few friends. Get to know the information and perspective well enough so that you can no longer tell yourself "I don't know enough about it to really be a spokesperson for peace." Get your neighborhood bookstore to not only carry it but put it on a front table (for us to do that, we have to pay big money--yes, these days those positions are actually paid for by wealthy publishers and we don't have the money to buy the front table positions--but for you, it's a question of how hard you push them to do so). Learn the information--it's presented in an easily accessible form, plus plenty of questions and answers.

4. Join the Tikkun Community. We need the help in building this national campaign. Even if you can't be active, your financial support makes a difference. http://www.tikkun.org With membership comes a free subscription to Tikkun Magazine--and that provides you with a lot of the information you need to be a more credible educator of others around these issues. 

5. Go visit your local t.v. station and local newspapers--and demand that they give more balanced coverage of the Middle East. Tell them to insist that the wire services or national news services they rely upon quote people from the Tikkun Community and other peace groups when they are covering the Middle East.

6. Don't let people say things that you know to be false about the Middle East. Make a commotion about it in your synagogue, church, mosque. Don't let them tell you that one side is evil and the other side good--both sides are acting immorally and irresponsibly. Tell them that both sides could unequivocally endorse the Geneva Accord and in six months end this whole tragedy. Don't let them call you anti-Semitic for critiquing Ariel Sharon's policies, or "a self-hating Jew" because you want the Occupation to end, or "a Zionist apologist" because you don't want to hear the critique of the Occupation turned into a general assault on the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination (remind them that the Jews have the same right to be as screwed up as everyone else on this planet, though that shouldn't be our aspiration). Teach them about the "progressive Middle Path" being pioneered by Tikkun Community and the Tikkun Campus Network.

7. Think of everyone you know who has a student in college or professional school, graduate school, or even high school--and urge them to encourage their children or friends to go to the Tikkun Campus Network's NATIONAL STUDENT CONFERENCE FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE at Brown University March 5-7. Faculty are also welcomed. And if you know someone who teaches at a college or university, ask them to tell their students about this (they can get the info at http://www.tikkun.org/community/campusnet or campus@tikkun.org ). 

8. Invite friends over for an evening discussion of the Middle East, the Geneva Accord, and what they can do for peace. We will send you a packet of information to use, plus we also have a video that you can use to start off the discussion if you think you are too shy to do it on your own (it gives a good background and jumping off point for the discussion). Get your friends involved.

9. Don't let the spectacle of the elections turn you into a passive observer this year. Get involved and make the candidates for every office take a stand on Middle East Peace that gets beyond the normal meaningless nonsense that everyone has been saying for years. Insist that they tell us what they will do to stop the madness of the cycle of violence. Don't let them get away with empty slogans.

So, yes, there is something YOU can do. Take this message seriously. Get it to everyone you know. The power is in our hands, because an America that wanted to impose the Geneva Accord on both sides would be able to do so, and that would be a far better use of American power than its current use in Iraq. And if stopping the mutual killing was accomplished by pushing both sides into a deal that was in both sides' interest, that would be better than the US' current role in making empty statements slightly critical of the Israeli policy but then going along and allowing the Israeli refusal to take the opportunities that are 
available to it for peace. 

What opportunities? Read the Geneva Accord in the Jan/Feb issue of Tikkun: http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/tikkun/issue/tik0401/article/040111a.html

Meantime, join with us in sending our blessings for healing to the victims of this outrageous and disgusting attack by Palestinian terrorists on innocent Israelis, and our blessings for healing on all the victims of the Israeli Occupation that are daily reported in Ha'aretz and Israeli newspapers but which never get mentioned in the U.S. and Western media. May the suffering of both peoples end quickly, may the killings end, and may hope triumph over despair, and may God send blesings to both peoples. 

Copyright: Tikkun Magazine