Brit Tzedek v'Shalom

Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace

Unofficial Peace Plan Wins Support from Area Leaders: Southland Jews, Palestinians Urge Conflict Resolution

By ALLISON HANTSCHEL
Daily Southtown Economist
December 4, 2003

If the Israeli and Palestinian governments do not want to resolve the conflict between their two peoples, Chicago-area religious and ethnic leaders said Wednesday the people must make the peace themselves.

Area Palestinian and Jewish leaders said at a news conference that only a citizens' campaign for support of an informal peace plan would convince governments not to "manage" the conflict, but to end it.

"Some people here cannot support the move for peace, because of the pain and suffering of the Palestinian community," said Saffiya Shilo of the Bridgeview-based Palestinian American Women's Society. "It's hard to reach out to the other side. But the bottom line is that negotiation is the only way out."

Announced Monday in a Swiss ceremony, the Geneva Accord was the result of more than two years of talks between former Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, working in private capacities.

Officially the accord has not been endorsed by either the Palestinian Authority or the Israeli government, but former high-ranking members of the Israeli Defense Force and former Palestinian government ministers signed the accord in an effort to encourage movement.

Local leaders said the Bush administration seemed resigned to letting the conflict drag on and had not moved strongly enough to settle the two peoples' differences. "People are perishing every day with each suicide bombing, each house demolition, each preemptive assassination. Peace cannot be made when we wring our hands in despair," said Rabbi Andrea London of Beth Emet The Free Synagogue in Evanston. "We can only know peace when our neighbor knows peace. We can only know justice when our neighbor knows justice."

Secretary of State Colin Powell confirmed Tuesday that he will meet with the Geneva Accord's authors Friday, angering Israeli officials who see U.S. support for the agreement as a criticism of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's hard-line tactics toward the Palestinians.

The Geneva Accord outlines concessions by Israel that Sharon's government has opposed in the past - including removing most settlements from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and dividing sovereignty in Jerusalem, claimed by both sides as their capital.

The accord also severely limits any return of Palestinian refugees to lands in Israel, which has brought condemnations from some Palestinian leaders.

It follows a formal U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map, which Israel and the Palestinians have accepted in principle as a basis for negotiations. The road map, which envisions an independent Palestinian state by 2005, leaves open to negotiation the specific issues - such as borders - addressed in the Geneva pact. Government inaction forced people of conscience to take the initiative, said Talat Othman, a member of the Washington, D.C.-based American Task Force on Palestine and a north suburban resident, who was in Geneva during the drafting of the accord.

"There has been no negotiation for the past three years," Othman said. "In that time there have been 900 Israelis killed, 2,500 Palestinians killed, and the count is still going on. Both sides live in fear. Both sides live in hopelessness."

The Chicago area's large Jewish and Palestinian populations make it a good place to start drumming up support, said organizers of the news conference Wednesday. Brit Tzedek V'Shalom, a Chicago Jewish peace group, plans a series of lectures and mailings in the area to persuade ordinary Palestinian and Jewish Chicagoans to support this unofficial move for peace.

"We must take the accord to every doorstep of every household in this country," said Aliza Becker, the group's director. "We must bring the spirit of Geneva to every one of our communities."

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Allison Hantschel may be reached at ahantschel@dailysouthtown.com or (708) 633-5998.
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