Brit Tzedek v'Shalom
Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 29 , 2007
AMERICAN JEWISH SUPPORT IS KEY TO ISRAEL’S PEACE PROSPECTS
Leading Jewish Peace Group Calls on U.S. and Community to Ensure Annapolis is More than Just a Photo-Op
CHICAGO—Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, the country’s largest Jewish grassroots peace movement, welcomed the renewed commitment of the U.S., Israeli and Palestinian administrations to negotiate an historic two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and urged the American Jewish community to do its part in ensuring that the first U.S. brokered, face-to face meeting between Israeli, Palestinian and Arab leaders in nearly seven years amounts to more than just a photo-opportunity.
“Gains in achieving long-term prospects for peace and security were made Tuesday at Annapolis, both in terms of the parties’ agreement to work together to establish a Palestinian state by the end of 2008 and of the U.S. government’s renewed commitment to play a constructive role in facilitating the negotiation process,” said Brit Tzedek’s president, Steve Masters. The group went on to applaud the parties’ pledge to include the negotiation of ‘all core issues, without exception’ and to immediately undertake concrete steps to improve the situation on the ground, including the implementation of security reforms and a settlement freeze, closely monitored by the United States. Brit Tzedek further welcomed Secretary Rice’s recent appointment of General James Jones to the post of Mideast security envoy and called on the Bush Administration to continue to undertake substantive measures to strengthen the peace process relaunched at Annapolis.
“It’s time now for the American Jewish community, which has historically played a guiding role in the formulation of successive administrations’ policies on Israel, to make clear to the current administration and the one that will follow it that the American Jewish community stands behind the Annapolis process and demands sustained diplomatic engagement to ensure a successful outcome,” said Masters. “We will be vigilant in our insistence that the Annapolis conference is a first step. For the sake of Israel, there can be no turning back.”
Despite the results of a recent poll conducted by Zogby International (June 4, 2007), commissioned by Americans for Peace Now and the Arab American Institute, showing that 87% of American Jews support a two-state solution and 68% are more likely to support a candidate who promises to take an active role in the peace process, the majority of leaders of established Jewish communal organizations have been resistant to support Annapolis, and similar initiatives before it, intended to reinvigorate the peace process.
“It simply doesn’t make sense that when Israel faced war in Lebanon, the Jewish community’s support for Israel was loud and unambiguous, but when 40 Arab nations and the leaders of the Palestinian people sit down with Israel’s Prime Minister, most of our leaders’ voices are silent, with some openly hostile,” said Masters. “How can we who deeply care for Israel’s future speak up only after Israel is under attack, and not also when there is a genuine opportunity to prevent devastating loss of life from future wars?”
To build on the momentum generated by Annapolis, Brit Tzedek will intensify its mass mobilizations of Jewish activists from across the country to advocate for pro-Israel, pro-peace policies to Congress and to hold the Administration to President Bush’s pledge to commit "the resources and resolve of the American government" to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In the lead-up to the Annapolis conference, Brit Tzedek activists contacted hundreds of Congressional offices to advocate that their representatives sign the Ackerman-Boustany letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent to express support for the Annapolis conference as a “critical opportunity” to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and to urge that “robust, hands-on U.S. leadership and diplomacy is necessary to frame not only on what transpires at the meeting, but on what takes place before and after it.” Ultimately, 135 Representatives signed the letter, including more than 1/3 of Congress’ Jewish delegation, among them Rep. Lantos (D-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Henry Waxman (D-CA), dean of the Jewish House members. In addition, the entire delegation from Massachusetts, where three of Brit Tzedek’s strongest chapters are located, signed the letter.
In the coming election year, Brit Tzedek also plans to undertake a campaign to raise attention on the importance of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking for the next administration through outreach to the individual presidential candidates and to the American Jewish community. In synagogue events, house parties, and rabbinic petitions – such as our most recent, “Kindle the Lights of Peace,” which garnered over 500 rabbinic signers – we will mobilize our community to express that a truly “pro-Israel” candidate is one who will do everything in his or her power to realize the vision of Annapolis: a secure Israel and a viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace.
Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, is a national grassroots organization more than 36,000 strong, that educates and mobilizes American Jews in support of a negotiated two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict