Combatants for Peace Clips Part 2

Cont. From Combatants for Peace Clips Part 1.

A recent independent public survey of Israelis has indicated that 20% of the people staunchly favor the vision of a just twostate solution. Other surveys indicate that up to fifty percent of the Israeli population seeks a form of [peaceful] settlement. This peace group, one of many that are said to be sprouting up across the whole region on both sides of the conflict, is committed to peaceful dialogues between Palestinians and Israelis, especially through former soldiers and [freedom fighter] militants, as the means of ultimately empowering both nations, and in doing so, leaving the entrenched politicians with self-centered special interests behind. The meeting at Pace University was well attended not only by students and professors but by members of the larger Westchester Community. This was mainly due to coverage of the event by the regional daily, Journal News in the NYS Lower Hudson Valley, the co-sponsorship by The United Nations Association of Westchester and The Keys to Peace Class which distributed flyers as well as Pace's own Community Outreach Program. The two speakers concluded that the occupation and resulting apartheid are the main sources of the injustice and repression which is inflicted on the Palestinian Nation. The audience was alerted to the fact that many times the higher echelons of the military dehumanize their Palestinian foes and that this racist behavior is quite dangerous. They further referred to the political establishment of Israel as a racist system not only when it comes to the [mis-]treatment of the Palestinians and Arabs, but also within the various strata of Israeli Jews, whereby the Ashkenazis of Austro-Hungarian, German, Polish and Russian ancestries are at the helm, followed by the European Safaradics, and ranked on bottom are the native and immigrant Israelis from the Arab Countries and Persian heritage of Iran - that are always under suspicions. There was a consensus that Ahmadinejads rhetoric against Israel, which incidentally is intended to divert the attention of the 75 million Iranians from their lingering socio-economic dilemma and repression of the democratic reforms, is welcomed by the conservatives in Israel and the U.S. as they exploit it to create an atmosphere of fear in order to advance the military industrial complex agenda, and their hegemonic presence in the Middle East.
Although the speakers reaffirmed their love and loyalty to the sovereignty and integrity of the state of Israel and the high Judaic standards it should be anchored on, Elik and Yonaton asked Americans to divest themselves of corporations which benefit the Israeli military and put pressure on their elected officials not to cave in under AIPAC pressure. There was even the citation of a parallel debate that if an amicable mutually inclusive and just peaceful resolution is not reached, one inevitable option might be to go back to the drawing board before the partition of 1945, and based on an all out referendum in the region establish a unified non-sectarian and non-religious democratic nation, with one person one vote.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Israeli
• Soldiers
• Pace University
• Combatants for Peace
• Arab Israeli Conflict
• Jewish Americans
• AIPAC
• UJA
• United Jewish Appeal
• Arab Americans
• Palestinians for peace
• President Carter

[SokPop77]

A Leader In The Making

[Omarkhay1973]

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