Israel-Palestine: What Paths to Peace?

KHADER SHKIRAT
A visiting fellow at Harvard Law School and director of the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment based in Jerusalem, Shkirat said today: “This is not ‘a war by two sides’ — two armies poised against each other. Israel is occupying and oppressing Palestinians. The Israeli military forces are attacking a civilian population. There are massacres, shelling using U.S. weaponry. Two Israeli Apache helicopters just fired four air-to-surface missiles on a Palestinian-registered civilian car in Ramallah, killing three people. There needs to be immediate international protection for Palestinian civilians, but the Bush administration has vetoed all such attempts at the United Nations.”
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MAZIN QUMSIYEH
An associate professor of genetics at Yale University School of Medicine and a co-founder of al-Awda, the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, Qumsiyeh said today: “Five million of the 8 million Palestinians in the world remain displaced, prevented from going back to their homes and lands. Yet Israel, established to provide a safe haven for Jews across the globe, is ironically the place where Jews remain most endangered and subjected to violence. It is time for those of us who do not benefit from the continuation of this tragic conflict to support a solution based on human rights, such as the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands. Building a pluralistic society in Israel/Palestine would cause a dramatic shift in repressive Arab regimes, which would no longer have that most crucial crutch.”
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RABBI YISROEL DOVID WEISS
Associate director of Neturei Karta International, Rabbi Weiss said today: “We find the toll of dead and wounded on both sides to be intolerable. We feel that it is high time for a radical departure from the assumptions that have governed and effectively stifled free debate on the subject…. Zionism posited that political maneuvering, revolutionary terror, war and dispossession would yield Jewish salvation. Nothing could be further from the truths of Judaism.”
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LAURIE KING-IRANI
The Court of Appeals of Brussels today agreed to a request made by lawyers for the survivors of the Sabra and Shatila massacre to schedule a hearing in a landmark case accusing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other Israelis and Lebanese with war crimes and crimes against humanity. King-Irani is North American coordinator for the International Campaign for Justice for the Victims of Sabra and Shatila. She is available for background on this case and can arrange interviews with legal specialists.
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ALI ABUNIMAH
Vice president of the Arab-American Action Network, Abunimah said today: “By rejecting the Saudi peace initiative and launching brutal and murderous attacks on Palestinian civilians in Balata and Jenin refugee camps, the Israeli government not only set off the current wave of deadly violence which has cost dozens of Israeli and Palestinian lives but proved that it has no interest in peace.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167