Stop Mideast Violence - Negotiate!

Sunday, March 11, 2007

.(Ben Heine © Cartoons)
.
Support Negotiation, Support Peace
.
By Richard Silverstein (*)
.

I would like to challenge all my fellow bloggers writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to post this graphic. I would especially encourage those who blog either from the pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian side to post this as well. Even if you disagree with the sentiments I write below, post this image with your own sentiments. For the sake of peace.

There is a compassion deficit on both sides of this conflict. Of course, it is entirely understandable why this deficit exists. Too much blood has been shed and attitudes harden when there is an unending stream of violence.

But perhaps we can imagine a world in which we put our respective massacres behind us and embrace a future vision of peace between two peoples. We can tell the leaders of the U.S., Israel and Palestine that we are tired of massacres. We want peace. We want negotiation: Israel-Palestine. Israel-Syria. Stop with conditions. Stop with blame. Sit down and talk. Now.

President Bush: Support negotiation, support peace. End the dithering. End the "No."

----------------------------

(*) Richard Silverstein runs Tikun Olam, a peace blog dedicated to a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Arab conflict. He also created Israel Palestine Blogs, an aggregator of 50 peace blogs written by Israelis, Palestinians, American Jews, Arab Americans and Lebanese. He earned a Bachelor of Hebrew Literature degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary and an MA in Hebrew Literature at UCLA. He served as a communal fundraiser at Jewish federations in New York and California, and Brandeis University. He also worked as administrator of a Los Angeles Reform temple. He has been a proponent of Israeli-Arab peace since 1968, and currently lives in Seattle with his wife and three children.

--> More about Richard Silverstein
--> This post originally appeared on Tikun Olam : Make the World a Better Place
--> See also Brit Tzedek's campaign and the petition Let's Talk
.