Monday January 16, 2012

Fulfilling the Dream: On Privilege and Solidarity

Introduction:

It is such an honor to speak to you on this sacred day honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the greatest prophetic figures of all time.   Thank you especially to Marcia Fort, the extraordinary executive director of GIAC, and to Ellen Baer and the planning committee. 

For the past year and a half, I have come to Ithaca once a month to serve Congregation Tikkun v’Or and I am struck by the large number of people in this wonderful town engaged in the holy work of social justice/tikkun Olam, repair of the World.  I have already had the privilege of meeting so many extraordinary and inspiring local activists.  Social Justice/Tikkun Olam/Repair of the World is the core religious vision and commitment of our congregation, Tikkun v’Or, and it is such an honor to speak to you today as their rabbi. 

Marcia asked me to reflect on what I have learned in my life about working to end racism and how we might strengthen the anti-racism work in this community.  In my talk today I hope to distill what I have learned from my own life experience, from the teachings of Dr. King and how this may relate to Ithaca, all in 20 minutes!   

Privilege

When I reflect about what I have learned from my life about working to end racism in South Africa, Israel and America, I am profoundly aware that I speak from the vantage point of a person that has enjoyed economic, racial and ethnic privilege.  I was born into racial privilege in South Africa, I enjoyed ethnic privilege as a Jew in Israel, and for the past thirty-five years I have benefited as a white from racial privilege in America.  The lessons I have to teach about ending racism are rooted in this experience of privilege.

I grew up in Sea Point, a gorgeous suburb of Cape Town, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in Apartheid South Africa.  My entire community was white: my friends, my family, my teachers, and my neighborhood.   Black and Brown people were those who served us.  The closest person of color I knew as a child and teenager was Myrtle Cupido, the domestic worker in our home.  The Black children I saw in my neighborhood wore tattered clothes, often had no shoes and called me “Baas” master, as did their parents.  A brutal system of institutionalized racism divided us into Whites and Blacks, us and them, the privileged and the oppressed.

From the earliest time I can remember this reality troubled me greatly.  It violated my sense of fairness and justice.  It violated the religious values I learned in my Jewish day school about the imperative to honor the dignity of all human beings.  No less than 36 times the Torah referred to the experience of the Israelites in Egypt: “You shall not oppress the other as you know the soul of the other for you were the other in the Land of Egypt.”   My reality in Apartheid South Africa was in stark contrast to the story of my people as victims of anti-Semitism ending in the Holocaust. Never Again! was what I was taught.  As Jews we thought of ourselves as victims, and yet I was a white Jew with privilege, part of a vicious and brutal system of racism that killed, oppressed and destroyed human beings.

I felt guilty and ashamed about the way my community mistreated and exploited Blacks. One of the most painful events of my childhood was seeing my own father, a good man who taught me to respect all human beings, humiliate the black workers in his store with callous, racist disrespect.   I felt pride in the Jews who courageously opposed Apartheid in disproportionate numbers and troubled by the way most of our community enjoyed the material blessings of our privileged status and worse, accepted, willingly or unwillingly, the racism of Apartheid.

Despite the material comfort of my racial privilege, I felt profound despair and enormous fear. There was no good outcome that I could envision. Either this violent and unjust system of racial oppression would continue or, like most other whites, I thought Black South Africans would rise up and kill us all.

The question of how to respond as a person of privilege to injustice is one that I experienced not only as a child in South Africa, but also one I have wrestled with in Israel and here in America.   It is Dr. King and the vision of the Civil Rights movement that provided me with an answer to the question. 

Beloved Community

Dr. King made it clear the struggle was not against whites, it was about creating a loving and just community, a Beloved community, where everyone is given dignity, equality and love.   For Dr. King it was not about an “us” and a “them”, it was about building a community of love and justice for all, here in America and in the world as a whole.

Dr. King understood the deep connection between love and justice: 

He taught: “Love that does not satisfy justice is no love at all.   Love at it’s best is justice concretized.”  The beloved community is a community of love that joins together to concretize justice.  In this community all were welcome, black and white, privileged and oppressed. 

As a white South African I made a choice to join the struggle for a democratic South Africa, as a Jew I choose to support equal rights of all who live in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and as a white person in America for the past 37 years, I choose to support human rights including economic rights for all.

As a person of privilege, I have chosen to take responsibility to unlearn my own prejudice and racism.  I have chosen to educate my own community about our prejudices, about the effect of our actions and our silence on our fellow human beings, and about the consequences our failure to live up to our own religious and human values.

I have chosen to use the benefits of my privilege to serve justice for all. .

I have chosen to follow the lead of those who are oppressed, to respond to their request for support. 

These choices in response to my own privilege are not an expression of guilt, but rather a joyful choice that has allowed me to break the isolation, disconnection and fear that are an integral part of living with privilege. It has allowed me to live my highest ideals. 

There are also some costs to such a decision by a person of privilege.  There are people in one’s community who will resist any questioning of the status quo and may view one as a traitor to one’s racial or ethnic group.  This experience is difficult and painful and often the major deterrent to people of privilege challenging injustice.

When I emigrated from South Africa, first to Israel and then to America I had idealized images of both countries.  I naively thought that I was moving to countries with much greater freedom and equality than in South Africa.   In Israel I had to confront the dispossession of the Palestinians and the systemic discrimination against Palestinians both in Israel and in the Occupied Territories.  And in America I had to confront the engrained institutionalized racism of this country.

Racism in America

It took me a long time to understand how racism works in America.   In South Africa the racism was vicious and it was public and clear.  Over the years I have come to understand that racism in America even after the Civil Rights movement is every bit as vicious as the racism of Apartheid yet it is veiled and/or denied.  

Citizenship Exam and the Havurah

Two particular moments of revelation in this regard:

When I took my citizenship exam in Philadelphia, my lawyer (having a lawyer was itself a benefit of my economic and racial privilege) pointed out that there were two rooms, one where most or all of the people would become citizens and the other across the hall where people would be denied.   The room I was in was overwhelmingly white and the room across the hallway was predominantly people of color.  There were no signs “whites only” like in South Africa, yet there could have been.

Another story: I was part of a havurah, a counter- cultural, progressive Jewish religious fellowship.  I still remember the day on which I discovered by chance that an apartment block, where many of my friends who were members of the havurah lived, did not rent apartments to Blacks.  It was such a shock.  I naively thought that such a thing was impossible.  In South Africa the racism was blatant, clear, public and ugly but here in America it was hidden with euphemisms and in code.    

Institutionalized Racism

Institutionalized racial oppression in America is hidden and all whites benefit from that racial oppression.   All whites in America enjoy white privilege.  As a white person in America my chances of being stopped by a police officer for a drug check is three times less than that of a African American, I have much less chance of being incarcerated, of being poor, of facing blatant prejudice, of receiving good schooling or of facing housing discrimination.  As a white person the chances are that I will have access to more wealth.  As a person with racial privilege, the most basic responsibility is not to collude in the pretense that this racial privilege doesn’t exist.  Acknowledging the privilege is the first essential step. 

This is not a question of guilt.   People of privilege are not guilty.  We did not create the system that gives us unearned advantages but we do have a choice whether we pretend such a system doesn’t exist and whether we join in Beloved community with all who are seeking a society of equity and justice.  This is what solidarity is about and this is what I am called to do as a white person living in a racist society.

As a religious Jew, the image of Rabbi Abram Joshua Heschel marching with Dr. King in Selma is one of the most powerful and inspiring visual images. Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel became friends and when Dr. King asked his friend to come to march with him in Selma, Rabbi Heschel had to make a choice.   He made a choice to go, to risk injury, to be in solidarity with his friend and the struggle of the Civil Rights movement.  He made a choice for justice.  I believe that this is the fundamental choice we all need to make.  We need to join together to transform our society.  

The Civil Rights movement ended the denial of voting rights and other basic rights to African Americans.   Dr. King’s vision was far deeper than just ending racial discrimination.  Dr. King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to “save the soul of America.”

In his courageous address, A Time to Break Silence, at the Riverside Church Dr. King said:     

“For it’s very survival’s stake, America must reexamine the old presuppositions and release itself from the many things that for centuries have been held sacred.  For the evils of racism, poverty, and militarism to die, a new set of values must be born.  Our economy must become more person centered than property and profit centered.  Our government must depend more on its moral power that on it’s military power.

Let us therefore not think of our movement as one that seeks to integrate the Negro into all existing values of American society.  Let us be those creative dissenters who will call our beloved nation to a higher destiny, to a new vision of compassion, to a more noble expression of humaneness”

This is Dr. King’s prophetic vision. This is his challenge to us.  We can choose to join together across economic, racial and cultural lines to build a country with a people centered, sustainable peace economy.

And we can join together across race, culture and economic class, to do this here in Ithaca.   At the breakfast on Saturday, Marcia Forte referred to the bumper sticker that reads: “Ithaca 10 square miles surrounded by reality.”   She reminded us that Ithaca is ten square miles of reality.

Ithaca is a very special place with amazing people and it also reflects the racial and economic inequity in America as a whole.   Could we join together in Ithaca co created the community that Dr. King envisioned? What would it take to end poverty in Ithaca?  What would it take to end racism in Ithaca?  What would it take to create a sustainable economy that protects our environment and provides for everyone? 

There are so many exciting projects in this community that are beginning to address this exciting and challenging task: The Building Bridges project, Dorothy Cotton Institute, the Talking Circles and many others.   As a newcomer and a person who doesn’t live in the town, I don’t know all the wonderful initiatives.  

Today each of us is called to make a deeper commitment to building a loving, just and sustainable community here in Ithaca.   Each of us is called to build relationships across culture, race, class and faith.   Each and every one of us has an important contribution we can make to build the Beloved community. 

We have an opportunity to build on the extraordinary courage of people in our own country in the Occupy Movement and in the Arab world engaged in nonviolent resistance demanding freedom and justice.   How can Ithaca strengthen the Occupy movement and ensure that America is on the side of those in the streets of America and the Arab world demanding justice?

What better way to honor the extraordinary vision of love and justice envisioned by Dr. King?

As he said:

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.   I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.  I believe that what self-centered people have torn down, people other-centered can build.  I still believe we shall overcome.”

May we all pray with our feet, our minds, our hearts.  May the Source of love and justice bless our efforts. 

Thank You

Ta’anit Tzedek  – Jewish Fast for Gaza

 invites you to
 
Conceiving of a One-State Solution: 

A Conversation with 
Palestinian-American Journalist 

Ahmed Moor

Thursday, December 15
12 noon EST

If, as many are claiming, the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians is becoming less and less viable, what are the realistic prospects for one state where Jews and Palestinians live together as equal citizens?  

• Can we conceive of such a solution and what would such a state look like practically speaking? 
• What are the political realities that mitigate against it and can they be shifted? 
• Would it even be possible for these two peoples to live and govern a state together?

To help us explore these issues, Ta’anit Tzedek is proud to present noted journalist Ahmed Moor. Born in Gaza and raised in the US, Moor graduated from University in 2006 and spent several years as a freelance journalist based in Lebanon and Cairo. His work as been published in numerous publications, including Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. He is currently a doctoral student of Public Policy at Harvard University.

To participate in the call: 

Thursday, December 15 at 12 noon EST

Dial the Access Number: 1.800.920.7487 

When prompted, enter your Participant Code: 92247763# 

There will be a question and answer period during the call.


 For more information, visit www.fastforgaza.net.

Please share this notice with others you think may be interested.

Fifty years after the US Freedom Riders staged mixed-race bus rides through the roads of the segregated American South, Palestinian Freedom Riders will be asserting their right for liberty and dignity by disrupting the military regime of the Occupation through peaceful civil disobedience. Organizers say this ride to demand liberty, equality, and access to Jerusalem is the first of many to come.

Ta’anit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza will stand in solidarity with the West Bank Freedom Riders with a very special conference call on the day of the demonstration. Please join us Tuesday, November 15 at 12 pm Eastern Time  to join our conversation with Ellen Broms, one of the original Freedom Riders for civil rights in the American South and currently an activist for a just peace in Israel/Palestine.

During our call, Ms. Broms will talk about her own experiences as an activist/demonstrator for civil rights in the 1960′s and why her activism has led her to take a stand on behalf of Palestinian human and civil rights.

Ellen Broms is a retired state worker who resides in Sacramento, CA. Her involvement in the civil rights movement began when, as a student at Los Angeles City College, she demonstrated at Woolworth lunch counters in support of  similar sit-ins by students in the South.

In June 1961, Ms. Brom attended a freedom rally at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave the keynote speech.  After hearing a freedom rider speak, she was inspired to participate in the rides herself. On August 11, Ms. Brom was arrested with other freedom riders after they sat down and demonstrated in a Houston coffee shop.

In her words:

The police arrived, having been summoned by the owner and we were charged with unlawful assembly and taken to the Houston city jail. We were fingerprinted, mugged, and classified at the city jail and then transferred to the Harris County Jail. Ironically, I was booked as a “Negro” because of my dark hair and complexion. We declined to state “race” and they classified me as “High Yellow”. Marjorie, a very fair skinned, green eyed female rider of African American descent was classified and booked as white. I was placed in the “tank” for black women and Marjorie went to the white women’s tank. If we did nothing else during that ride, we did succeed in briefly integrating the jail.

After spending eight days in jail, Ms. Brom was released. The riders were found guilty of “unlawful assembly” by an all-white jury and fined $100 each. Their case was eventually appealed to a higher court and overturned.

Ellen Broms has since been honored by Congress, the state of Texas and the city of Houston for risking incarceration and violence as a Freedom Rider. She continues to work as an activist for peace and justice, particularly in the area of a just peace in Israel/Palestine. She is actively involved in the Sacramento branch of Jewish Voice for Peace and is campaigning on behalf of the West Bank Freedom Riders.

To participate in the call:

Dial Access Number: 1.800.920.7487
Enter Participant Code: 92247763#

There will be opportunities for questions and answers during the call.

To explore these timely issues, Ta’anit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza is sponsoring a phone conference with Josh Ruebner, National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation on Thursday, September 22 at 12 pm (EST)

Ruebner is a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service, a federal government agency providing Members of Congress with policy analysis. His analysis and commentary on US policy toward the Middle East appear frequently in media such as NBC, ABC Nightline, CSPAN, Al Jazeera, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Middle East Report, and more.

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is a national coalition of nearly 350 organizations working to end US support for Israel’s illegal 43-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, and to change U.S. policy toward Israel/ Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality.

Call-in info:

• Call in number: 1-800-920-7487
• Code: 92247763#

Participants in the call are encouraged to read one or more of the following articles:

• “FAQ about the Palestinian U.N. Initiative” by Josh Ruebner
• Straining Every Nerve Against UN Membership for Palestine” by Josh Ruebner
• What Have Obama and Netanyahu Wrought?” by Henry Siegman

Please join the call!

Details about the call:

To participate in the call:
Thursday, May 19 at 12 noon EST

Dial the Access Number: 1.800.920.7487
When prompted, enter your Participant Code: 92247763#
There will be a question and answer period during the call.

Nadia Hijab is a  prominent Palestinian writer and human rights advocate. She is the co-director of the Palestinian Policy Network, has served as co-chair of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and is a past president of the Association of Arab American University Graduates. Hijab is a renowned human rights advocate, media commentator, writer and speaker.

Resources

You can find  several articles by Hijab on the Taanit Tzedek  website and encourage you to read them:

1) The Arab revolutions and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
2) Understanding Obama’s Settlement Posture
3) The Palestinian Narrative: Then and Now

.

Rabbi Brant Rosen and Rabbi Brian Walt

This past week, rabbis across the country received a request from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism to sign a public rabbinic letter to Congress that urged our Representatives and Senators not to cut any foreign aid to Israel as part of the FY2012 budget. The request was co-signed by the rabbinical leaders of four major American Jewish denominations.

As rabbis who received these appeals for our endorsement, we would like to voice our respectful but strong disagreement to the letter. We take particular issue with the statement:

As Jews we are committed to the vision of the Prophets and Jewish sages who considered the pursuit of peace a religious obligation. Foreign Aid to Israel is an essential way that we can fulfill our obligation to “seek peace and pursue it.”

We certainly agree that the pursuit of peace is our primary religious obligation.  Our tradition emphasizes that we should not only seek peace but pursue it actively.  However we cannot affirm that three billion dollars of annual and unconditional aid – mainly in the form of military aid – in any way fulfills the religious obligation of pursuing peace.

This aid provides Israel with military hardware that it uses to maintain its Occupation and to expand settlements on Palestinian land. It provides American bulldozers that demolish Palestinian homes. It provides tear gas that is regularly shot by the IDF at nonviolent Palestinian protesters. It also provided the Apache helicopters that dropped tons of bombs on civilian populations in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, as well as the white phosphorus that Israel dropped on Gazan civilians, causing grievous burns to their bodies – including the bodies of children.

In light of Israel’s past and continuing military actions, how can we possibly affirm that our continued unconditional aid fulfills the sacred obligation of pursuing peace?

We also take exception to this assertion:

U.S. foreign aid reaffirms our commitment to a democratic ally in the Middle East and gives Israel the military edge to maintain its security and the economic stability to pursue peace.

In fact our ally, the Netanyahu administration, has even rebuffed mild pressure from the US government to comply with the longstanding US position against new settlements in the West Bank. If we believe that any peaceful settlement requires the end of the Occupation and Israel’s settlement policy, how will massive and unconditional foreign aid – and the support of hundreds of rabbis for this aid – promote a negotiated peaceful settlement of the conflict?

An Israeli government that continues to settle occupied territory with impunity will not change its policy as long as it is guaranteed three billion dollars a year.  With every other ally, our government pursues a time-honored diplomatic policy that uses “sticks” as well as “carrots.” We believe the cause of peace would be better served by conditioning support to Israel on its adherence to American and Jewish values of equality and justice.

We are also mindful that the Arab world itself feels under assault by the US when it witnesses Palestinians regularly assaulted with American-made weapons. With the vast and important changes currently underway in the Middle East, we are deeply troubled by the message that this policy sends to Arab citizens who themselves are struggling for freedom and justice.

We know that many of our colleagues who have signed this statement have taken courageous public stands condemning Israel’s human rights abuses in the past. We also know it is enormously challenging to publicly take exception to our country’s aid policy to Israel. Nonetheless, we respectfully urge our our colleagues to consider the deeper implications represented by their support of this letter.

Unconditional aid to Israel may ensure Israel’s continued military dominance, but will it truly fulfill our religious obligation to pursue peace?

In Shalom,

Rabbi Brant Rosen and Rabbi Brian Walt

I am delighted that on Thursday next week, Taanit Tzedek  fast day,  will be hosting a conference call at 12 noon with young Jewish activists, including two who participated in the action in November.  All the details are below.  It should be an amazing call and I hope you can join.  Also please share with others, especially with young people you think may be interested.   For more information about Young, Jewish and Proud and the action last year click here.

We would appreciate it if you could share it with friends and others who may be interested.

Ta’anit Tzedek  – Jewish Fast for Gaza

invites you to join a phone conversation on

Young Jews, Zionism and the new Jewish Activism

with three remarkable young Jewish activists and leaders

Rae Abileah and Mirit Mizrahi

of

Young, Jewish and Proud, the group that disrupted Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America

and

Michael Deheeger

Young Jewish Professional and Community Organizer

Thursday, February 17 at 12 noon EDT

To participate in the call:
Dial the Access Number: 1.800.920.7487
When prompted, enter your Participant Code: 92247763#
There will be a question and answer period during the call.

More Information:  Taanit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza  www.fastforgaza.net and www.fastforgaza.net/node/172

Young Jewish and Proud: www.youngjewishproud.org

This call is co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace and Shomer Shalom.

In 1987, I delivered a Yom Kippur sermon, “A Generation of Occupation,” about the corrosive moral effects of twenty years of Occupation on Jews and Judaism. This sermon cost me my first position as a congregational rabbi. Back then, as a liberal Zionist, I saw the injustice to Palestinians within Israel and under Occupation as moral perversions of the progressive Zionist vision — “warts” that needed correction.

Over the twenty-three years since then, I have seen many disturbing instances of blatant discrimination against Palestinians and my view has fundamentally changed. I have seen a Palestinian home being demolished and have stood on the demolished ruins of Palestinian homes. I have walked down streets restricted to Jews in what was once a bustling Palestinian neighborhood. I have replanted trees uprooted by settlers knowing they would be uprooted again. These and many more disturbing personal encounters with discrimination led me to the painful understanding that political Zionism, at its core, is a discriminatory ethnic nationalism that privileges the rights of Jews over non-Jews.

This is an excerpt from an article of mine, Reflections of a Liberal Zionist, just published by Tikkun magazine.  To mark their 25th anniversary, Tikkun asked many of their authors to share a short article about their thinking and social activism that was most relevant to the next generation and to Tikkun‘s goal of helping heal, repair, and transform the world.  In Reflections of a Liberal Zionist I articulated very briefly how my own faith as liberal Zionist/Jew has been transformed over the past 23 years since I gave that Yom Kippur sermon.

The critique of liberal Zionism is painful as from the time I was very young I have seen myself as a progressive Zionist/Jew.  It was the world I lived in and defined the work that I did.  In many ways it still is.  Many dear colleagues, friends and family are dedicated liberal /progressive Zionists.   I also have such a deep spiritual and emotional connection to Israel and my many friends there.   Most of my colleagues and friends don’t see the contradiction that I believe lies at the heart of liberal Zionism and the impossible goal of building a democratic Jewish state.  They also don’t agree that some of the actions of  liberal Zionist/Jewish organizations prolong the injustice in Israel/Palestine at the same time as claiming to be clearly opposed to this injustice.  It is my hope that the article opens a dialogue and conversation and I invite your response or questions.  You can read the complete article here.  I also recommend the many important articles published as part of the 25th anniversary of Tikkun.  Tikkun has been an important part of my own journey and understanding and I encourage you to subscribe and support the magazine.

Abdullah Abu Rahmeh is a leader of Palestinian non-violent resistance on the West Bank;  Ameer Makhoul is an Israeli Palestinian citizen, an advocate for the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

You can find  statistics on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails here.

This coming Monday, December 27, will be the second anniversary of the first day of Operation Cast Lead.  Now, two years later the people of Gaza still live in an “open air prison” subject to a blockade by Israel.

Now is the time for us, as American citizens, to call on our President to take bold action to end the blockade.  Taanit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza, a project that I co-founded with Rabbi Brant Rosen, is calling on American citizens to send a letter to the President calling on him to take bold action,  to end the blockade  of Gaza.  I invite you to participate in this campaign.

Here is the text of the letter:

Dear President Obama,

I am writing to urge you to do everything in your power to end Israel’s four and a half year blockade against Gaza.

The human toll of this blockade has become utterly intolerable. Israel’s limits on export and import has destroyed Gaza’s economy.  According to international and Israeli human rights organizations, 80% of the Gazan population is dependent on international aid.  61% of the population is food insecure and more than 10% of Gaza’s children are chronically malnourished.

Israel’s blockade has also had a devastating effect on freedom of movement in Gaza.  Gisha, a leading Israeli human rights organization, has documented that the closure of Gaza’s borders has drastically impaired family life and the ability of Gaza’s residents to gain an education and receive medical treatment.

Since “Operation Cast Lead,” 78% of homes that sustained major damage have not yet been rebuilt and scores of Gazans are forced to live in tents or other temporary quarters.  Due to the damage sustained by Gaza’s water purification plants, 50 to 80 million liters of untreated or partially treated sewage are released into the sea every day.

As an American, I do not want my tax dollars to enable Israel to behave in a manner that is so clearly counter to moral conscience, human rights and international law.  Please call upon the Israeli government to end its blockade of Gaza immediately.  I urge you to use all diplomatic means at your disposal – including the cessation of military aid – to ensure that Israel complies.

I acknowledge that Hamas poses a security threat to Israel – but the collective punishment of Gaza will not bring Israel the security it seeks. True security will only be achieved through direct negotiations between Israel and all relevant Palestinian parties, including Hamas.

In your inspiring 2009 Cairo speech, you stated, “the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security…  Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be a critical part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.”

Now is the time for you, as President, to make these words a reality.

Sincerely,

To participate in this campaign, click here.

Taanit Tzedek needs your support to continue.  Please click here to make a contribution.