Global Exchange Newsletter
Spring 2002

The "War on Terrorism" has taken US policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from bad to worse. Never an honest model of human rights promotion, the US govern-ment's hypocrisy has deepened in recent months. Even as President Bush denounces an ill-defined "Axis of Evil," his administration allies itself with the extremist forces of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. So far, the fruits of this union have been an institutionalization of unprecedented violence in the West Bank and Gaza and the near-total rupture of efforts by Palestinian and Israeli civil societies to build the kind of ties that would make long-term co-existence possible.

World opinion overwhelmingly views unconditional US support for the Israeli government as the principle obstacle to ending the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. That occupation is the root of the gruesome upsurge of violence in the last 18 months. This view was repeatedly communicated by Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists to a Global Exchange delegation to Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank in February. Changing US policy is key to ending the violence that blights Palestinian and Israelis lives alike.

Any serious peace agreement must include--at a minimum--complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the full dismantling of the provocative and illegal settlements there. The Oslo agreement ultimately failed because it did not deliver those basic points, leaving Palestinians to suffer the lethal and humiliating sting of occupation. In fact, since the Oslo agreement was signed in 1993 the number of settlers in the West Bank and Gaza has doubled.

To blame the current violence on Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, as Bush has done, defies logic. The PA cannot control every angry Palestinian subject to the daily humiliation of searches, travel restrictions, check points, home-demolitions, and deadly sniper attacks on their neighborhoods and leaders. Nevertheless, this is what the Americans and Israelis demand even while they bomb the offices and infrastructure of the PA whom they call on to maintain order.

It is increasingly clear that Israel will only agree to leave the West Bank and Gaza when the US ends its tacit support of the occupation. Until the US stops protecting Israel by vetoing UN Security Council resolutions and providing no-strings-attached aid, the Israeli government will not have to rethink a poisoned status quo.

Seeds of hope are found in a growing rejection of occupation among some Israelis. Recently 320 Israeli reserve soldiers publicly refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza or support what they called an "illegal occupation." At the same time, a growing numbers of Palestinian activists are exploring new ways to use non-violent direct action to advance their struggle.

Changing US policy means changing minds. To end US support for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, we must make clear to people why that occupation is morally wrong and politically unsustainable. Please help educate your friends, neighbors and elected officials about the situation in the region. The occupation must end.