WESPAC FOUNDATION STATEMENT
We in the peace and justice community are shattered by the ongoing death and destruction in Israel and Palestine. We are in grief over the loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives in the past few days, months and years and are fearful about the toll escalating violence will bring in the near future. The horrific acts of violence committed by Hamas inside Israel are crimes against humanity under international law and under anyone’s moral compass. The indiscriminate and deliberate bombing of civilians, the cutoff of food, water, electricity and medical supplies to 2,000,000 people trapped in Gaza, and the threat to annihilate 1,000,000 people if they do not flee now being committed by Israel are crimes against humanity under international law and under anyone’s moral compass .
We have great concern for the lives and safety of Israeli and Palestinian civilians where they live and for prisoners and hostages. We are deeply concerned about the threats of violence, massive retaliation and bombing of civilians in Gaza, and we are shocked at right-wing calls for revenge and incitements to violence in Israel’s mixed Arab-Jewish cities and in the Occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. The attack from Gaza has a context. It follows months and years and decades of constant violence, pogroms, expulsions and other manifestations of apartheid inflicted on Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
We do not condone attacks on civilians or violence of any kind. We do recognize its root causes in oppression, injustice and apartheid. We support without reservation all nonviolent resistance to apartheid and we refuse to be labeled as anti-Semitic for opposing Israel’s apartheid policies of supremacy and separation. The only solution, as it has always been, is to bring an end of apartheid, occupation, and siege, and promote a future based on justice, equality and human dignity for all. We call for a change from unconditional US support for Israel to equitable support for both Palestinians and Israelis in their struggle for peace with justice.
