FW: [IsPalACTIVENetwork] IPMN Statement on Gaza - Distribute Widely
Melinda Thompson
Please share with yours and other Presbyterian churches.
From:
IsPalACTI...@yahoogroups.com [mailto:IsPalACTI...@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Pauline Coffman
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2009 2:58 PM
To: Ispal Active
Subject: [IsPalACTIVENetwork] IPMN Statement on Gaza - Distribute Widely
Please share widely, and urge everyone to contact their elected
officials as soon as possible.
Pauline Coffman, Communications Chair
January 7, 2009
The Israel Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA) condemns
in the harshest
terms possible the Israeli massacre of Palestinians now underway in Gaza. This
long-planned and all too
indiscriminate slaughter of hundreds of civilians, the wounding of thousands,
and the destruction of
homes, hospitals, schools, mosques and economic infrastructure cannot be
justified in the name of
Israeli national security.
The numbers simply do not add up: In the past eight years 20 Israelis have been
killed by Hamas
rockets while in the past three years over 1700 Palestinians in Gaza have been
killed by the Israeli
military, including the 600 men, women and children who have died so far in
this most recent attack.
Hundreds more have died as a result of the Israeli embargo on medicine, food
and fuel. The sheer
disproportion of death and destruction is an affront to the conscience of
humanity. This blatant
collective punishment mocks international law as well as the Geneva
Conventions. It is morally
repugnant to us and the rest of the world.
Despite the usual "blaming" justifications given for this incursion,
there are other truths about Israel?s
actions that need to be told:
1) Israel, not Hamas, broke the truce*, and has long used its own missiles to
assassinate
Palestinian leaders, often with family-destroying ?collateral damage.?
2) The attacks on Gaza coincide with a heated Israeli political campaign in
which the leaders of
the Labor and Kadima Parties must appear to the electorate to be as tough as
the Likud Party
led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
3) The current United States government has become complicit in this tragedy by
supporting
Israel's justifications for its actions and by, alone in the nations of the UN
Security Council,
blocking the international demand for a ceasefire.
4) The timing reflects a desire to limit the restoration of human rights and
international diplomacy
promised by the incoming Obama Administration.
The Israel Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA), in
accordance with the Gospel
of Jesus Christ, stands with the victims of this atrocious massacre. We condemn
violence committed by
both sides, but cannot turn a blind eye to the disproportionate amount of
suffering on the Palestinian
side of this equation. The simple fact is that the firing of the most lethal,
hi-tech weapons on earth into
an embargoed, walled-in Gaza by Israeli forces is tantamount to what is crudely
known as ?shooting
fish in a barrel.?
We call upon the government of the United States of America to support an
immediate cease-fire within
the United Nations and independently. We also call for a multi-national
peacekeeping force to be
installed as soon as possible, which is the standard that has been set anywhere
else in the world
following such a tragic humanitarian disaster. We call upon the Israeli
government to allow UN
peacekeeping forces with humanitarian assistance to enter into Gaza
immediately.
? * ?CNN Finally Confirms Israel Broke Ceasefire First? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4)
? * ?NPR News Monday, January 5, 2009? (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/janjune09/
gaza_01-05.html)
Pauline
Coffman
708-524-5444 (Home)
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