Rabbis Call for Gaza Cease-Fire and International Pressure for a Just and Lasting Solution
Rabbis and other religious, cultural and community leaders, heading an interfaith list of 2800 people, will call for an
immediate Cease-Fire in Gaza and an international conference to provide international pressure to facilitate a lasting
and just settlement for all parties, in the New York Times, Wednesday, January 14, 2009.
"We have had to buy space in the New York Times to make this call because the major national newspapers will not give
room for this perspective," says Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor of Tikkun magazine, who convened the group. He is joined
by Sister Joan Chittister, and Professor Cornel West, Co-chairs with Lerner of the Network of Spiritual Progressives
(NSP), and over 2,800 others, including Rabbi Brian Walt (North American Chair of Rabbis for Human Rights), Rabbi Arthur
Waskow (chair of the Shalom Center), Rabbi David Shneyer (past president of the Rabbinic organization Ohalah), Rabbi
Mordecai Leibling and other rabbis, writers such as Ariel Dorfman, Annie Lamott, Deepak Chopra and Fritjof Capra, movie
director Jonathan Demme, Richard Falk (the UN representative on Human Rights in Palestine), Christian ministers,
academics and activists.
"The essential difference between our point of view, which is widespread but underreported, and the opinions being
presented in the mainstream media," said Rabbi Lerner, "is that we believe it is unrealistic to expect violent and
hardline tactics, however well justified by the other side's violence, to build the psychological grounds for peace.
Each side has to learn empathy for the wounds suffered by the other side, and has to practice generosity in promoting
peace, the basic conditions for which are already known and are laid out in our statement. We are appealing to
president-elect Obama to lead the international community in applying significant pressure to both sides to accept a
mutually generous approach, whether each side feels that generosity yet or not. We spell out the terms of a lasting
settlement in the New York Times ad. Given the political clout of the Israel Lobby in the US., as manifested in the
one-sided coverage that has made invisible Jewish opposition in Israel and the U.S. to Israel's war in Gaza, it is
unlikely that President Obama would be able to muster significant pressure on Israel to accept a settlement that would
be just to the Palestinian people (and hence would last). For that reason, we are urging him to convene an International
Conference in which other countries could play an important role in pushing both sides to make significant compromises
for peace."
ENDS