12/09/07
The
Board of Directors of Meretz USA , an American not-for-profit organization
dedicated to the achievement of a full and just peace between Israel and all
its neighbors, and most particularly, the Palestinian people, extends its
warmest congratulation and support to President George Bush, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, the leaders of
Israel and the PLO, and all the participants in the recently held meeting at
Annapolis convened with the objective of launching intensive negotiations
toward the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the creation of a
viable, peaceful Palestinian state.
If
the United States, which has brokered
the Annapolis meeting, works closely with the principals and effectively
enlists the support of Israel’s neighbors and others, we believe that an
agreement can be crafted in a relatively short time.
We
urge the parties to be guided by the principles and spirit of the Geneva
Initiative: borders would approximate the 1967 lines, except where the parties
negotiate territorial exchanges; Palestine shall be a homeland for the
Palestinian people as Israel is a home for the Jewish people and the refugee
problem should be negotiated in that context; borders and sovereignty in
Jerusalem should follow population; control over and access to Jerusalem’s
major religious sites will be determined in keeping with their historic,
religious, spiritual, and cultural significance to Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam; and we support a growing movement in Israel to facilitate the
resettlement of Israelis living in settlements that will lie outside Israel’s
final borders.
We
applaud Prime Minister Olmert for his recent public statements committing
himself and Israel toward detailed and intense
negotiations to end the conflict, and look forward to his immediately
implementing his promise to begin dismantling Israel’s
illegal settlement outposts. We applaud and urge Israel
to continue giving support to its Palestinian partners by such measures as
prisoner releases and strengthening Palestinian security forces. Similarly, we
applaud President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad for working to assert the
primacy of Palestinian Authority forces over militias and terror groups in the West
Bank.
We
believe that, as it has done in the past with other neighbors who refused to
recognize its right to exist, the government of Israel
can find ways of dealing with Hamas to reach a cease-fire on its border with
the Gaza. Not to
do so confers veto power over progress to the most hostile elements in Gaza,
with a potential spill-over into relations with the PLO and the Palestinian
Authority in the West Bank.
Now
that the participants in Annapolis have come and gone,
we urge Secretary of State Rice and President Bush to work diligently with the
parties to honor their commitments, and actively promote the process which they
have initiated in the days, weeks and months ahead. The weight and influence of the United
States as a peace broker in the region, sadly missing for seven
years, must be reconstituted and ardently pursued. It is an essential
ingredient of success, no less than the determination of the two parties, and
we expect and implore our government, having awakened the possibility of peace,
to be unstinting in its realization, both now and henceforth.
