Northampton Friends Meeting

Minute on the Middle East Conflict

In Israel/Palestine there are two peoples, both deeply wounded, both fearful, both resentful, both in need of protection. The causes of this situation are many and complex, and decades of trying to place blame have led to no resolution. Blaming can lead to no resolution.

Both peoples need the essentials of a homeland including: clearly defined borders without vulnerable salients and isolated enclaves, free access for travel, equitable access to potable water and other resources, freedom from the fear of invasion and terrorist attack, access to their holy sites. Since both have been displaced from their homelands at different times in the past, both feel a need for those who have fled to have a right to return home, or at least to be compensated for property that has been taken from them. Further, both need to feel that their story is heard by the world and, ideally, by each other. In the midst of battle, both seek to deny these to the other, not perceiving that it is then impossible to find them for themselves.

The rest of the world has a responsibility, all the greater for having participated in the creation of the present circumstances, to create an environment in which these embattled peoples can find a resolution. Supplying arms to either is unhelpful. Economic aid that is used to fuel the conflict is unhelpful.� Diplomacy directed to any other end than meeting the essentials of a homeland for both is unhelpful.

We call upon our government first and foremost to consider what a just peace would mean and use all the influence it has, both diplomatic and economic, to move all concerned in that direction as rapidly as possible. That would certainly include no longer supplying arms to the region. It would include vigorously pursuing the insistence, already stated by President Bush, that both Israel and Palestine are entitled to autonomous statehood with equitable access to the essentials of statehood including those described above. Our part in negotiations should be to continually ask what needs of either party are not yet met, and how to equitably meet them. Much of the burden of that should be borne by other members of the international community that are less tainted by past partisanship, and we should facilitate their participation. We ask that aid be directed to the needs of people rather than of governments, and include compensation for lost property, lost lives, and most importantly, the resources to build new lives.

We call upon the International Community to adhere to the same principles, and to find ways of insuring the safety of both states while confidence builds between them. This needs to be done in a way that de-emphasizes the role of armaments and continually over time decreases the need for weapons. We ask all to consider that war, even �war on terrorism� only leads to more war and more terrorism.

Prayerfully approved June 16, 2002