FOSNA on Gaza Tragedy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 31, 2008

Contact:
The Rev. Canon Richard Toll
Chairman
Friends of Sabeel-North America
PO Box 9186, Portland, Oregon97207
Fosna.org ; friends@fosna.org
(503) 653-6625

Friends of Sabeel-North America joins international cry for end to Israeli attacks on Gaza

Friends of Sabeel-North America calls on Christian leaders in the U.S to speak out in a strong, concerted voice to condemn Israel's excessive violence against the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza. President George Bush, president-elect Barack Obama and his transition team, and all members of Congress, need to hear from church leaders urging immediate and decisive political action to end Israel's attacks. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sabeel's international patron, said in a statement on Sunday that "the attacks would not bring Israel security or peace", adding, "It is a blight not only on the Middle East, but on the entire world - and particularly world leaders who have consistently failed the people of Palestine and Israel over the past 60 years."

Sabeel in Jerusalem and its Friends in the U.S. promote nonviolent solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recognize the great disparity of power and Israel's misuse of its massive military power against a people long oppressed by its illegal military occupation. With the world's fourth most powerful military, Israel is guilty of excessive violence that far exceeds that of the occupied Palestinian people.

Sabeel's peace partners in Israel also condemn their government's violence. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, for example, stated: "Let's be crystal clear. Israel's massive attacks on Gaza today have one overarching goal: conflict management. How to end rocket attacks on Israel from a besieged and starving Gaza without ending the impetus for those attacks, 41 years of increasingly oppressive Israeli Occupation without a hint that a sovereign and viable Palestinian state will ever emerge."

Sabeel asks Christian leaders to stand for the poor and oppressed and to speak and act on their behalf. Leaders should demand that: Israel immediately end the bombing of Gaza, as well as its 15-month long blockade of food, fuel, electricity and medicines into Gaza, and its collective punishment of 1.5 million Gazan men, women and children. In addition, Hamas should immediately end rocket fire into Israel.