D R A F T CY M PO LICY ST AT EM ENT O N P AL E ST IN E / I S R AE L Recommended by the Quaker Peace and Sustainable Communities Committee of CFSC (This is also printed in in Documents in Advance for Canadian Yearly Meeting 2009). Text of Recommended Policy Part One: General Principles. 1. As Quakers, we believe strongly in principles of peace, nonviolence and social justice. We oppose the imposition of military force and violence upon human communities, whether by state or non-state actors, and any acts of violence or humiliation that may be committed by a military occupier against communities under its control. 2. We are moved by the sufferings of the Palestinian and Israeli people and affirm our desire for a just peace that ends this suffering. 3. We respect principles of international law, including U.N. General Assembly resolutions, U.N. Security Council resolutions, World Court decisions, and such principles as the self-determination of peoples. 4. As a people of faith, we challenge all people, and particularly all people of faith, not to put their trust in tanks or bombs or military aggression, but to commit themselves to a path of nonviolence which recognizes the dignity of all peoples and which seeks solutions to international conflicts through just and peaceful means. Part Two: A Position on Israel/Palestine. During the 1930's and 40's, when the Jews of Europe were a threatened people, many Quakers, often at personal risk, gave needed support to them. In November of 1947, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution stating that the Jewish people had a right to form a nation-state in fifty-five percent of British Mandate Palestine, and that the Palestinian people also had a right to a state in the remainder of British Mandate Palestine. The state of Israel came into being within six months, but after over sixty years, the Palestinian people are still waiting for some type of self-governing society of their own. During the fighting before and after the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, some 750 000 Palestinians were forced from their homes and compelled to leave their ancestral land, that portion of British Mandate Palestine that became Israel. In the wake of this mass evacuation, some four hundred Palestinian towns and villages in Israel were completely dismantled and erased from the history books. The Palestinian people called this event the Nakba (the catastrophe). Many of these people, forced to leave their homes, settled on the West Bank and in Gaza, under Jordanian and Egyptian occupation respectively. The approximately 150 000 Palestinians who remained within the post-1949 cease-fire lines defining the state of Israel were placed under military rule until 1966, and nearly a third (the so-called present absentees) have been consistently denied permission to return to homes they "temporarily" vacated in the heat of battle. Many of these internally displaced persons, and their descendants, still inhabit "unrecognized" villages and are denied basic government services. More broadly, it can be said that all non-Jewish communities in Israel suffer from low government funding and the ongoing confiscation of land. The plight of the Palestinians and the uncertainty regarding the role of this new state in their midst led to Israel’ s neighbor states and some Palestinian organizations declaring their opposition to its existence, pursuing this policy through armed attacks and the threat of violence. In 1967, the Israeli government and military illegally attacked and occupied Gaza and the remainder of historical Palestine (the West Bank including East Jerusalem). This invasion, and ongoing occupation, was and remains a fundamentally illegal act under international law. The building of Jewish settlements on the illegally occupied land of the Palestinians over the past four decades constitutes an additional illegal act under international law and exposes Israel for what it is, an expansionary imperialist power. Increasingly since 1967 (and, paradoxically, with escalating intensity since the 1993 signing of the Oslo accord) the Palestinian people living on the West Bank and in Gaza have had to endure various acts of physical and psychological violence carried out by the Israeli military and settlers. This violence ranges from the daily humiliations experienced when passing through check points in the course of one's daily activities, to the violence of having Israeli soldiers enter and search one's house with guns drawn, at any time of the day or night, to the
violence of arbitrary land confiscation and house demolition, to the violence of being attacked and injured or killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers, often for no apparent reason at all. We are saddened by the fact that many of the official organizations representing the Jewish community world-wide, tend to take an "Israel can do no wrong" attitude toward the actions of Israel, often promoting the belief that Israel's aggressive and militaristic actions are necessary for the defense of the Jewish people. Throughout our history, Quakers of conscience have grappled with questions around the relationship between religious faith and state power. It has been our experience that, when the official bodies of a faith community become too closely wedded to state power, the centre of prophetic witness in that faith community will tend to shift toward the dissenting currents in that faith community, which challenge the community from the political edge. Quakers were one dissenting current that emerged out of Christianity, rejecting the hollowness of the state church and the marriage of religion and the imperial state. Today, we are heartened by the fact that there are networks of Jews, in Canada and elsewhere, who have the courage to dissent against the actions of Israel. We will work with such dissenting networks of Jews (such as Jewish Voice for Peace, and Independent Jewish Voices) to mobilize, in a spirit of fairness and nonviolence, for a just peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. CYM will continue to have a relationship with the main stream Canadian Jewish community, (through our ecumenical affiliations), but we shall do so recognizing that, on matters involving Israel/Palestine, the centre of prophetic witness has shifted toward the above-mentioned voices of Jewish dissent. We are saddened as well, by the fact that some groups in occupied Palestine choose to use violence in the name of Palestinian freedom. As Quakers, we believe that the strategies of nonviolence are the only ethically sound, and ultimately the more successful, strategies for overcoming oppression. There are grassroots groups, both Palestinian and Israeli, who use nonviolent action to resist the occupation, even though non-violent protests, of which there are many, are often met by Israel with violence, even lethal violence. For several years, we have worked successfully with the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement Between People (PCR), a grass roots Palestinian organization using nonviolent resistance to resist the occupation. We will continue to work with individuals and groups, both Israeli and Palestinian, including PCR, who are committed to such a path of nonviolence. We are alarmed and concerned by the increasing tendency of the Canadian government to follow in step with Washington and Israel on questions regarding Israel/Palestine. We call upon the Canadian government to develop a more independent policy regarding Israel/Palestine, and to work, in good faith, for a long term, just peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. The just peace in the Middle East that we seek would include: a complete Israeli withdrawal from the lands occupied in 1967 (including Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem) the dismantling, or evacuation, of most if not all of the Jewish settlements built on this occupied land, and a commitment by the international community to respect whatever form of governance the Palestinian people choose in a post-occupation era. We recognize that two-state, one-state and confederative multi-state solutions have been proposed as representing the best manifestation of peace with justice, and we respect the right of the Palestinian people to choose whatever solutions they feel best address their needs. There are a number of actions that Canadian Quakers can take in response to the issues around Israel/Palestine. First, we encourage Canadian Quakers to educate themselves about the history and current realities of the Israel/Palestine situation. Second, we encourage Canadian Quakers to support the strengthening of the Palestinian economy by buying products (such as Palestinian olive oil) made by the Palestinian people. Third, we encourage Canadian Quakers to get involved in networks of Quakers and others acting to lobby the Canadian government to adopt a more progressive, peace-oriented policy toward the Middle East, to be more supportive of the Palestinian quest for self-determination and more critical of Israeli aggression. Fourth, those who feel led may also choose to get involved with groups such as Christian Peacemaker Teams and the International Solidarity Movement, and travel to occupied Palestine to bear direct nonviolent witness to the realities of military occupation. While many leaders talk about peace, the annexation of Palestinian land and the oppression of the Palestinian people, continue. We must recognize that the absence of violence and the presence of justice are equal aspects of any meaningful peace. It is up to Canada, and other first world nations, to end our increasingly unquestioning support for Israel and work honestly for such a meaningful peace with justice.