Houstonians
for Peace & Justice in the Holy Land
P.O.Box 740943, Houston, Texas 77274
www.PalestineAffairsCouncil.org
(713) 762-2228
PRESS RELEASE
April 3, 2002
STOP ISRAELI VICTIMIZATION
OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
The Arab League Summit that was held in Beirut on March 28 endorsed the Saudi
peace plan, which the White House accepted, as did the Palestinian leadership.
Sharon’s offensive comes in the wake of this unanimous resolution.
It is only the Israeli Foreign Ministry who called the Arab peace plan
“unacceptable”.
The
Israeli government immediately launched massive attacks using the Passover
Massacre as a pretext for a preplanned assault that Lee Hockstader wrote about
several days prior in the Washington Post.
The assault was previously planned and is now being conducted against
Palestinian civilians in various cities, including Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin
and Tulkarem.
The massive assault is currently besieging the Ramallah compound of the duly
elected Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat.
The
Israeli soldiers are indiscriminately executing Palestinians.
Israeli snipers are wounding and/or killing civilians and journalists. The Israeli government forces are demolishing homes,
rendering homeless entire families. They
are uprooting olive trees, a source of income and life
for the majority of Palestinians.
The
Israeli soldiers are invading hospitals and schools, shooting at ambulances and
doctors, and preventing ambulances from reaching their destinations while
wounded women and children bleed to death in the streets and at Israeli
checkpoints.
Since the beginning of the Uprising (Intifada), more than 37,000 Palestinian
men, women and children have been killed or wounded by the Israeli soldiers.
Israeli sources are underreporting the Palestinian deaths and covering up
the murders of Palestinians as happened in Bosnia by the Serbian, Milosevic.
This dangerous
situation requires immediate and firm intervention to rein in the Israeli
soldiers, and their lawless government in order to suppress their violent
behavior.
International protection from Israeli oppression is required immediately.
Israel’s aggressive and illegal military occupation of 35 years; their
refusal to withdraw from lands they acquired by force and the ongoing
victimization of the Palestinian people is making the peace process more
difficult.
Israeli brutality and repression has destroyed all forms of normalcy within the
family structure and basic Palestinian social fabric.
For years, the United Nations has held the formula for peace, SCR 194,
242, 338, 1397 and recently 1402, but were never implemented by any Israeli
government. It serves as the alternative to regional conflict and is the
source of long desired regional stability.
We call on the
international community, especially President Bush, to use all means necessary
to halt Israel's terrorism and criminal acts against the Palestinian people and
to stop military aid that enables Israel to use terror and US made weapons to
massacre Palestinians. We call on
them to stop providing support to a country that is occupying a whole nation by
force.
MILITARY OCCUPATION IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF TERRORISM.
Palestine Affairs Council