40 Years of Occupation - MPAC Releases 'Envisioning Peace: The MPAC Perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'
June 08, 2007
This week marks the 40th anniversary of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories. On this occasion, the Muslim Public Affairs Council presents its special report entitled "Envisioning Peace: The MPAC Perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" as a recognition both of ongoing injustice and the urgent need to forge peace even in the face of tremendous obstacles and difficulties present on all sides.
Click here to download "Envisioning Peace" as a pdf document.
MPAC believes that only dialogue and diplomacy can lead the creation of an effective strategy to end this conflict, which has taken too many lives and has destabilized an entire region of global significance. More directly, MPAC believes in the importance of American religious communities -- including Muslims, Jews, Christians and other people of faith -- coming together to contribute to establishing peaceful and productive relationships rather than allow themselves to be held hostage by events in the Middle East.
Without really understanding "the other's" culture and history, both the Muslim American and Jewish American communities will continue to use their worst fears to judge one another and gain no insight, which will inevitably lead to more damage. Through its position paper, MPAC offers an alternative approach to dialogue that is honest, open and cognizant of the complexities of the situation.
From the perspective of the Muslim American community, composed largely of diasporas from around the world, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is perhaps most fruitfully understood as a strenuous struggle between the national aspirations of two peoples particularly over land, the same land, Palestine.
In "Envisioning Peace", MPAC calls for a two-state solution where each state is truly and fully sovereign on an equal basis. At MPAC's core is an Islamic sensibility that human beings should conduct their lives in accordance with a higher ethical and moral wisdom designed to afford maximum dignity and justice to human life.
Hence, MPAC calls on all stakeholders to take three steps: humanize, communicate and condemn justly. All parties must continue to educate themselves about "the other", their history and their motivations. In addition to humanizing, those involved must have the right to speak in an environment that is respectful and free of intimidation, allowing legislators and the American public to hear all sides in order to weigh the merits of all arguments. Finally, it is imperative that private citizens, media professionals, policy-makers and community-based organizations condemn the loss of all innocent life and the destruction of all infrastructure, whether it be Palestinian, Israeli or otherwise.
Since the inception of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories on the heels of the Six Day War in June 1967, scores of U.N. resolutions and calls by the international community for an end to the most crucial aspects of the occupation -- notably the relentless expansion of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories -- remain unheeded.
And it is that occupation, now as then, that stands at the heart of the conflict between two peoples engaged in a vicious and utterly unequal struggle over territory. It has taken a terrible toll on all those involved in the conflict. Today, there is a generation of Palestinians who have known nothing but occupation and a generation of Israelis who have experienced only dominance over the Palestinians.
In the occupied West Bank - a relatively small territory of less than 4,000 square miles - almost half of the land has been appropriated by Israel. According to Amnesty International:
- Some 550 Israeli military checkpoints and blockades ensure that Palestinians have no opportunity to move about freely.
- Palestinians are barred from using more than 100 miles of roads reserved for Israeli use.
- Palestinians must also obtain special permits from the Israeli army to move between different parts of the West Bank.
- The latest addition to this complex regime of restrictions is the 340+ mile wall which Israel is currently erecting, mostly (80 per cent) inside the West Bank. It encircles towns and villages, cutting off tens of thousands of Palestinians from their land and jobs as well as from education and health facilities and other crucial services.
The international community views U.S. policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a barometer of U.S. policy towards the Muslim world. U.S. foreign aid has resulted in more oppression of the Palestinian people, and the latest chapter of financial suffocation through U.S.-led sanctions against the Palestinian exacerbates the suffering tremendously.
Founded in 1988, the Muslim Public Affairs Council is an American institution which informs and shapes public opinion and policy by serving as a trusted resource to decision makers in government, media and policy institutions. MPAC is also committed to developing leaders with the purpose of enhancing the political and civic participation of Muslim Americans.
