To: pm@pm.gc.ca
From: Lisa Price <lisaprice@uniserve.com
Subject: Israel/Palestine
Cc: graham.b@parl.gc.ca
Dear Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs:
I listen with increasing concern to the news coming out of Israel/Palestine. This morning I learned that the Israeli Border Police are holding hundreds of American and European peace activists at Ben Gurien Airport and threatening to expel them, in spite of the activists having valid visas. Even more worrisome, the Israeli military has banned all media, domestic and foreign, from Ramallah. These two decisions suggest that an escalation of military activity against Chairman Arafat is imminent. They also suggest that the Israeli military does not want its actions witnessed.
Any attack on Chairman Arafat and/or his Fatah movement will only increase the attractiveness of the radical Islamist groups which are responsible for the suicide bombings. The victims of those bombings are to be mourned. Mourning, however, should not take the form of revenge. Rather, their deaths should be a stimulus toward finding a lasting just solution to a problem that has now reached crisis proportions.
I urge you to use Canada's influence at the United Nations
and, more particularly, at the UN Human Rights Commission, to put pressure
on the
Israeli government to draw back its military and return
in good faith to the negotiating table. It is a truism that there can be
no peace without justice. That applies to both Palestinians and Israelis.
Please use your personal influence and Canada's world standing to draw
both parties back from the brink.
Yours truly,
Dr. Lisa S. Price