After a week of deadly hostilities, with a horrific toll in Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Americans for Peace Now (APN) reiterates its call for an immediate ceasefire.
APN and its many supporters and activists throughout the United States – as well as our friends at Israel's peace movement – are heartbroken as Israelis and Palestinians, Arabs and Jews, bury their loved ones. We send our condolences to the bereaved families on both sides, and wish recovery and health to the many hundreds who have been injured and displaced.
APN's President and CEO Hadar Susskind said: "We urge the Biden administration to demand an immediate ceasefire, an immediate end to the killing. There is no reason for the US government to stand by as bombs and rockets from Israel and Hamas are being exchanged, and not intercede to insist upon a ceasefire. Israelis and Palestinians need a credible third party to use its authority to end the cycle of violence and revenge."
APN thanks the many members of the Senate and the House of Representatives who have joined our call for an immediate stop to the carnage.
Once the violence ends, all stakeholders – Israel, the Palestinians, neighboring Arab states, and the international community – must take measures to prevent a reemergence of hostilities. Inside Israel, Jews and Arabs must work hard to establish trust between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority to provide security, equality, and dignity for all. Special attention must be paid to Jerusalem, and particularly the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, the religious volcanic epicenter of the conflict and its potential to be used to inflame future eruptions of violence.
As an American advocacy organization, APN will continue to focus on urging the US government to leverage its unique, unrivaled role in addressing the conflict.
As we have always done, throughout decades of on-again-off-again Israeli-Palestinian hostilities, we again reiterate that ceasefires and other tactical measures to lower the flames of the conflict are temporary fixes. Effectively addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict calls for a strategy. Such a strategy must include short-term measures to mitigate the destructive impact of the conflict, as well as a longer-term policy aimed at paving a path toward ending Israel's rule over the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, leading to a negotiated peace treaty that provides security and sovereignty to both Israelis and Palestinians.