Minute on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

adopted by

Baltimore Yearly Meeting

of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

July 31, 2004 at Harrisonburg, Virginia

1. As Quakers (members of the Religious Society of Friends), we have had a long association with and concern for Palestine and a peaceful and just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Following the exodus of Palestinian refugees from what became Israel, the United Nations asked the American Friends Service Committee to provide shelter, food, and medical care for the refugees in Gaza. AFSC continues to seek ways of promoting a peaceful and just resolution of the Palestinian conflict. In Ramallah, West Bank, Friends School, under the care of Friends United Meeting, provides quality education and respect for Quaker principles of non-violence. Our Yearly Meeting supports a small Quaker meeting in Ramallah, which promotes a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

2. As Quakers, we do not believe peace is achieved through war and military occupation. We are thus dismayed that the United Sates continues to provide billions of dollars each year to Israel for military armaments. These arms, in significant part, are used to maintain military occupation of the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza. The structural violence of occupation includes continued encroachment of Jewish settlements in contravention of the Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War, erection of the wall in the West Bank separating villages from farms and dividing communities, collective forms of punishment as exemplified in check points, curfews and roadblocks seriously retarding or halting communication, education, commerce and health care within and between Palestinian communities, destruction of homes and olive groves, and targeted assassinations resulting in death and injury of innocent civilians.

3. All of these actions have taken a terrible toll on Palestinians such that, according to a recent World Bank report, more than half of Palestinians live below the poverty line. The United States Agency for International Development has reported a serious case of malnutrition of Palestinian children because of the occupation.

4. Ending the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem would be more effective in providing security to Israel than all the checkpoints and walls combined. We are appalled at the recent adoption by the House of Representatives of H.Res. 713, which deplored the recent advisory Opinion issued by the International Court of Justice ruling that the wall being erected in the West Bank is in violation of international law. The House resolution underestimates the disastrous effects of the wall on the lives of the Palestinian people. We also deplore Senate Resolution 408, which condemns the ICJ decision, and hope the Senate will not adopt this resolution.

5. As Quakers, we reject violence of any kind, by state or non-state actors. We do not condone violent resistance to the occupation by Palestinians. That some young Palestinians are willing to sacrifice lives as suicide bombers represents the ultimate in desperation and despair.

6. We are aware that many of the current Israeli practices are influenced in part by the fear for their own survival caused by repeated acts of violence committed against Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza. It is in the nature of acts of violence, even in the pursuit of justice, that they result in still more injustice. We urge those struggling for justice to adhere to the principles of nonviolence in that struggle.

7. Israel's maltreatment of the Palestinians, with massive aid from the United states, fuels the fire of Muslim resentment, which leads some to acts of terror against the United States.

8. The Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends urge Congress to condition any further assistance to Israel on Israel's ending its occupation of lands belonging to Palestinians. We call on Congress to support Israeli and Palestinian efforts to bring about a just settlement to the conflict. We also urge Congress to increase the U.S. contribution to UNRWA, given the desperate needs of the Palestinian people.