Wishes for 2009: No artillery fire, no military attack

I am still backlogged in travel and work -- wish you all the best for 2009 and hope you had great Christmas Celebrations. In the meantime, I cannot do better than to lend the space to a Gush-Shalom press release.

Peace,

Elrig

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The Coalition against the Siege on Gaza

Demonstration

No to a military attack on Gaza!

War is not an elections spin!

Friday Dec. 26^th, at 14.00, in the corner of Ben-Zion Ave. and King George St., Tel-Aviv

In the demonstration we will call for:

· Stop immediately siege on Gaza! Set no conditions for ending the inhuman suffering of innocents!

· Negotiations with Hamas and renew of the truce!

· Stop the military offensive and propose a political solution for ending the occupation!

· Learn from the Second Lebanon War! A military assault will not stop the missiles! Only an agreement can bring calm!

It is Israel which broke the truce – already a month and a half ago, in early November, the State of Israel broke the truce in a series of military attacks on Gaza, which caused the death of six Palestinians. In this way, the government of Israel, with its own hands, brought a rain of Qassam missiles upon the heads of the inhabitants of Sderot and the other Gaza Border communities. Afterwards, every time that the situation started calming down, more Palestinians were killed by the army, their killing provoking new salvos of missiles. Now, the government is using the breaking of the truce as the pretext to launch a new military offensive. An offensive which would cost the lives of civilians, and would not achieve any of its declared aims – certainly not the aim of bringing calm to the inhabitants of the border area.

It is Israel which is responsible for the poverty and despair, entailed by the siege on Gaza – already for months the million and half inhabitants of Gaza live under an Israeli siege, with stoppages of water and electricity and a severe lack of vital goods. The Hamas government is already for weeks stating that it would be possible to restore the truce, should Israel agree to open the passages and allow the entry of goods, products, gasoline and people into the Strip. The government chooses consciously to ignore the Hamas declarations and cynically chooses, for electoral purposes, the path of war.

Contact: Adi Dagan (Coalition of Women for Peace) 050-8575730

Adam Keller (Gush Shalom) 0506-709603