[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 15]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 22709]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFIRMATION

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JOHN LEWIS

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 11, 2000

  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Congressional 
Record the attached statement by the American Jewish Committee, which 
appeared in The New York Times on October 10, 2000.

                   Assuming Responsibility for Peace

       After the dead have been buried, the sirens silenced, and 
     the rubble swept from streets where rioters rampaged, what 
     lessons will have been learned from these recent days of 
     bloody confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis?
       Two are essential: When mobs are incited to violence by 
     Palestinian media and political and religious leaders, chaos 
     ensues. And when Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation 
     breaks down because Palestinian police and militiamen join in 
     the mayhem and turn their guns on Israelis, the level of 
     conflict crosses a terrible threshold, and the toll of 
     suffering soars.
       We grieve for the victims of the senseless violence that 
     has erupted in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. We pray for 
     the safe return of the Israeli soldiers kidnapped by 
     Hezbollah marauders who stole across the international border 
     from Lebanon.
       We reel from the desecration and of destruction of Joseph's 
     Tomb, a holy place, on the Sabbath, by a Palestinian mob and 
     the murder of a pious Jew trying to save sacred Torah 
     scrolls.
       We yearn for the peace that will end for both peoples this 
     cycle of needless pain.
       With Israel and the Palestinian tantalizingly close to 
     agreement in talks aimed at resolving their bitter conflict, 
     these days of violence fomented by the Palestinians needn't 
     have happened.
       Innocent blood needn't have been spilled.
       It wouldn't have--if Palestinian political and religious 
     leaders had not deliberately overblown a visit by an Israel 
     politician to Jersusalem's Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest 
     site, and launched a furious campaign of attacks on Israeli 
     civilians and soldiers.
       It wouldn't have--if a sermon during Friday prayers at Al-
     Aqsa mosque hadn't called on the Muslim faithful to 
     ``eradicate the Jews from Palestine'' provoking assaults on 
     Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall and eliciting a 
     defensive response by Israel.
       It wouldn't have--if the Palestinian Authority hadn't 
     emptied its schools, where Israelis' status as the enemy is 
     continually taught, so that children could be bused directly 
     to confrontations with Israeli forces and into harm's way.
       It wouldn't have--if Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat's 
     Fatah lieutenants in Gaza and the West Bank hadn't ordered 
     waves of armed strikes by paramilitary forces against Israeli 
     targets.
       It wouldn't have--if Palestinian Authority radio and 
     television hadn't bombarded the airwaves day after day with 
     calls to rise up against Israel.
       Finally, the conflict that engulfed Israelis and 
     Palestinians wouldn't have happened if Chairman Arafat had 
     assumed that responsibility of leadership and acted to calm 
     rather than inflame his people.
       In the end, there can be no other path for Israel and 
     Palestinians than the path of negotiated peace, based on 
     compromise and the need to bring their conflict to an end.
       Acceptable alternatives simply do not exist. For the 
     Palestinians and for Arab leadership across the Middle East, 
     there is no choice but to grasp the long-outstretched hand of 
     Israel, and assuming responsibility for peace.