JLC President Appelbaum Signs onto Letter to PM Netanyahu;
Supports Decision to Participate in Kerry Peace Initiative
June 25, 2013: New York, NY - As part of the Jewish Labor Committee's support for the Kerry Peace Initiative to re-start negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, JLC President Stuart Appelbaum signed onto a community letter to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. The letter, a project of the Israel Policy Forum, has received wide media coverage.
See the Al-Monitor's "American Jewry Embraces Netanyahu's Decision on Peace Talks," for instance. The Forward published the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's "140 U.S. Jewish Leaders Sign Letter of Support for Talks"; The Times of Israel had "US Jews lend support to peace talks in new letter"; The Washington Post's On Faith blog published the Religion News Service's "Prominent American Jews embrace Kerry peace talks."
Please see letter below; the letter, including the signatories, is online here and as a PDF here.
l-r: Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, Israeli Justice Minister and chief negotiator Tzipi Livni, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry after the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Tuesday, July 30, 2013, at the State Department in Washington.
Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu:
We write to express our full-fledged support for your resumption of the diplomatic process with the Palestinians. As you have stated repeatedly, "peace can only be achieved through negotiations," and not through international campaigns that seek to isolate or delegitimize the Jewish state.
We recognize that achieving a two-state solution will require a territorial compromise that provides for a Palestinian state without jeopardizing Israel's security. That is why we applaud your understanding that one must be "willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace." It is our hope that President Mahmoud Abbas will be similarly prepared to make the difficult decisions that achieving an agreement will require.
We share your concern that "the creation of a bi-national state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River "¦ would endanger the future of the Jewish state." We further agree with your statement that the resumption of peace talks is "important not only for ending the conflict with the Palestinians, but also significant in light of the Iranian threat and the civil war raging in Syria."
We are grateful for your leadership in embracing the process that Secretary Kerry has initiated, and offer our encouragement for you and the government of Israel as you embark on the challenging and delicate path ahead.
Sincerely,