PAB Statement on the Israeli Attack on Gaza
 
On December 27, 2008, US-supplied F-16 war planes and Apache helicopters waged an indiscriminate and systematic bombing of the besieged Gaza Strip killing and injuring over 1,300 Palestinians including children, women and elderly, and injuring more than 5,500, most of them civilians.

Defying the international community well, defying the international law, and stepping over the fourth Geneva Convention declaration of human rights, Israel has publicly and shamelessly announced the continuation of its war crimes against the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian American Bridge organization strongly condemns this new Israeli barbaric massacre against our people in the Gaza Strip, and condemns the use of the Palestinian blood as a winning ticket in the upcoming Israeli election.

We also criticize the U.S. administration for its full support to the Israeli military killing machine, and criticize some of Arab regimes who played a role in anyway in the Israeli attack on Gaza.

As also strongly condemn targeting any civilians anywhere, and believe that bloodshed breads nothing but more of the same.

Hence, we believe that the best way to end violence is by ending all provocative actions that cause it, and let’s not forget that the Israeli military occupation is on top of that list.

We call for an immediate Special Meeting of the Security Council to stop the Israeli aggression and any future attacks against the Palestinian people, and to immediately end the siege on the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

We demand that the Palestinian National Authority immediately stop any security cooperation with Israel and to boycott all meetings with Israeli officials.

At the same time, we ask all Palestinian factions to immediately begin the reconciliation talks to be able to face this Israeli aggression as a United People.

We also call on the Unites States, the European Union, the Quartet, the Security Council and president elect Obama to immediately intervene to:

• Immediately stop the Israeli massacres in the Gaza Strip, and left the siege on Gaza
• Stop the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Palestine
• Apply the needed pressure on Israel to abide by all international laws
• Release the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners illegally and inhumanly held by Israel
• Stop building and/or expanding Israeli settlements on Palestinian land
• Permanently remove all Israeli military check points throughout occupied Palestine
• Tear down the Israeli Apartheid Wall erected on Palestinian land
• Withdraw from the land Israel occupied by force in 1967

We further call on the U.S. administration to stop its repeated unconditional support to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. It is time for the U.S. administration to play the expected honest broker role instead of being biased in favor of Israel.