Not In My Name, a Chicago-based organization of Jews who oppose the continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, condemns the attack on a bus carrying men, women, and children between Bnei Brak and the Settlement of Immanuel.  Tuesday's attack by Palestinians fighters represents a contemptible violation of human decency.

The fact that these setters are among the 400,000 Israeli citizens who have been transferred onto land stolen from Palestinians over the last 35 years of occupation is not sufficient reason to sentence them to death.  The fact that these settlers are religious zealots, living in Immanuel for ideological reasons, rather than for the economic incentives offered to the vast majority of other settlers, does not give anyone the moral right to murder them and their children.

Neither does the brutality with which the Israeli government violates international laws and conventions—policies of military occupation and the intentional destruction of Palestinian civil, political, and economic society—permit the targeting of civilians.

As we grieve for the deaths and suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians, we recognize that a deadly situation prevails.  We understand that the strategies that target innocent civilians, which are being employed by both sides, are criminal, immoral, and guaranteed to lead to nothing but more of the same.

It is obvious that Israel's policy of brute force, which has brought millions of Palestinians to the brink of starvation on West Bank, does not provide a solution.  Instead, as proven by the hideous dual suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, it only produces greater hatred, from which more deadly attacks will inevitable spring.  This will only postpone the day when the Israelis and Palestinian people can sit down to discuss how they can live together in peace.

We call on the US government to immediately suspend its military aid to Israel until Israel removes its settlers and military presence from the land it has occupied since 1967.  This aid—funded by our tax dollars—works directly against the cause of peace in the region.  Without US military aid, Israel would be forced to seek peaceful alternatives.

The United States should no longer be party to the bankrupt Israeli policy that uses massive military force to occupy and imprison an entire population while, at the same time, it destroys all avenues of political settlement.

Not In My Name will hold its weekly vigil this Sunday, July 21, 2002, at the Water Tower Pumping Station (Pearson and Michigan) between Noon and 1:00pm.  With the conviction that ending Israel's occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem is the key to preventing the mutual destruction of Palestinian and Israeli societies, we welcome all people of good will to join us to speak out against this occupation and to demand that the US suspend its military aid to Israel until the occupation ends.