Jewish Voice for Peace Statement on Ariel Sharon

Contact: Mitchell Plitnick  (510) 465-1777 (office)
                                        (510) 484-6472 (cell)

Thursday January 5, 2006 (Oakland, CA) - American peace group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) extended its best wishes today for Ariel Sharon’s recovery from a massive stroke, while also voicing its hope that the next leader of Israel will be able to do more for the cause of Middle East peace.

“It will be crucial in the days ahead to keep Ariel Sharon’s true legacy in mind,” said Mitchell Plitnick, co-Director of JVP. “While we appreciate that he is the first Israeli Prime Minister to actually move large settlements out of the Gaza Strip, he is also the one man most responsible for the massive proliferation of settlements in the Occupied Territories. Simply removing about two dozen out of well over 200 settlements doesn’t change that. Moreover, the unilateral way in which Sharon went about the withdrawal undermined the efforts of the Palestinian Authority to convince people that a negotiated settlement was possible.

“In the end, the greatest impact Sharon had in his years in Israeli politics was the Lebanon War. That war led to a useless and bloody 18-year occupation of South Lebanon marked by the infamous massacres at Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, an atrocity for which the Israeli Kahan Commission found Sharon indirectly responsible. Sharon was the man whose needless and provocative visit to the Temple Mount in September, 2000 helped spark the powder keg of the second intifada. In the last analysis of his years as Prime Minister, a just and peaceful resolution of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is much farther away as he leaves office than it was when he came in.

“Ariel Sharon has not been a man of peace,” Plitnick concluded. “I wish him a full and speedy recovery, but I also hope that the next leader of Israel can recognize the real and just needs of the Palestinians and is willing to work with them for a better future.”
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Jewish Voice for Peace is a national grassroots organization dedicated to promoting a US foreign policy in the Middle East based on democracy, human rights and respect for international law. JVP is a voice for the silent majority of American Jews who polls consistently show support a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. For information about the conflict and expert sources go to www.JewishVoiceforPeace.org.