June 11, 2008

Dear friend,

We are writing to you on behalf of Jewish Voice for Peace to urge you to follow the path of the peacemakers by following Micah's prophetic call to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. Few places are more deserving of peacemaking than the Holy Land, where neither Israelis nor Palestinians enjoy real peace and security.

We believe that doing justice requires you to take a look at the investment that your church may have in companies that profit from the obstacles to a just peace in Israel and Palestine. Companies such as Caterpillar, that profit from the demolition of Palestinian homes (over 18,000 homes since 1967) and from the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian olive trees (over 450,000 trees in the period between October 2000 and December 2001 alone).

Divesting from these companies is not about divesting from Israel. It is about divesting from war and injustice while pressuring companies to conduct their own businesses ethically. Together with our allies, the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Loretto, Jewish Voice for Peace has been pressuring Caterpillar for over 5 years with shareholder resolutions calling on the corporation to take some responsibility for the destruction caused by its bulldozers. Please join us at www.investinpeace.org.

Doing justice also requires undoing the damage done by replanting some of the trees that have been uprooted, causing major devastation to the Palestinian agricultural infrastructure. Jewish Voice for Peace has started a campaign this year to replant 3,000 olive trees in the West Bank. Please join our Trees of Reconciliation Project.

Finally, we believe that doing justice requires supporting a temporary suspension of military aid Israel until the Israeli government meets the requirements of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits the use of U.S. weapons against civilians or civilian infrastructure.

The U.S. provides Israel with more than 10 million dollars a day in military aid. Israel also used U.S.-provided banned weapons, including cluster bombs, against civilians in Lebanon during the 2006 war there. The remains of these weapons continue to kill children and other civilians.

Jewish Voice for Peace has repeatedly argued that aid to countries in the Middle East must be based on rigorous enforcement of the Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts, which mandate that military aid may be used for only defensive purposes within the recipient country's borders. By law, that aid may not be delivered to countries that abuse human rights.

We believe that loving kindness requires (1) an honest look at the role that anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism play in our society and (2) authentically expressing a true concern for the well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians. Neither people will find peace when they meet as occupier and occupied. We believe that the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem harms both peoples and must end now.

The path of the peacemaker we suggest here is neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Arab. It does not single out either Jews or Arabs, but focuses rather on injustice and human rights violations. Indeed, in Jewish Voice for Peace's book, Reframing Anti-Semitism, now in its fourth printing, we reject the notion that any state—including the State of Israel—is above criticism or nonviolent protest.

We believe that walking humbly with God requires us to walk together as Christians, Jews, and Muslims, holding steadfast to our understandings of justice and kindness, while accepting that individually we hold a small portion of the solution, but collectively we can help bring peace to the Holy Land.

Peace, shalom, salam,

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, JVP Advisory Board
Rachel Pfeffer, JVP Interim Executive Director

PS. Please come and see us at the exhibit hall, booth 129!