September 2004 Postcard

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DEAR REPRESENTATIVE:

Please do not vote for HCR 371, endorsing the illegal wall Israel is building on Palestinian land. I was dismayed by your vote for HCR 460—praising George Bush’s capitulation to Ariel Sharon on Israel’s illegal settlements in Palestine.

The concrete wall, the barbed-wire and the deep trenches keeping people from their fields, markets, neighbors and schools are in Palestine—not Israel. This is land which the U.N. repeatedly has told Israel to return.

Imagine working on Capitol Hill and having to beg soldiers from another country for permission to cross into Virginia or Maryland to go home, to the airport or to the hospital.

In the name of decency, please do not support HCR 371. Instead, co-sponsor HCR 111, calling for an investigation into Israel’s brutal killing of American citizen Rachel Corrie.

Israel built this 25-foot-high concrete wall through the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Dis. The residents of this and many other Palestinian towns now live in virtual prisons.

On July 1 Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that the government must redraw portions of the wall’s route. On July 9 the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled on the wall’s legality. According to U.N. resolutions, Israel’s presence in the occupied territories is illegal. It is building the wall not on its own land, but outside its borders.

The wall threatens the emergence of a Palestinian state, thwarts diplomatic initiatives and creates human rights violations.

As the graffiti says, “Peace comes by agreement not separation.” As my representative I ask you to condemn this monstrosity. Instead, say to Israel’s prime minister:

Mr. Sharon: Tear down this wall!