Over the past five days, Palestinian terrorist groups in Hamas-controlled Gaza have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel. The rocket fire continues today. So far, eight people have been injured and 43 more have been treated for shock. Over one million Israelis - around one-eighth of the Israeli population - have been endangered and forced to repeatedly seek safety in bomb shelters. To this point, over 800 missiles have been fired into Israel this year.
The Palestinian-Arabs will ask the United Nations to upgrade their status there to "non-member state."
ACTION:
Please call the White House to ask that President Obama to formally condemn Hamas and the Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza for firing hundreds of rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians during the past few days. Please also ask that the president goes on record as stating that Israel has the right to protect its citizens, defend the nation and stop the rocket fire against Israeli civilians.
White House switchboard:(202) 456-1414
Please call the Embassies of the European Union nations in Washington, D.C. There are news reports that most or all of the European Union nations will vote in favor of the Palestinian-Arab question on statehood at the United Nations this week.
Accordingly, ask for the ambassador's office and urge that the ambassador seeks his or her nation's vote against statehood for the Palestinians. Ask if the rockets and mortars Palestinians have fired at Israel should be rewarded at the United Nations.
BACKGROUND:
Many Israelis have been injured by shrapnel or treated for shock by endless rocket barrages fired by Palestinian-Arabs which intensified beginning on Friday. More than 200 rockets and mortars have been fired into Israeli at Israeli towns and homes since Friday, November. In addition to the physical injuries, the attacks and air-raid sirens cause deep emotional scars. Homes, businesses and vehicles have been hit by the rocket attacks. Yet there has been no specific condemnation of these attacks or their perpetrators from the White House.
The attacks have intensified even as the Palestinian Authority (PA) gears up for seeking within the United Nations to upgrade their status to a "non-member state." That is one rung below being a full, sovereign state. President Obama reportedly has asked that the PA not go through with their request. PA president Mahmoud Abbas has reportedly rejected President Obama's request.
POINTS YOU MIGHT CARE TO MAKE:
- We are concerned that this heavy barrage of rocket fire on Israel launched by terrorist groups, which are targeting Israeli towns, homes and schools, has been proceeding for several days without response from the U.S., the E.U. or other foreign governments.
- President Obama spoke in 2008 during his visit to Sderot and, more recently, during the second presidential debate, of his concern for Israeli civilians being subjected to rocket fire having to scramble without warning into bomb shelters and how he would take firm measures to protect his daughters if they were living in a home subject to this form of terrorist attack. The absence of any official condemnation is therefore disappointing, puzzling and concerning and such a condemnation should be immediately forthcoming.
- A weak or non-existent official response transmits a message that these attacks are insufficient to warrant presidential concern and will be tolerated
- By having refused negotiations with Israel for virtually all of the past four years and now seeking to obtain statehood without concluding peace with Israel, Mahmoud Abbas' and the PA Authority (PA) are violating the Oslo agreements by seeking again, as last year, to resort to internationalizing the conflict with Israel, rather than seeking a negotiated peace.
- The Oslo agreements stipulate that the parties may not resort to international agencies or seek to alter the political character of the territories outside the negotiating process.
- The designation of the Palestinian Authority as a state by the UN is a material breach of the 1995 Oslo II Agreement which stipulates: "Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of permanent status negotiations."
- The PA is showing contempt for the U.S. and the E.U., which have provided generous taxpayer funded aid, by evading the U.S.-sponsored, Middle East Quartet-approved negotiating process and its requirements.
- The language of the UN resolution is likely to contain phraseology that pre-judges the outcome of negotiations on critical issues like borders and the status of Jerusalem.
- The PA has sought to involve the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the conflict. Defining the Palestinians as a non-member state of the UN could open up the floodgates of a wave of politicized, vexatious charges against the officers of the Israel Defense Forces.
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