Recommendations to Northwest Quarterly Meeting

Ad-hoc Israel-Palestine committee of NW Quarter

Recommendation to Northwest Quarterly Meeting February 28, 2014

The ad-hoc Israel-Palestine committee, also known as the “Not Another Minute” committee, as promised in Northwest Quarterly Meeting minute #8, held in Hanover, NH Meeting, is recommending a three way equal split of the $1000 conditional commitment:

  1. Humanitarian AFSC Gaza aid to provide bottled drinking water, $334
  2. Targeted donation to the AFSC Israel and Palestine offices, $333
  3. DivestNow.org for the Boycott Divest Sanction Movement, $333

Our reasons for each:

First — purely humanitarian. People die without drinking water. It is a Simple basic human need, and if not met there is no basis on which to build Peace or Community.  Without clean drinking water there can be no Equality.The need is obvious and immediate. Preservation of a vital coastal aquifer on which so many rely is in keeping with our testimony of Stewardship, and one we cannot ignore with Integrity.

Second — the American Friends Service Committee has been providing aid there since WWII, has Palestinian staff and partners in Gaza and East Jerusalem, has local credibility, and is the most effective and trusted Quaker organization we could find to support. It is an organization that we can trust to put our Quaker testimonies into practice at the grassroots level. It supports a direct Quaker presence on both sides.

Third — political and education attempts to sway American foreign policy have been made unlikely to be effective as the American Israel Political Action Group is the second most powerful, heavily financed and feared group in Congress. As the AFSC site  quotes, “current US efforts support the militarization of the issue”. The AFSC Board was the second to join a now 70 organization coalition started and headed by Jewish Voices for Peace to bring most US main-line faith communities and moral justice seekers together. AFSC has one of five board seats in the group DivestNow.org which is urging boycott, divestment and sanctions as a way of bringing pressure on Israel and maintain the hope of a two state solution. Boycott and divestment have been effective as a means of non-violently bringing about such change in the past.

Our website contains extracts of pages on the AFSC and DivestNow web sites more fully detailing what they advocate. Also links to the major non-violent activist sites on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and to the major Quaker Israel Palestine concerned sites and minutes by monthly and yearly meetings. Information on activities, books, movies by meetings in NWQ as we are educating ourselves.

One Reply to “Recommendations to Northwest Quarterly Meeting”

  1. My memory is that this was passed by NWQ so I’ll look it up. The AFSC web site had and maybe still has several strong letters signed on behalf of the AFSC Board which explained the rationale for boycott, divestment and sanctions and why AFSC was joining the DivestNow group.

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