Urgent appeal to stop Israel’s invasion of Gaza!

Following are excerpts from a Dec. 30 online appeal issued by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, co-founder of the International Action Center and recipient of the 2008 U.N. Human Rights Award. The appeal and petition have led to more than 500,000 messages being sent to President George W. Bush, President-elect Barack Obama, members of the U.S. Congress and Senate, U.N. officials and missions, Israeli offices and many media representatives. To read the entire appeal and send a message against Israel’s war on Gaza, go to www.iacenter.org/gazapetition/.

For 60 years, Israel has persecuted the Palestinian people with impunity in defiance of United Nations General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, orders of the International Court of Justice, international law and fundamental human rights.

Now in the waning days of the disastrous Bush administration, the government of Israel with its Prime Minister under criminal indictment, is testing whether world opinion will permit it to escalate its isolation and impoverishment of Palestine and selective and systematic assassination of Palestinian leadership in Gaza to a genocidal, indiscriminate assault and invasion of Palestinian Gaza, knowing full well its acts will inflame passions throughout the Middle East and Arab and Muslim worlds.

Beyond crushing Gaza’s capacity to resist and imposing its final solution on Palestinians, Israel is seeking confrontation that will lead to war with the U.S., the European Union, and NATO fighting for Israel against Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan to impair their ability to prevent expansion of Israel’s domination of the region while the “only one President at a time” the U.S. has, George W. Bush, will support Israel, finding all fault with Gaza.

In these dangerous and difficult days and hours the undersigned ... demand an immediate ceasefire throughout Israel and Palestine and the assurance of peace. All borders to Gaza, Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea must be opened for humanitarian relief and a complete arms and trade embargo [placed] on Israel until it fully complies with all the requirements of permanent peace.

We call upon all the people, the ultimate power in every nation when organized and energized, to take to the streets where they live and demand that their governments do all in their power to cause Israel to stop its war of aggression against Palestine and ... for Israel, the U.S. and other nations who have provided material support for Israel’s aggression to be held accountable for the deaths, injuries and damage Israel has inflicted.