First three Jewish young people kidnapped and slain, then an Arab youth burned alive in revenge.

In the wake of the breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the decades-old spiral of violence has begun once more.

Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Arab families of the murdered youth have both called for an end to this cycle of violence and revenge. One is reminded of Mahatma Gandhi’s statement: “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” These bereaved families have seen the light through their tears.

Inflammatory, irresponsible “revenge” statements and racist incitements by right-wing Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economics Minister Naftali Bennett, not just in the current crisis but year after year, have exacerbated the crisis. And their actions are far worse than their statements. Based on shaky evidence that the murderers of the three Israeli youths had some connection to Hamas, the Israeli authorities reacted with a violent assault on the people of the West Bank, and now a ferocious bombardment of Gaza, in which to date more than 170 people have been killed, including families and small children. Such collective punishment of civilians is a violation of international law. Many have pointed out that revenge as a motive for military action also violates international law, but these calls have gone unheeded.

At the bottom of the current violence is the breakdown of the peace talks which were being facilitated by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. This failure has to be laid at the doors of Netanyahu and his right-wing government and their continued attempts to undermine the Palestinian reconciliation process so crucial to a negotiated resolution to the crisis. For many years, a widely accepted, viable approach to peace, which would guarantee Israeli security and give Palestinians their long-aspired-to statehood, has been languishing while Israel continues to build settlements on land that would be essential to a viable Palestinian state. The PLO leadership has signed on to this approach, and the Hamas leadership in Gaza has not been working actively, in recent years, to undermine it. A significant step forward was the recent formation of a Palestinian unity government. Yet all this has been sabotaged by the settlement building, and now by the Israeli government’s attempt to use the murder of the three Israeli youths to try to destroy Palestinian unity efforts and bomb Palestinians into submission.

The intransigent stance of the right-wing Israeli leadership is not in the interests of either the Palestinian, the Israeli, or the American people. The Israeli people want security and the Palestinian people want a resolution of their aspirations to statehood and an end to the occupation. Americans want an end to the festering Israeli-Palestinian strife that fuels terrorism worldwide, and have better uses here at home for the billions the U.S. is spending on militarism and oppression there. But none of these things can be achieved unless there is peace, which can only be got through serious negotiations for a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is important to note that the Netanyahu government is able act as it does because it counts on unconditional material support from the United States. So our tax money is used not to promote peace, but to enable a perpetual stalemate with frequent outbursts of horrible violence.

We call upon the Obama administration to increase pressure on the Israeli regime to stop its moves to build and expand settlements and its continued abuses of the rights of the Palestinian people.

The Communist Party USA condemns the murders of the Israeli and Palestinian youths, and calls for the perpetrators of all these heinous acts to be brought to justice. But we also denounce the hateful, racist “revenge” incitement and violent military response by Israel both in the West Bank and in Gaza, as well as the rocket attacks on Israeli towns and cities emanating from Gaza. We call for an immediate ceasefire, an end to efforts to disrupt the peace process, and a return to serious, expedited negotiations.

Only through negotiations can peace, justice and equality be achieved for both Israelis and Palestinians.

PHOTO: Communist Party of Israel

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