by Civil Society Leaders, Intellectuals, and Concerned Individuals in Jordan

"A major impediment to progress is Washington’s strange policy that dialogue on controversial issues will be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and will be withheld from those who reject U.S. assertions. Direct engagement with the PLO or the Palestinian Authority and the government in Damascus will be necessary if secure negotiated settlements are to be achieved.... The people of the Middle East deserve peace and justice, and we in the international community owe them our strong leadership and support." Former president Carter, Washingtonpost , August 1, 2006
The reaction of world powers, led by the US, to the latest premeditated state terror unleashed by the Israeli military machine against Palestinians and Lebanese civilians, institutions and infrastructure is an affront to civilized values and a regression to the law of the jungle. With systematic and escalating progression, the Israeli aggression has already killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians, mutilated thousands and rendered close to a million homeless. It burned and destroyed entire villages and demolished the entire Southern quarter of the Lebanese Capital. It destroyed most of the country’s basic public facilities-ports, airports, highways, bridges, power stations, and productive establishments which are critical to delivery of food, medicines, health care, ambulances, water and other essentials for the civilian population. Israeli warships discharged their waste oils in Lebanese waters causing irreversible environmental damage and destroying the source of livelihood and food for the coastal population. The large scale criminal bombardment was accomplished by US-made bombers, military vehicles, ships and missiles. There is strong evidence that internationally banned bombs were used against civilian targets. The Israeli state terror ongoing in parallel against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank differs only in scale but not in kind.
As responsible citizens keen on upholding the good name of Palestinian and Lebanese resistance, we have consistently opposed the martyrdom of freedom fighters when it targeted innocent civilians. We were therefore gratified when the Lebanese resistance meticulously honored the April fifth agreement to abstain from targeting civilians, and when Palestinian resistance observed more than a whole year of cessation of violence in general and of targeting civilians in particular. The present crisis started when Palestinian resistance decided to react to the continued assassination of its cadres and their families by Israeli air force in the streets of Gaza and West Bank towns and villages that went on for months on end. Its reaction was not, repeat not, suicide killing of civilians, but an operation against a military outpost of the occupying army, capturing a soldier and asking for his exchange against some of the thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons which included 95 women and 313 children. Similarly, the operation of the Lebanese resistance was limited against a military border patrol, and intended to help free some of the several thousand incarcerated Lebanese kept for decades in Israeli prisons, many of whom were abducted from their homes inside Lebanon. As noted by former President Jimmy Carter, both demands for prisoner exchange follow time-honored precedents including the exchange of 1,150 Arabs, mostly Palestinians, for three Israeli soldiers in 1985; 123 Lebanese for the remains of two Israeli soldiers in 1996; and 433 Palestinians and others for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers in 2004.
Instead of recognizing the root cause of the escalating violence, namely Israel’s ongoing occupation of Arab land and rejection of honest engagement in peace negotiations to implement outstanding United Nations resolutions, the US President and his Secretary of State Rice, backed by UK Prime Minister Blair, embarked on a perverse Orwellian “newspeak” describing Palestinian and Lebanese resistance against Israeli military outposts as “terrorism”, and in the same breath describing the bombing of civilians in Palestine and Lebanon with the equivalent of two Hiroshima nuclear bombs, as “self-defense”! That logic is not only hypocritical and morally offensive, but is also a cover-up of Israeli violation of international law as well as of federal US law. This was argued by the renowned attorney and civil rights advocate Ralph Nader who explained that “the deployment of US supplied weapon systems to commit civilian atrocities on homes and fleeing vehicles with children and inflicting collective punishment on mass civilian populations constitutes violation of (these) laws”.
We civil Society leaders, intellectuals, and concerned individuals in Jordan are united in condemnation of Israel’s criminal aggression against Lebanon and Palestine, the continued backing by the US and the UK of that aggression, and the tacit acquiescence of some other countries. We believe that this explicit or tacit support of aggression will only multiply the frustration and humiliation felt in all Arab and Muslim countries, further fertilizing the breeding grounds of hatred and violence. It is to be stressed that Lebanese resistance including Hezbollah was born in 1982 when Israeli armed forces illegally invaded Lebanon creating a path of destruction all the way to Beirut, and occupied south Lebanon for 18 years before they withdrew, retaining Shebaa Farms and a large number of prisoners of that conflict. At least 20,000 Lebanese civilians lost their lives in that invasion. Lebanese resistance is composed mostly of people whose relatives were casualties in that illegal invasion.
As for Palestine, nobody should forget that Israel is a belligerent occupant and the Palestinian Territories including East Jerusalem are still under oppressive occupation. Such was the judgment of the International Court of Justice in its response to the UN General Assembly regarding “the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem”. That judgment was adopted by the General Assembly on the 19th of July 2004 concluding its 10th emergency “Uniting for Peace” session with its Resolution ES-10/15, carried with the overwhelming majority of 150 nations and so became an integral part of international law. In this resolution, the General Assembly, inter alia, decided that:-
• Israel is under an obligation to terminate its breaches of international law; it is under an obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem...(and) to make reparation for all damage caused by (the said) construction.
• All States are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction; all States Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 have in addition the obligation....to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law as embodied in that Convention;

Israel cannot plead self-defense in the face of the people it has subjected to brutal occupation for forty years. In its state terror against the Palestinians and the Lebanese, Israel has violated every single principle of international law as specified in the Hague and Geneva Conventions.

We the undersigned, civil society leaders, intellectuals and concerned individuals in Jordan, believe that the roadmap to real peace and the defeat of extremism lies in the reconstitution of international legitimacy and in affirming the fidelity to moral principles and consistency in political idiom. We therefore call upon the governments of the US, UK, EU and member nations of the Security Council to faithfully assume their responsibilities for international peace and demand an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and Palestine under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and a fresh start of negotiations in good faith to ensure full implementation of all the relevant resolutions of the United Nations concerning the achievement of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

[The following list of ladies and gentlemen approved the above Protest and Appeal and agreed that it should carry their names. Their signed endorsements are deposited with Mr. Fakhry Abu Shakra, Executive Director of The World Affairs Council, Amman, Jordan. ]

FORMER PRIME MINISTERS

Dr. Abdul Salam Majali, Former Prime Minister

Mr. Taher El Masri, Former Prime Minister

Dr. Abdel Karim Kabariti, Former Prime Minister

Eng. Ali Abu-Ragheb, Former Prime Minister

OTHER MEMBERS OF WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL AND THEIR FRIENDS

Dr. Abdullah Nsour, Formerly: Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator

Dr. Taher Kanaan, Formerly: Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Planning, Senator

Dr. Abdullah Al Bashir, Chariman, Board of Directors, Jordan Hospital

Dr. Abdullah O’widat, Vice President, Amman Arab University for Graduate Studies

Mr. Abdul Razaq El Bataineh, Lawyer

Mr. Abdul-Muti Abu Sammour, Member of Arab Thought Forum
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Dr. Adawia Alami, Member of World Affairs Council

Mr. Adeeb Halasah, Member of Parliament (Senator),

Dr. Akram A. Rousan, Professor, Jordan University of Science and Technology

Dr. Ali Ahmad Attiga, Formerly: Assistant Secretary General United Nations
Secretary General, Arab thought Forum
Dr. Amer Kammash, Former Minister of Defense ,General of the army, Chief of Staff, (retired) ,

Dr. Badree El Mulqi, Former General Manager /Department of Lands and Survey

Dr. Bassam E. Kakish, General of the army, (retired)

Fadel Ali Al Sarhan, General of the army (retired), Former Director of Public Security Department

Mr. Fakhry El Belbasi, Board Member and Secretary of Businessmen Association

Mr. Fakhry Abu Shakrah, Executive Director, World Affairs Council

Mr. Jafar Tukan, Architect, Chairman & Partner of Consolidated Consultants

Dr. Hafez Omer El Saqa, Former Division Chief and Senior Advisor in Public Administration in the United Nations
Mrs. Haifa El-Bashir, Former President, General Federation of Jordanian Women

Mr. Hamdi El Taba’, Chairman of Board, Jordan Businessmen Association
President of Union of Arab Businessmen

Dr. Hanna S. Odeh, Formerly: Minister of Finance, President of the Planning Board

H.E. Hassan Ibrahim, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs

Prof. Humam Ghassib, Director, Studies & Programs, Arab Thought Forum

Ibrahim Al Tahtamouni, Member World Affairs Council

Prof. Ibrahim Chabbouh, Director, Aal al-Bayt Foundation for Islamic Thought

Dr, Issam Al-Chalabi, Former Minister of Energy

Dr. George Jabbour, University Professor, Member of Arab Thought Forum

Mr. Ghassan Nuqul, Vice, Chairman of Nuqul Group of Companies

Dr. Khalid Zou’bi, Former Cabinet Minister

Ms. Laurice Hlass, Former Ambassador of Jordan to the United Nations and various countries

Mr. Mahmoud H. Sirhan, General Manager, Regional Office of TransOrient Est. of Qatar

Mamdouh abu Dalhoum, Director, Midea Affairs, House of Parliament

Dr. Mansour Haddadin, Former Director General of Income Tax

Pro Monther J. Hadaddin, Former Minister of Water Irrigation, Courtesy Professor, Oregon State University

Mr. Marwan Al Fa’ori,Member of Media Thought Forum

Ms. Maisoun Armouti, Member, Wolrd Affairs Council

Mr. Marwan A. Dudin, Former Cabinet Minister, Ambassador, Senator

Mr. Marwan Kardoosh, Director of Research Jordan Center for Public Policy Research and Dialogue

Dr Marwan Kamal, President of Philadelphia University

Mr. Mohammad AL Abdallat, Member, Board of Directors, Treasurer, Jordan Chamber of Industry

Dr. Mohammad A. Al Shouani, CEO of Al Shouani Trading Company,
Chairman of Board of Al Mafraq Hospital

Mr. Mohammad Al Mouhtaseb, Board Member, Honorary Secretary General, Amman Chamber of Commerce. Board Member of the Excutive Committee of the Islamic Chamber of Commerce, A Branch of the OIC

Dr. Mohammad Rabie, Professor, Author

Mrs. Mona Makram-Ebeid, Professor of Political Science, American University in Cairo,
President, Association for Advancement of Education

Mr. Najeeb A. Fakouri, General Manager of World Class Travel and Tourism

Mr. Nazzal M. Armouti, Vice Chairman of Jordan Chamber of Industry

Dr. Omar M. H. Aljazy, Managing Partner for Aljazi & Co.
Advocates & Legal Consultant

Mr. Omar Nabulsi, Chairman, Nabulsi Law Firm, Formerly: Minister of Labor, Minister of Industry, Ambassador to UK..

Mr. Osama Milkawi Lawyer, Former Member of Paliament

Mrs, Raghda Kurdi, General Manager, Pharma Serve

Dr. Rauf Abu Jaber, Chairman General Council of Orthodox Church in Jordan and Palestine
Historian and Author (Seven Books)

Mr. Rajai Dajani, Formerly: Minister of the Interior, Deputy Director General of the Department of General Intelligence

Mr. Saleh El Zoubi, Executive Manager of the National Centre for Human Rights

Mr. Soultan Al Hattab, Member, Higher Council for Media, G.M. Dar Al-Oroba for Information

Mr. Tawfiq A. Kawar, Chariman Kawar Group Co; Honorary Consul General of Denemark , Dean of Honorary Consuls, in Jordan

Mr. Tayseer Kanaan, Former Minister of Justice, Counsellor & Attorney at Law

Dr. Safwan Toqan, Professor of Economics

Mr. Sami Gammoh, Former Minister of Finance, President of Jordan Diplomatic Club.

Mrs. Subhieh Maani, Former Senator

Mr. Wahib Shair, Business Consultant and Writer, Former President of Amman Stock Exchange

Wasef Azar, Former Minister of Industry & Trade, Vice Chairman Amman Chamber of Industry

Mr. Wissam Zahawie, Secretary General, Arab Thought Forum,

Dr. Yasin Husban D.D.S, M.SC.,Former Director of King Hussein Medical Centre, Prosthodontist, Senior Consultant

Mr. Ziad B. Humsi, Secretary General, Member, Board of Directors, Jordan Chamber of Industry

Dr. Zuhir El Kayed, Secretary General, The Higher Population Council

Professor Mohamad Hammouri, Former Minister of Higher Education, Chairman of Hammouri & Partners, Advoctes, Legal Consultants

Dr. Khalid A. Abdullah, Professor, The Arab Academy for Banking & Financial Sciences

Dr. Ismail El - Zabri, Chairman of Board, Palestine Policy Research Institute