One year later, somebody has to break the cycle

Can the back and forth, the trading of atrocity and revenge, go on until they are all dead -- until we are all dead? Perhaps. Certainly nothing in the news -- from Palestine, from Israel, from Gaza, the West Bank, from Lebanon, from Iran -- suggests any end ...

Maybe these folks -- Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians working together in Standing Together -- seem the only sane voices around. Or maybe they are charlatans. But if so,  they are the kind of charlatans the world needs.

... For as long as we can remember, people who called for peace and non-violence were considered “naïve,” stupid, or even traitors. If the past year has taught us anything - it is that there is nothing more naïve than believing that this cycle of bloodshed and wars is sustainable. There is nothing more naïve than believing that the path we have been on until now is a path we should stay on.

The truth is that on this land live millions of Palestinians and millions of Jews, and nobody is going anywhere. Working toward a sustainable peace that guarantees everyone freedom, safety, equality and independence is imperative for anyone in this land who wants to see a future here. The fates of Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, are tied. So no, we are not naïve, and you are not either.

In the face of decades of bloodshed and a year of unfathomable violence and destruction, we are insisting on Jewish-Palestinian solidarity, and insisting on calling an end to the bloodshed once and for all. We are calling on our society to fight for life, in the face of our leadership that only speaks of death. We are calling on everyone around the world to pick a side - but for that side not to be Israelis or Palestinians - for the side to be all of us, the Israeli and Palestinian people on the ground who all deserve a real future, against our leaderships that are only dragging us further into the abyss.

There can be no justice, but can there be peace?