Ashland Peace House Supporting International Peace Efforts

Peace House Expresses Our Sorrow, Urges Nonviolent Solutions

Peace House laments and deplores the wholesale slaughter along the border between Israel and Gaza. The horrific, multi-location attack on the Jewish communities, and the kidnapping of civilians including men, women and children transcends any limits that we may have believed were in place, including both International Laws or basic human behaviors. The grief, pain and outrage in our hearts are beyond words.

We mourn the attacks on mothers, fathers, children, aunties, uncles and neighbors that have met with suffering, death, destruction of homes, businesses and communities.

We grieve with all those affected by this violence. We remain in shock as we watch with horror the binary retributions that seem to be out of control. The mindset of vengeance will lead to more violence, including for many who engage in peace-building and nonviolent forms of dialogue.

We dread the escalation of retaliatory bombings from both sides that will now continue into what could be a very long scenario for more bloodshed spilling over into other parts of the Middle East. We lament not just the violence and destruction that has been unleashed, but for the way this could affect any hope of diplomatic solutions into the foreseeable future.

Both Jews and Palestinians should have the right to live in a world where peace is possible and citizens safety is not in jeopardy. Both Jews and Gazans are now saying that they feel nowhere is safe. We urge diplomatic measures be taken to find a way to recover some sense of order that transcends more violence in a binary us-them escalation.

Peace House urges the international community to insist upon observation of the International Agreements which require respect for basic human needs: water, food, electricity, shelter and health care.

We believe that the international community must call for both sides to back away from killing and collateral damage as well as basically observing a sense of proportionality to avoid punishing all Palestinians in Gaza for the actions of Hamas. Denying these people shelter, water, food, medical supplies and care does not conform to International Law.

Valarie Kaur on ‘Horror in Israel and Palestine’

Editor’s Note: Peace House participated in the recent Pace e Bene “Days of Nonviolence” from September 21 to October 2 through three local reading groups studying aspects of nonviolence. One book was “See No Stranger” by Valarie Kaur. Here is her statement regarding the recent Hamas attacks along the Israeli border.

Statement by Valarie Kaur

I believe our most powerful response to the horror in Israel and Palestine is to refuse to surrender our humanity. This is demanding labor. But once your eyes are open — you can never again explain away the deaths of children again, like so many are doing right now.

And so: I stand with the Palestinian people. I stand against the brutal occupation of Palestine and the ongoing subjugation, assaults, and killings of Palestinian people. I stand against the ongoing antisemitic violence and persecution of Jews, past and present, including the vicious antisemitic attacks right now in the United States.

I have been mourning with Jewish friends who have family in Israel hiding in bomb shelters. And I have been mourning with Palestinian friends whose family in Gaza have no shelters to hide in at all. My mourning transcends political agendas. Your mourning can too.

This is not about equivalency. The time has come to center the human cost of the conflict above all. Can we stretch our hearts beyond what was previously imaginable?

We must if there is to be a world.

Pace e Bene Statement: Work for Shift, Nonviolence

The catastrophic violence being experienced at this moment by the people of Palestine and Israel deepens our resolve to work for a profound shift—from a world where the full-throttle conditions of war and violence abound to a more just and nonviolent future.

Pace e Bene mourns this intense suffering and is redoubling its commitment to advance the way of active nonviolence as a powerful struggle for justice and peace and as an effective path for confronting and transforming conflict.

This has long been our mission. And, in times such as these, we are reminded why this work is paramount.

Rising from the heart of the harrowing destruction unleashed over the course of the past week and reaching back across many decades, a cry for another way forward is unmistakable. But this way forward requires more than strategies and tactics. In the midst of this pain, we are called, dramatically, to find a way to expand the circle of care beyond the confines in which we are so often trapped. To mend the deeply shattered connections.