THE CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
a statement by the California Peace and Freedom Party

The Peace & Freedom Party places primary responsibility for the present crisis in the Middle East on the United States government and the militaristic policies of the corporate-controlled Democratic and Republican parties. Since World War II, the U.S. has fostered both Israeli and Arab militarism. It has opposed openly and covertly every move toward peace, secular democracy or social justice in the region. We demand that the U.S. permanently end all military aid to all governments everywhere as the first step toward world peace. We further call on the U.S. government to stop financial, economic and diplomatic support for Israel until

• Israel withdraws all military and paramilitary forces from the territories occupied in the 1967 war;
  
• Israel releases all prisoners seized in its current invasion;
  
• Israel stops building new settlements and begins the immediate and rapid relocation to the pre-1967 borders of Israel of the 400,000 illegal settlers now in the occupied lands;
  
• Israel publicly renounces its policy of assassination and attacks on civilian populations; and
  
• Israel stops land and water seizures and other violations of the rights of the Palestinian, Bedouin and Druze minorities within Israel.
  

We support equal rights and security for all peoples. We believe that in the long run such rights can only be guaranteed by a democratic, secular federation of peoples within the Middle East. We recognize that this is unlikely in the near future and probably impossible within the capitalist world order, but we support all steps toward it and oppose all policies which fight against it.

We support the movement in Israel to refuse military service in the occupied territories. We oppose acts of violence against individuals or groups based on their religion, ethnicity or politics such as Israel's calculated policies of assassination and terror and Palestinian bombings directed at civilian targets. We recognize the legitimate rights of self-defense of both Palestinians and Israelis, but these do not include attacks on civilians.