MoveOn.org Backs Palestinians against Israel; Blames Israel for Breaking Off Peace Talks

Supports Palestinian Right of Return, Blames Israel for Breaking Off Peace Talks, Quotes Electronic Intifada

We came across this through Clifford Lazar's site. It seems that http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin19.html (MoveOn.org official bulletin by Noah Winer) turned out to be so embarrasing to MoveOn.org that MoveOn.org took it down. Thanks to web.archive.org, however, we can present our readers with highlights of MoveOn.org's official position (they can't blame this one on the Action Forum) about the Palestinians and Israel.

We beg to differ. Noah T. Winer is the editor of this bulletin and, as an official representative of MoveOn.org, he is entirely responsible for the content of the page. By posting the indicated links in the context of advocacy as opposed to condemnation, he, and therefore MoveOn.org, are indeed endorsing the indicated positions. In addition, it already seems that MoveOn.org was getting heat over this from pro-Israel people, and the above paragraph shows exactly why MoveOn.org felt compelled to take the bulletin offline. After recovering the material from archive.org, we are hardly surprised. It begins by blaming Israel for breaking off the peace talks:

INTRODUCTION: WHERE DOES THE ROAD MAP LEAD? In July, 2000 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak broke off talks with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat at the Camp David summit hosted by U.S. President Bill Clinton. That September, Ariel Sharon, chairman of the Likud party, made a provocative visit to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Control over this holy site for both Muslims and Jews is contested by Palestinians and Israelis. The visit implied Israeli sovereignty over all Jerusalem, the eastern portion of which is considered occupied territory by the international community. So began the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising.
As in the first intifada in the late 1980s, the demand is for an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem -- which has persisted since 1967 -- and acknowledgment of the Palestinian refugees right to return to the villages from which they were forced to leave during the 1948 war that established the State of Israel. In the 33 months since, human death has saturated the region: 816 Israelis and 2,384 Palestinians have been killed.
Early in his presidency, George W. Bush avoided substantial involvement in the Israel-Palestine conflict. After September 11, 2001 a number of factors -- escalating violence in the area and Israel's attempt to link September 11th with Palestinian suicide bombings, pressure from the Israel lobby and the Christian Right, and the desire for an increasing U.S. influence in the oil-rich Middle East -- prompted Bush to take an active, personal role in promoting an agreement.
That proposed agreement is the Road Map. While the initiative has been praised for calling for an end to violence and for endorsing the formation a Palestinian state, the Road Map provides no mechanism for actually ending the violence, leaves uncertain the borders of the proposed state, and postpones determining the status of the 380,000 Israeli settlers and four million Palestinian refugees. With matters so central to the resolution of the conflict left to be decided at a future date or ignored entirely, the Road Map is still far from being a bona fide peace proposal.
True and lasting peace begins with justice for all the people of the region. That the Road Map will lead in that direction is not at all evident.

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