FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - October 30, 2006
CONTACT: Ori Nir - (202) 728-1893

Washington, DC - Americans for Peace Now (APN) today sent a letter to President Bush calling on him to intervene to prevent an all-out war in Gaza. The letter urges the president to personally engage with the leaders of Israel and Egypt and with the president of the Palestinian Authority to prevent such an escalation. It also offers several measures that could be immediately taken to prevent bloodshed and avoid further regional instability.

APN is a Jewish, Zionist organization whose mission is to enhance Israel's security through peace and to support the Israeli Peace Now movement.

"The situation in the Gaza Strip is becoming critical," APN's letter to Bush says. "Chaos and lawlessness are close to transforming into full-scale armed conflict that is liable to engulf not only the Gaza Strip itself, but spill over into Israel and spread to the West Bank, with possible destabilizing impacts elsewhere in the region. Serious, strategic U.S. intervention is vital to prevent this situation from escalating out of control."

"The recent experience in Lebanon is a stark reminder of what can happen when security threats are ignored," says the letter, signed by APN President Franklin Fisher and the organization's executive director and CEO Debra DeLee. "Your administration and the international community cannot afford to repeat this same mistake in Gaza."

In its letter, APN suggests these additional options to President Bush as measures that could be immediately taken to prevent a calamity in Gaza:

• "Making the Gaza security situation the top priority for General Dayton, and empowering him to press Egypt, Israel, and President Abbas to take necessary steps to calm the situation, as well as to offer tangible U.S. assistance to aid their efforts."
• "Activating the Quartet and making the Gaza security situation a shared priority."
• "Urgently exploring the possibility of a UN role in Gaza or along the Gaza-Egypt border."
• "Reconsidering your Administration's policy of refusing all contacts with Hamas. There are potentially exploitable cleavages within Hamas which need to be explored and tested, and there are more moderate voices within Hamas who could contribute to stabilizing the situation in Gaza."

In the longer term, the letter proposes "mobilizing a regional peace conference to launch Israeli-Arab negotiations that include Israel, the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria, and any other parties in the region that can be brought to the table."

"Israel's experiences with Egypt and Jordan clearly demonstrate that stability and security will not come from exclusively military solutions, but rather only through real peace agreements - and accompanying security guarantees," APN's letter to the president says.